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Australia’s first School Lawyer makes legal services accessible

Image Vincent Shin, Australia's first school lawyer (Image: PLGRM Media)

Australia's first in-house school lawyer is embedded at The Grange P-12 College in Melbourne's west

Vincent Shin is Australia’s first on-campus school lawyer and is helping students and their families at the Hoppers Crossing school engage more effectively with the justice system to deal with legal issues ranging from family violence to myki fines. The 28 year old, known as Vinnie to the kids, has been embedded at The Grange P-12 College since June 2015.

Vinnie has proven to be a popular addition to the school community and is the subject of a short 10 minute documentary (below) which details his own experience of family violence, his work in community development, as well as the School Lawyer project.

Partly funded by an HMSTrust Community Multi-year grant, the School Lawyer Project is an innovative two-year pilot project for WEstjustice (Western Community Legal Centre formerly Wyndham Legal Service). So far, Vinnie has helped individuals in the school community on a variety of legal issues with the most common being infringements, family violence, family, employment and criminal law. The project has attracted considerable attention from the media including The Age and The Huffington Post.