Message from the Chair and the CEO & Commissioner

Making a meaningful impact

As we prepare to launch our Strategic Plan 2026–29, it’s the right time for our annual report theme, ‘Making a meaningful impact’. To make such an impact requires vision, flexibility, and above all, a commitment to action. We also need to question what we value and find meaningful. This theme reflects the significant long-term change we have supported for the Victorian legal profession, consumers of legal services and the broader Victorian community.

It also reflects more recent changes as we have welcomed a new Board Chair, moved to a new building, and invested a record amount in grants and funding.
These positive changes position us well to create lasting value for the Victorian legal profession and the communities it serves.

Managing increasing volume and complexity

Economic pressures continue to affect demand for our regulatory services. We’ve seen a marked increase in complaints about legal costs, reflecting the financial pressures on both consumers and lawyers.

We received 6,486 enquiries from the public — an increase of almost 17% — and opened 1,112 new complaints.

We increased staffing to manage this demand without slowing our response or creating service bottlenecks.

The changing face of the profession 

At the midpoint of the decade, we have included a 10-year snapshot to demonstrate the changing face of the profession.
Our role as regulator, funder and investor demands we know the profession well, and insights from this data help ensure our service delivery matches emerging needs.

Improving accessibility and communication

One in seven Australians are likely to experience communication difficulties at some point. This matters to us, and this year we earned accreditation as a Communication Access Approved Organisation by Scope Australia. This accreditation allows us to display the recognised Communication Access Symbol that indicates our organisation can help anyone experiencing communication difficulties.

Preparing and training for the accreditation process has contributed to a positive cultural shift at all levels of the organisation. We continue to embrace continuous improvement in service delivery.

Supporting First Nations justice 

We deepened our commitment to reconciliation and invested in increasing access to justice for First Nations peoples — completing 42 of 47 actions from our first Reconciliation Action Plan.

We sponsored community events as part of the Yoorrook Walk for Truth. This was a 25-day journey from Portland to Parliament House to conclude Victoria’s first formal Truth-Telling process.

Another key sponsorship this year was Blak In-Justice: Incarceration and Resilience, a landmark exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition was created with The Torch, a First Nations-led and not-for-profit arts organisation. It was a moving exhibition celebrating culture, creativity and strength.

We continue to support key First Nations organisations and funded the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service to lead the creation of a First Nations Cultural Capability Statement for the legal sector – Austrahlia’s first.

Driving systemic change for lawyer wellbeing

A key milestone this year was launching the Lawyer Wellbeing Systems Theory of Change framework.

We worked with legal sector partners to drive systemic change by creating a shared understanding of where, how and why change should happen within our legal system to promote lawyer wellbeing.

The framework has attracted international interest, and we shared this work with professional associations and the judiciary. We look forward to continuing the rollout of big-picture shared outcomes to work towards, and to complementing the framework with guides for organisational leaders.

Building an evidence base for regulation and policy

Building robust evidence to inform regulatory decisions is central to our approach. In February 2025, we launched our first Lawyer Census covering topics across AI use, wellbeing, skills and harassment.

We supported collaborative research with The Australian National University and The University of Melbourne on lawyer wellbeing, and commissioned research on vicarious trauma in the legal profession.

These research partnerships with our Uniform Law colleagues ensure our work is informed by shared evidence. We avoid duplication and enable better decisions across jurisdictions.

Connecting on a local and global stage

We maintained active engagement through panels, podcasts and industry events this year. This ensures ongoing dialogue about regulatory priorities and professional development needs. We continued to partner with the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) to visit regional law associations and gain crucial insights into the unique challenges facing regional practitioners.

We hosted the first combined International Conference of Legal Regulators + Conference of Regulatory Officers (ICLR + CORO). We welcomed over 220 international guests to ICLR + CORO 2024 to collaborate on legal regulatory issues including AI, access to justice, and lawyer wellbeing.
This showcased our regulatory approach and our commitment to collaboration and innovation. Congratulations to all our staff for setting a high bar for this key international event and demonstrating the evolving maturity of our organisation.

Reporting against the Risk Outlook

For the first time this year, this report includes a summary of our responses to the emerging and ongoing risks outlined in Risk Outlook 2024. We’ve provided crucial guidance as the profession navigates AI adoption. We enhanced cybersecurity support across the sector, including funding to help community legal centres. We addressed concerns about ‘claim farming’ practices with new guidance on ethical engagement with vulnerable clients.

Our Costs Support program, mediation services, and new confidentiality guidance helped address compliance issues.

The effectiveness of our costs program has seen lawyers volunteering for the program based on industry feedback. This is testament to our exceptional staff and leadership.

We engaged with AUSTRAC’s anti-money laundering reforms, commenced a project to understand the issues facing in-house counsel. We also released the results of our survey of over 400 supervising lawyers, as part of our continuing work into early career lawyers and their supervisors.

Record investment in access to justice

In 2024-25, we awarded a record $139 million in grants and funding from the Public Purpose Fund.

This included $90.8 million in annual funding to justice organisations, $16.9 million to other Victorian Government organisations, and $31.2 million in grants, including our Advancing Housing Justice round of Change Grants. We also provided $150,000 in strategic sponsorships for access to justice, lawyer wellbeing and First Nations justice initiatives.

Organisational growth

Our commitment to meaningful impact extends to how we operate. We grew our workforce by over 20% to meet increased demand for our services.

In August 2024, we relocated to 500 Bourke Street, Melbourne. One of the city’s most sustainable buildings, it has a 6-star Green Star rating and Platinum WELL certification. This reflects our commitment to accessibility, environmental responsibility and staff wellbeing.

We continue to develop our approach towards data-driven, customer-first service delivery and business decisions. This leads to better outcomes for consumers and the legal profession.

Acknowledgements

We welcomed the Hon. Sonya Kilkenny as Victoria’s new Attorney-General and the Hon. Justice Richard Niall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria.
We were delighted to welcome Sam Hay KC as the new Chair of the Victorian Legal Services Board in January 2025. Sam brings over 20 years of experience as a barrister. His deep knowledge provides sound guidance in regulating and supporting the profession.

Our thanks to Fiona Bennett, who retired from the Board after serving as Chair from 2013 to 2024 and as a Board member since 2008. Our thanks for her wise judgement, enthusiasm and exemplary leadership.

We welcomed new Consumer Panel members in April 2025, including Kat George as our new Consumer Panel Chair, ensuring that we continue to benefit from independent community perspectives.

Making a meaningful impact

We are proud of the real and lasting impact we have made and helped others to make.
The cultural shifts and digital transformation we have embraced leave us well-positioned to continue to have a meaningful impact, and create meaningful change, in Victoria’s legal System.

We will continue working toward a future where all Victorians can access high-quality legal services. We want the legal profession to thrive in an environment that supports both excellence and wellbeing.

There is much work ahead, but we are ready.

Sam Hay KC
Chair

Fiona McLeay
CEO & Commissioner