Legal Aid Clinics are intended to provide legal relief easily accessible to the indigent and backward sections of our society. They are almost on the lines of primary health centres where a doctor and other auxiliary medical staff provide basic health care to the people situated in village areas affected with poverty and social squalor. Like the doctors rendering health services to the people of the locality in the primary health centre, a lawyer manning the legal aid clinic provides legal services to the people. The thrust is on the basic legal services like legal advice and assisting in drafting of notices, replies, applications, petitions etc. The lawyer manning the legal aid clinic will also attempt to resolve the disputes of the people in the locality, preventing the disputes from maturing into litigation. This provides the lawyer in the legal aid clinic an opportunity to understand the difficulties faced by people in the distant villages’ for access to justice. Legal aid clinics have to be manned by para-legal volunteers selected by the Legal Services Authorities and lawyers with a sense of commitment, sensibility and sensitiveness to the problems of common people.

Legal aid clinic is one of the thrust areas envisioned in the NALSA’s Quinquennial vision & strategy document. NALSA plans to set up legal aid clinics in all villages.