Australia’s Largest Public Legal Service, Seen Before It's Needed.
The outcome
A research-led communications strategy that showed where Legal Aid NSW could reach people earlier, and gave its team a clear, practical framework to connect more people with the help they need.
Strategic logic
Legal Aid NSW is trusted and highly regarded by the people who use it. The challenge was reaching them sooner. Most people only discovered the service when they urgently needed help, and the partners referring them often lacked the tools to explain what Legal Aid NSW could do. Through a staff empathy-mapping workshop, 21 depth interviews and 168 surveys across four audience groups, we mapped how each audience comes to Legal Aid NSW, from first awareness to advocacy, and where communications could do more. The result was a strategy built on three pillars: knowledge and understanding, a clear path to help, and personalisation. More than a plan, it set a shift from reactive to proactive communication, so the right information reaches people before they need it.