About Us - Positioning Paper

The Australian Lawyers Alliance story

The Australian Plaintiff Lawyers Association (APLA) was set up 10 years ago when a small group of personal injury lawyers decided to pool their knowledge and resources to secure better outcomes for their clients - victims of negligence.

The organisation's founders realised that working collectively would enable them to campaign more effectively for progressive law reform, and to adopt a strategic approach to protecting the rights of ordinary people against the legal tactics of the state and big corporations.

APLA started out with no office, staff, conferences or events program, or publication. Today it has 1,500 members, 10 staff, a bi-monthly journal and a strong national structure with branches in each state and territory. It is also a leading provider of Continuing Legal Education, with 10 national, state and territory conferences planned for 2005, as well as a variety of continuing professional education seminars and activities.

The launch of APLA's new identity as the Australian Lawyers Alliance is not just a cosmetic re-branding exercise. It reflects both APLA's growth, and the decision to broaden its original objectives to embrace other areas of law beyond personal injury - such as criminal, family and immigration law. What remains central is the key objective of protecting and promoting individual rights.

The rights of individuals in Australia have been seriously eroded in recent years on all fronts. Governments at both state and federal level have chipped away at the common law, which provides the basis for the legal rights of individuals who have suffered injury as the result of someone else's wrongdoing.

Other, equally fundamental rights have been progressively limited by statute - for example, access to lawyers, the presumption of innocence, the right to silence and unanimous jury verdicts. Some recent measures - such as anti-terrorism legislation and immigration policy - have even compromised Australia's compliance with its obligations under international treaties, including the Rights of the Child.

Clearly there is an urgent need to monitor government proposals and policy across all these areas.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance is an association of lawyers and other professionals dedicated to the protection and promotion of justice, freedom and the rights of the individual.

The struggle faced by plaintiff lawyers and their clients is well highlighted by the battle for compensation for victims of asbestos where insurers have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with companies like CSR and James Hardie, fighting tooth and nail to defend what was ultimately proven to be indefensible.

The fight to achieve justice for the victims of asbestos disease was one of the most hard-fought in Australian legal history. In the face of denials of the most appalling negligence, long and difficult trials had to be run.

One of them (Barrow and Heys v CSR and Midalco Ltd) remains the longest civil case in Western Australia, and one of the longest ever in Australia at 132 days. Many of the plaintiffs who sought some compensation died before such an epic fight could be concluded.

If it weren't for lawyers, no cases would have been brought, no one would ever have received a cent in compensation from the companies, asbestos products would still be legal and the mines would still be operating.