Legal counselling is legal aid for a client, representing or protecting the client during and prior to the proceedings, composing legal documents and doing legal procedures in her interest as well as communicating with third parties and collecting proofs in the interest of the client where necessary.

Legal counsellor’s tasks are (considering the specific needs of the client):
– provide opinions, explanations and answers to the legal questions;
– explain what kind of legal rules the client has to fulfill and analyze the implementation;
– provide suggestions on how to ensure the legitimacy of her actions and the means to protect her interests and rights;
– compose or take part of composing or formulating legal documents;
– communicate with third persons in the interest of the client including the public authorities and perform legal actions in the interest of the client or the employer;
– represent and/or protect the customer outside the court, before and during the trial.

As an example legal counselling can include: reaching agreements outside the court in the areas most relevant to the victims of domestic violence, such as divorce, child support, dividing common property, termination of co-ownership, custody rights, communicating with children or representing the client in the court and achieving positive settlements for the client in civil proceedings.

Legal counselling would be conducted by lawyers who have gained a law degree and preferably have undergone training on violence against women.