A new initiative focuses on bringing more lawyers to the bush by experiencing rural life from the comfort of their city homes, but local lawyers say it’s completely missed the mark.

The Digital Treechange Initiative was designed to increase the recruitment of lawyers in rural, regional and remote (RRR) Australia, embracing technology to allow potential employees to work remotely in communities before making any moves further west. 

Orana Law Society President Andrew Boog says that the idea of replicating a country lifestyle from Zoom is laughable, likening the experience to offering a resort holiday that you can only experience through watching the sights and sounds online. 

“I can get to work from home in six minutes. You can’t show that through Zoom," said Mr Boog.

"How will zoom convey the experience of having paid out your home when you’re still in your thirties?” 

While access to justice is a right for all Australians, in some rural communities legal services can be few and far between. 

Unfortunately, the number of suitably-qualified legal practitioners can't keep pace with the high crime rates in communities across the Western Plains.

“Shortages of lawyers in RRR areas have resulted in residents being denied legal representation at critical moments in their lives,” said President of the Law Council of Australia, Dr Brasch. 

Mr Boog argued that access to justice isn’t an issue of supply, but of obstacles created by mountains of red tape that almost doubles the cost of acquiring legal expertise. 

“(This initiative) is something that has been made from people who don’t live rurally,” Mr Boog said.

“We never say to people in the city, ‘here’s how you should run your traffic’, but there’s a tendency for some city people to do it to us.”

Ideally, the lifestyle of the Western Plains and other regions would be seen as draw card enough to relocate rurally, but the ‘trial’ approach to employment implies that that is not the reality.  

“We hope the security blanket created by this initiative encourages more lawyers to apply for jobs outside our cities,” Dr Brasch said. 

“At the end of the trial period, both the candidate and their potential employer can make a fully-informed decision, with the view that the candidate will then relocate." 

Mr Boog countered the idea; “Come and live out here for a couple of weeks, and then we’ll listen to your opinion, because it might be more informed.”

Although any increase in access to legal services can be considered a win for locals who have been stung by the limitations of distance, the new approach is considered more a shot in the dark at a time when local communities struggle to maintain and build their locally-based skilled workforce.