Ruah Legal Services and Mental Health Law Centre

19/06/2025

🎥 New Community Legal Education Video – The Pre-birth Planning Process🎥

Ruah Legal Services and the Mental Health Law Centre are proud to launch our latest community legal education video, created to support clients involved in the pre-birth planning process.

Pre-birth planning can be a confusing and stressful time—especially for parents already facing complex challenges. This short, animated video explains how the Pre-birth Planning Process works and how our team support and advocate for clients throughout the process.

The video is designed to help expectant parents understand their rights, feel more prepared, and know they are not alone.

To see more of our community legal education resources visit our website:
https://ruahlegal.org.au/resources-education/

12/06/2025

🎥 New Community Legal Education Video – What are Integrated Legal Services? 🎥

As part of our ongoing commitment to community legal education, the Ruah Legal Services and the Mental Health Law Centre team are proud to launch a new animated video that explains how we provide integrated legal services.

This short cartoon has been developed to help our clients and the community better understand how integrated legal services can help people address their legal issues and the challenges underlying them.

We hope this resource will be helpful and support understanding of how holistic, trauma-informed legal assistance can make a tangible difference to people’s lives.

To see more of our community legal education resources visit our website: https://ruahlegal.org.au/resources-education/

03/06/2025

Calling All Law Students!

Are you passionate about social justice and looking to gain real-world legal experience? We’d love to hear from you!

Ruah Legal Services and Mental Health Law Centre is seeking expressions of interest from law students eager to volunteer and develop their practical legal skills in a supportive, purpose-driven environment.

As a volunteer, you’ll gain hands-on experience with:

📞 Managing client phone calls and enquiries
📝 Conducting intakes and drafting legal documents
👩‍⚖️ Shadowing our dedicated lawyers across diverse practice areas

This is a fantastic opportunity to make a meaningful contribution while building your professional skill set.

📩 To apply, please send your resume, cover letter, and academic transcript to:
✔️ legalservices@ruah.org.au
✔️ Or apply via our website: https://ruahlegal.org.au/volunteers/

We look forward to hearing from you!

Volunteers We offer valuable work experience and a unique insight into mental health issues and the law. Volunteer with Rual Legal Services At Ruah Legal Services we have a team of more than 30 dedicated law students and graduates who staff our Telephone Advice Line – often the first point of cont...

29/05/2025

We extend our sincere thanks to Her Honour Chief Judge Julie Wager, Her Honour Judge Wendy Hughes, and Jolin Edmondson from the Communication Partner Program for their thoughtful contributions to our Law Week 2025 event: Working With and Examining Vulnerable Witnesses.

Your insights and education were incredibly valuable and appreciated by all who attended. It is a privilege to hear from leaders committed to improving outcomes for vulnerable members of our community.

Thank you to our attendees for engaging in a meaningful discussion and joining us for our sundowner afterwards.

15/05/2025

REMINDER: Law Week Event – Working With and Examining Vulnerable Witnesses

🕔 Registrations close 5pm Monday 19 May

👉 Secure your spot now: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/working-with-and-examining-vulnerable-witnesses-cpd-panel-discussion-tickets-1334891409139

Join us Friday 23 May for an insightful panel discussion featuring Her Honour Chief Judge Julie Wager and Her Honour Judge Wendy Hughes.
Hear expert insights on working with vulnerable witnesses in our practice areas of Criminal Law and mental impairment, Care & Protection, and Sexual Assault Legal Services.

Plus, a special presentation by Jolin Edmondson from the Communication Partner Program on resources for clients with mental impairment under the Criminal Law (Mental Impairment) Act 2023.
📚 1.0 CPD point in Professional Skills
🍷 Light refreshments & sundowner to follow
📍 In-person only – registration essential

We look forward to seeing you there.

09/05/2025

Last Wednesday we had the privilege of hosting The Honourable Michael Corboy SC, Former Supreme Court Justice and current Deputy Commissioner of the Corruption and Crime Commission, for a CPD session on the upcoming Evidence Bill 2024, expected to become law in 2025.

Prior to his appointment at the CCC, Mr Corboy served as a consultant to the Department of Justice on drafts of the Bill. Combined with his decades of experience as both counsel and Justice, Mr Corboy was exceptionally well placed to offer expert insights into the Bill’s key reforms and their practical implications for the profession and the courts.

It was particularly valuable for the RLS team to hear about the provisions in the Bill that relate to evidence in cases involving children, family and domestic violence and sexual offending.

We are sincerely grateful to Mr Corboy for delivering this informative session.

07/05/2025

Law Week Event!

Join us on Friday 23 May for an insightful panel discussion on working with vulnerable witnesses.

