In December 2021, upon request from the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW compiled a report on various indicators of disadvantage that have been shown to be linked to increased vulnerability to experiencing legal problems.

This paper presents an update of the initial 2021 report following the release of more recent data, and in particular, the ABS 2021 Census data. As such, it reiterates general points of contextual information and includes high level data reports that can be used as a guide and starting point before delving deeper into the legal needs of a specific geographic area, community group, legal problem type, or area of law. More detailed information and more granular data is available directly from listed sources, and additional data sources, surveys, research reports or ad-hoc studies may also be used to complement the information presented in this report.

While the aim of this update is to provide the most recent available data and, in some instances, include indications of trends in the last few years, readers should bear in mind that some of this data relates to, or was collected in, the unprecedented period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the full impact of which is yet to be understood. Numbers presented in this report may have been impacted to varying degrees by government restrictions, public health policies, and periods of lockdown, and therefore may not represent accurate long-term trends.

The outline of the report is as follows:

• General insights on the nature and extent of legal needs in New South Wales through a synopsis of key findings from legal needs research.
• Examples of valuable insights from frontline services, both from administrative data and collaborative planning processes.
• A regional breakdown of population data and indicators of potential need for legal assistance services.
• A focus on priority community groups more likely to experience legal problems and/or to require public legal assistance if they do, also with regional breakdowns.
• The use of other data sources to further inform legal needs assessments, using the example of criminal courts statistics.