Lawyers representing some of Australia's most remote and vulnerable clients say they need more funding to keep up with rising demand.
Claire Hockin is one of 10 criminal lawyers in the Northern Territory town of Katherine, servicing a region that is home to more than 20,000 people.
At times, she's had to juggle 70 clients on her own, driving hundreds of kilometres along dirt roads just to see them.
"Sometimes there's just not enough hours in the day," Ms Hockin said.
"There's the pressure of the court to finalise matters, and pressure from the client too."
Many clients represented by Katherine-based lawyers live in surrounding remote communities, where English is often spoken as a second or third language.
Many also live with complex health conditions, poor housing, and high rates of domestic and family violence.
It is the job of lawyers to represent them in court, including in criminal cases, family law, and children's care and protection matters, as well as representing families at inquests.
But with legal services facing chronic underfunding and under-resourcing, the sector fears it will need to cut back services unless it receives urgent help.
Aboriginal legal services in the NT, New South Wales, ACT, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania joined together last week to call for a further $250 million in federal funding at the risk of cutting services.
The freezes could mean legal services will have no choice but to turn away new clients, which could leave vulnerable people without legal representation.
While Legal Aid, where Ms Hockin works, operates under a separate funding model to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (ATSILS), both entities work closely together and are often under-resourced.
Calls for funding grow
North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency acting chief executive John Paterson said the sector urgently required "emergency funding" to keep up with demand.
He said NT lawyers' workloads had spiked in recent months after the strengthening of bail laws.
"Some of those measures and pieces of legislation that are being passed by governments are having this huge impact in the communities," he said.
"Our most vulnerable population — the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population — is getting caught up in it and finding themselves before the legal and the justice system."
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 13 times more likely to spend time in jail compared to non-Indigenous Australians.
They are also 26 times more likely to spend time in youth detention.
Mr Paterson said increasing barriers to justice would only hurt Indigenous Australians further.
"We've already got an overcrowded system," he said.
"In the prisons, we're hearing that our inmates are sleeping in corridors; our prisons are bursting at the seams."
In regional and remote parts of Australia, legal services must cover the costs of interpreters, as well as accommodation and fuel for visiting lawyers.
Mr Paterson said his organisation would "do whatever it takes to get to those bush courts … but it does come at a cost".
"That's why we're calling on governments to come up with this emergency funding," he said.
The Commonwealth currently provides most of the funding for Aboriginal legal services around Australia.
A statement from the federal Attorney-General's department said last year's budget included $13.5 million in extra funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services.
It also included $1 million to expand peak body NATSILS (National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services).
"The government is committed to working in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to achieve better justice outcomes," the spokesperson said in a statement.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the NT government said: "Our advocacy to the Australian government for increased funding is ongoing, and we are working towards the provision of a sustainable funding model for these services."
The federal government is due to announce its next budget on May 9.
