The New Zealand Law Society Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa has made a submission on the 2025 Triennial Legal Aid Review, calling for increased and ongoing funding of the legal aid system, and for any reform to be evidence-based.
The Law Society has made a comprehensive submission to the Ministry of Justice which includes feedback about the legal aid system from criminal, family and civil legal aid providers, as well as others in the legal profession.
The submission draws attention to longstanding concerns about the legal aid scheme, and argues that greater investment in legal aid is needed to facilitate access to justice while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the scheme. While there are improvements that can be made to administration, quality assurance, and the commissioning of specialist reports, addressing remuneration is critical. At present, it is inadequate and unfair, and it has effectively reduced over the past 15 years.
The submission includes cost-benefit and economic analyses commissioned from Deloitte Access Economics, which show that:
The Deloitte report concludes that the estimated Benefit Cost Ration (BCR) is 2.06, which indicates that for every $1 invested in legal aid, at least $2.06 in benefits are generated.
The Deloitte report goes further and provides an economic impact analysis. This is an ‘economy-wide’ modelling exercise and differs in this regard from the costs and benefits also presented in this report. For example, while the cost-benefit analysis estimates the direct savings to the government through increased efficiencies, an economic impact assessment goes a step further to consider how a more efficient government services industry impacts other industries in the New Zealand economy.
The economic impact analysis finds that, relative to a scenario without legal aid, the expected economic impact of legal aid services between 2025 and 2030 is $2.2 billion in NPV GDP terms. In annual terms, the New Zealand economy is $664 million (in 2025 NZD) larger in 2030 relative to a scenario without legal aid, which equates to approximately 0.1% of New Zealand’s annual GDP. This is additional to the benefits quantified in the cost-benefit analysis.
The economic analysis is limited by the quality and availability of New Zealand data and literature on legal aid and the justice sector, particularly for the criminal, civil and Waitangi Tribunal jurisdictions. Importantly, those gaps are in relation to only the benefits of legal aid – all costs are accounted for. This means the cost-benefit analysis and economic impact analysis are conservative and likely materially understate the true net benefits of legal aid. Further data would only increase the BCR.
These analyses make a compelling case that greater investment in legal aid is a responsible financial decision which can result in economic benefits and efficiencies for the justice sector, as well as wider government and societal outcomes.
“Deloitte’s analysis shows that investment in legal aid not only provides a return on investment but prevents cost and inefficiency elsewhere in the system – this suggests that there is no sound basis to refuse greater investment in the legal aid scheme,” says Law Society President, Frazer Barton.
Legal aid is an important feature of our justice system, and facilitates access to justice for those who cannot obtain free legal services or afford to pay for those services. It provides much-needed assistance to a range of individuals – from those charged with offences, to those who are experiencing family violence, refugees, workers experiencing employment problems, and those whose ACC entitlements have been wrongly decided.
While the 2025 review appears to be premised on the fact that legal aid expenditure has increased, the Law Society argues that the underlying causes of that increased expenditure must be carefully examined before any funding decisions are made.
“The legal aid system is simply one part of New Zealand’s justice system, and we know that decisions taken by other parts of this system have contributed to increased legal aid expenditure – this includes, among other things, policy decisions made by Government, increasing complexity of cases, as well as the decisions and behaviours of others in the justice system,” says Mr Barton.
“If funding is decreased, or remains stagnant, the effects of that funding shortage will be felt across the justice system,” says Mr Barton. “For example, the courts could see an increase in self-represented parties who are ineligible for legal aid, which can then contribute to delays and backlogs in the courts.”
The Law Society remains firmly of the view that any decisions taken following the 2025 review, and at the next Budget, must be evidence-based and take a long-term, systems-wide and economic benefit focus.
“Our submission shows that, without an immediate increase to investment in the legal aid system, the system would soon become unsustainable, and its collapse would create a significant barrier to those who cannot otherwise access justice,” says Mr Barton.
“We urge the Government to consider the feedback and evidence we have included in our submission and make informed decisions which would ensure the future of legal aid, and adequate funding for the scheme and providers.”
Read the Law Society’s submission to the Ministry of Justice.