Pro bono partner spotlight | Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion

Gadens has partnered with Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion (QAI), an independent not-for-profit disability advocacy organisation and specialist community legal centre that provides advocacy and support to those living with a disability in Queensland.

Gadens’ initial involvement in a collaborative pro bono project alongside five other law firms has evolved into an ongoing partnership, recently marked by one of our lawyers commencing a secondment with QAI.

The collaborative project was designed to support QAI’s NDIS Appeals project. Gadens played a key role in developing training materials and coordinating a national training session to provide volunteer lawyers from corporate firms across Australia with the necessary skills to assist QAI with tasks related to appealing National Disability Insurance Agency decisions at the Administrative Review Tribunal. The purpose behind this project was to provide additional resources to QAI to increase their capacity to support their clients, by assisting with key tasks, like a statement of lived experience. Assisting a client to set out their support needs is a critical but time-consuming task for a NDIS appeal and the assistance of volunteer lawyers greatly assisted QAI to provide this additional service.

Following the work with the collaborative pro bono project, Gadens now operates a dedicated NDIS Support Clinic with QAI. This clinic operates on a weekly basis, with our lawyers participating in advice appointments alongside QAI lawyers and providing follow-up support to NDIS participants. The clinic was designed to address a critical gap in resources at QAI. It enables the QAI lawyers to speak with more clients knowing they will have some assistance with essential tasks such as drafting complex support statements or the follow up written advice. Statements are integral to the success of an appeal and volunteer lawyers help clients to include the most relevant issues, targeted at the legal criteria.

This partnership has provided Gadens’ lawyers with the opportunity to gain hands on experience, and to see the impact that pro bono assistance can have to disabled people navigating complex systems, whilst at the same time increasing QAI’s capacity to continue providing much needed assistance to its clients in Queensland.

Take a look at our collective social impact for FY25 by clicking here.

Quarterly Impact Report – July 2025

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• Pro bono partner spotlight | Fitzroy Legal Service – The impact of secondments | Gadens
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Authored by:
Cassandra Krylov, Head of Sustainable Business
+61 3 9612 8236
cassandra.krylov@gadens.com