The HIV/AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) works to provide free and comprehensive legal assistance to people in Australia with HIV or hepatitis related legal matters and have been offering these services for over 30 years. HALC also tackles severe stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and Hepatitis by undertaking community legal education and law reform activities in areas relating to HIV and hepatitis. Our dedicated team of 6 solicitors and amazing volunteers deliver around 19,000 hours of legal support helping approximately 1,000 clients each year. In the financial year 2022/2023, HALC provided about 500 counts of legal advice and represented clients in over 350 court, tribunal and other representation cases.

Our areas of legal practice include immigration, employment, discrimination/vilification, privacy, social security, criminal, family, privacy, end of life planning and more.

Here are some examples of the work that we have done:

• helping David to keep his job as a laboratory technician - his employer wanted to fire him when he found out he had HIV;
• negotiating a successful outcome for Suzie, who was discriminated against by an acupuncturist on the basis of her HIV status;
• obtaining Protection Visas for sexually and gender diverse people from countries all over the world;
• a number of cases challenging major insurers’ denial of income protection or life insurance for people living with HIV, despite PLHIV not having a dissimilar life expectancy or health outcomes to the general population.  

Whilst we do receive government funding, generous donations from members of the community who understand the importance of access to justice ensure that we can reach more people and engage in this vital and more time-consuming work. We are grateful to the generous individuals who donate to HALC, as this has allowed us to broaden our scope of services at times to include clients outside of NSW and clients who do not have HIV, but who are in at-risk population groups. This is in recognition of the fact that HIV predominantly affects vulnerable and marginalized communities.

Your donation, no matter how small, will help make a difference.

A donation of:

• $40 covers the cost of a protection visa application for an asylum seeker with HIV and/or who identifies as LGBTIQ+
• $100 helps train our volunteer solicitors and law students, allowing HALC to continue delivering a high volume of work
• $250 would help cover the costs of a HALC solicitor preparing a discrimination complaint on behalf of a client living with HIV and who has been discriminated against by an employer/service provider
• $500 would cover the cost of a HALC solicitor delivering a legal education seminar to health care workers, government agencies and the wider community on legal issues facing people living with HIV
•  $1000 or more would help cover the cost of a HALC solicitor representing a client living with HIV in the Federal Court of Australia, following a protection visa refusal.

HALC’s work is not limited to individual casework - we produce printed resources, contribute to the reform of laws that affect people living with HIV and run regular workshops for healthcare and legal professionals, university students and the wider community about HIV and the law.

We are supported by a dedicated team of remarkable volunteers who allow us to assist twice as many people as we would otherwise be able to. Our volunteers are recent law graduates, law students, and qualified solicitors and barristers, all of whom give up their time to help people with HIV.

Your donation, no matter how small, will help make a difference and allow HALC to continue our important work.

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!