Law Week 2023

Congratulations to everyone for another successful Law Week in 2023. Law Week is a wonderful opportunity for libraries to highlight their Find Legal Answers service and to provide interesting and useful legal information to their community.  

It was wonderful to see so many libraries hosting community education talks by local solicitors and community legal centres. Many of you also hosted the Lunch and the Law series of webinars hosted by Legal Aid NSW.

In-person events proved the most popular choice this year - check out some of the highlights below.

Auburn Library hosted Social media and the law, a talk by the Western Sydney Community Legal Centre, as well as a drop in session with Service NSW about using the Service NSW savings finder. 

Blacktown Library hosted four community legal education talks - Legal Aid NSW presented a talk on dealing with Centrelink and navigating the system, Marrickville Legal Centre presented a talk on strata law, and local legal firms presented talks on domestic violence and wills and power of attorney.  

Wills, estates and planning ahead was a popular topic again this year with Hornsby Library, Goulburn Library and Griffith City Library all hosting talks on the subject by local solicitors. Willoughby Library had three talks about wills, power of attorney and enduring guardians in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. These were very successful, with a good turnout to all three sessions. There were very positive comments from the participants, including that they had a better understanding of the topics in their own languages. Eurobodalla Libraries hosted talks by the Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre at their Batemans Bay, Moruya and Narooma branches about wills and planning ahead. 

Cootamundra Library hosted a sell out talk about seniors rights by the Seniors Rights Service in conjunction with their local U3A group.  

Stanton Library hosted a talk about strata law.

Parkes Shire Library had an after-hours youth library 'lock-in' event, which featured a Q&A session with a local police officer.  

Waverley Library hosted a talk on how to get legal help by the Inner City Legal Centre. 

Social media campaign 

A social media campaign was created for public libraries to use. Sample posts and images were provided that could be used on different social media channels. The posts highlighted content on the Find Legal Answers website and information from legal agencies.  

Although this campaign was originally prepared for Law Week, you can use it to let your community know about the legal information available to them at any time of the year. 

Law Week website 

State Library staff continued to work with the Marrickville Legal Centre and Legal Aid NSW on the Law Week NSW website. Forty three library events were listed on the website this year - it was great to see so many events listed! 

Congratulations to everyone for a great Law Week 2023!