Increase in Legal Claims After Royal Commission Findings
Australian law firms are experiencing an unprecedented number of new claims from victims of alleged child sexual abuse in school and church institutions. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is responsible for the jump in claims, whose law reforms allow survivors to make claims for compensation and damages irrespective of when the abuse allegedly occurred. Shine Lawyers received 61 inquiries about child sexual abuse in 2012 before the Commission, and last year received 730 inquiries, an increase of more than 1000 percent. Given the report listed four thousand institutions as alleged of being involved in these assaults, The Federal Government has even announced a national redress scheme to compensate survivors.
The Daily discussed the impact of the Royal Commission and what law firms are doing to cater for this increase, with Lisa Flynn from Shine Lawyers.
Produced by Madison Thorne