Hear from Her Honour Chief Judge Julie Wager and Her Honour Judge Wendy Hughes, as they answer questions about working with witnesses from our practice areas of Criminal Law and mental impairment, Care & Protection, and Sexual Assault Legal Services.
Plus, a special presentation by Jolin Edmondson from the Communication Partner Program on resources for clients with mental impairment under the Criminal Law (Mental Impairment) Act 2023.

1.0 CPD point in Professional Skills will be awarded for session attendance. Please note this is in-person only.
🗓️ 60 min CPD session + sundowner
🍷 Light refreshments provided

📍 Register now to secure your spot: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/working-with-and-examining-vulnerable-witnesses-cpd-panel-discussion-tickets-1334891409139?aff=oddtdtcreator

We’d love to see you there.

The Law Society of Western Australia

02/05/2025

Marking one year of SALSWA – The Sexual Assault Legal Service WA.

On Monday, RLS Executive Manager Sarah Toovey joined Jenny Gray from Women's Legal Service WA and Gail Dodd from Aboriginal Family Legal Services for a panel discussion to reflect on one year of SALSWA.

The partnership has been the first of its kind: a statewide service dedicated to the provision of free, confidential and independent legal advice to people who have experienced sexual violence in Western Australia.
The service is focussed on providing a trauma informed, culturally safe environment that gives victim survivors the advice they need to be empowered when assessing their options and making legal decisions.

We look forward to taking this much needed service into its next year in collaboration with our community legal sector partners.

To find out more about SALSWA, or to make a referral you can visit the links here: https://www.wlswa.org.au/salswa/

04/04/2025

The RLS team was pleased to attend the Women Lawyers of Western Australia - Inc. Honours dinner Last Friday evening.

It was an honour to be in a room full of so many inspirational women forging their paths in the legal profession, and to be amongst people committed to the advancement of women in the law and in society.

A special mention to Rochelle Mitchell, Senior Supervising Lawyer of the Care and Protection team for the past three years, for her Woman Lawyer of the Year Nomination.

Rochelle has continuously led, encouraged and motivated the women in her team. She has inspired the lawyers she supervises with her legal skill and advocacy for her clients and has been known for her fearlessness, commitment to ensuring her clients have their rights met and their cases heard, and her exceptional trial advocacy skills.

Rochelle is currently working as an Independent Children's Lawyer at Legal Aid WA, where she advocates for and promotes the rights and interests of children involved in family law and care and protection proceedings.

01/04/2025

Last week RLS lawyer, Melanie Yarnall (Mel), went on outreach to raise awareness about the Sexual Assault Legal Service WA (SALSWA).

SALSWA is a collaboration between Women's Legal Service WA vice WA (WLSWA), Aboriginal Family Legal Services (AFLS) and Ruah Legal Services (RLS) which delivers state-wide legal services for victim-survivors of sexual violence in Western Australia.

On her recent trip to the beautiful Great Southern region, Mel visited 17 services in four days throughout Albany, Denmark and Mount Barker, including Great Southern CLC, Southern Aboriginal Corporation, Albany Pride, Albany Youth Association and Mount Barker Hospital.

Mel focused on raising awareness of SALSWA and building relationships with the existing services so that we can work together to support our clients going forward, ensuring more just outcomes for victim-survivors of sexual assault.
Great work, Mel! We are grateful to have you on the team and representing SALSWA in the regions.

To find out more about SALSWA, visit https://www.wlswa.org.au/salswa/

13/03/2025

On International Women’s Day we are invited to imagine how we might work towards a world where all women are safe.

To mark this day, Ruah Legal Services' Executive Manager, Sarah Toovey, was invited to Pinsent Masons to speak about the work that Ruah undertakes to end family and domestic violence, and about the part we can all play in our everyday lives in ending family and domestic violence.

We valued the opportunity to speak to Pinsent Masons teams who were dialled in from the across Australia and the wider Asia Pacific region. We would like to thank Pinsent Masons for the invitation to speak to them about this important topic.

We look forward to more opportunities to work together in the future.

11/03/2025

Did you know that until September 2024, laws around people who were deemed unfit to stand trial hadn’t changed since the 1800s?

Australia faced international criticism, including from the United Nations, for how it treated persons who were not guilty of offences by reason of mental illness or unfit to stand trial.

Now, the newly reformed Criminal Law (Mental Impairment) Act 2023 (CLMI) is changing that. Elle de Koning, our Senior Policy Lawyer and CLMI Implementation Officer from Ruah Legal Services, explains how the new law brings more fairness and better outcomes for clients and communities.

Learn more about this important reform at ruahlegal.org.au.