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Time constraints

And actually trying to get the right information, or enough information out of them, to see if there is a legal claim, and distil it from all the rest of the information they provide you with, can be very difficult. I imagine if they are not going to people who have the time and capacity to go through those things, they are going to be turned away.⁷¹

Policy and legal officers suggested that people with a mental illness benefit from having more time during interviews with lawyers, in order to overcome some of the problems listed at the start of this chapter.⁷² However, they also argued that this can place extra pressure on CLC and Legal Aid staff, who already face constraints on resources. Stakeholders reported that clients with a mental illness may need substantially longer appointments than what is already allowed for.⁷³ It was argued that present funding levels of CLCs and Legal Aid prevent these services from having enough time to spend with clients who have a mental illness:

People with mental health [issues] … their stories are narratives. You can’t ask a question and get an answer. You actually have to wait, and it might take three or four times interviewing the client to get the full picture. That understanding can often be quite difficult for lawyers. It’s very time-consuming. If you have a lot of work happening, you have to have the time to put in, and often they [service providers] don’t.⁷⁴

For example, the Duty Solicitor Scheme at the Local Court is a Legal Aid service available to people who need representation for criminal matters. Generally, people access the duty solicitor at court on the day their matter is being heard.⁷⁵ This leaves the duty solicitor with only a short amount of time to gather the details of their client’s case, which may not be sufficient for clients who have a mental illness. Commenting on people with a mental illness accessing the Duty Solicitor Scheme, a local court registrar reported:

… a person with a mental illness shows up to see the solicitor who has lots of people to see … They come into an area where resources and time are limited. So they [the solicitor] don’t see people for a long period of time, only 15–20 minutes. They [the client] fall through the cracks. Unless they get someone who is more vocational and goes into their own time.⁷⁶

The time constraints on duty solicitors were also raised by one mental health worker as a particular issue for young people with a mental illness.⁷⁷ This worker was of the opinion that the stretched resources of the legal service may mean that a client must repeat their story to several different lawyers throughout the case. The client’s communication difficulties, combined with the time constraints of the service, may mean that only pieces of the client’s situation are conveyed each time.⁷⁸ This could mean that particular details of a client’s case are not discussed.

I really think the Legal Aid solicitors do a brilliant job. But occasionally when you hear them stand up you know that they have little bits missing that they haven’t actually picked up; they haven’t picked it up because it would be humanly impossible to do it.⁷⁹

Furthermore, a few stakeholders indicated that clients with a mental illness may need more support while accessing legal assistance.⁸⁰ Lawyers may need to write letters, make calls and set up appointments on a client’s behalf, all of which places extra strain on legal service providers’ time.

It was reported that in some instances, CLCs have to refer people with a mental illness on to other services because they do not have the resources to assist these clients themselves. This can act as an additional barrier to accessing legal services for people with a mental illness, as they may be more easily deterred by having to make contact with and explain their situation again to another service.

The nature of her disability and her personality was that she was a difficult person to deal with; difficult to communicate with, emotionally very fragile, very tearful, very needy, frequently in communication at a greater level than what was called for. In the sector you talk about people getting burnt out by a particular client, and they [the client] then go on this referral merry-go-round.⁸¹

For in-depth legal issues, [people are told to] ring this number or ring that number. So quite often, people get fobbed off. If they have a mental health problem, they’ll tend to drop [the matter] altogether.⁸²

What we find is that people get on a referral merry-go-round. That’s one of the great barriers to [accessing] legal services for people with mental illness … it’s quite difficult to explain to someone who has a [mental illness] about a particular matter that needs to be acted upon, that you can’t act on it … because you don’t have the resources.⁸³

Genn et al. discuss the phenomenon of “referral fatigue”, which refers to a state of affairs whereby the “likelihood of people actually obtaining advice after having been referred on by an adviser declines with each adviser who makes a referral”.⁸⁴ In light of the individual barriers discussed in the first part of this chapter, it would seem that people with a mental illness may be particularly prone to experiencing referral fatigue. This is supported by Cullen:

It can take a great deal of effort for someone with a mental health problem to come into a bureau or voluntary organisation. If they are then referred to other agencies such as specialist debt services, they may well be lost to help.⁸⁵