Our Impact

We measure the impact of our work through an evaluation framework that seeks to show whether:

  • our clients better understand their legal problems
  • our services enable our clients to seek legal assistance earlier
  • there are economic benefits to our community-based legal assistance approach
  • we are making our services available and accessible to those most vulnerable and in need of legal assistance.

In our health-justice partnerships with the Royal Womens, Royal Melbourne and Children’s hospitals we are also conducting new evaluation work to better understand if our clients experience an improvement in their health and wellbeing as a result of receiving legal assistance while at the hospital. We are using the Kessler 10 scale to monitor improvements in clients’ well-being.

Early findings in the current evaluation of our health-justice partnerships show that:

  • 42.5% of clients would have not seen a lawyer if it was not for the free legal service IMCL provides; 
  • 85% of clients found the advice provided very helpful or helpful; and
  • all clients experienced an improvement in their overall wellbeing after seeing an IMCL lawyer.