Free aid

Professional lawyers may also help citizens to prepare the relevant documents, such as a lawsuit, a request for exemption from costs, or a request for a public defender.

Free legal aid is for individuals with legal problems and is given by professional lawyers with adequate experience, such as e.g., attorneys, legal counsels, or attorney or counsel trainees.

Who can benefit from free legal aid?

Free legal aid is available to all individuals who would not be able to afford a lawyer. Self-employed entrepreneurs might also benefit from free aid.

How can I sign up for an advice?

• by phone – calling the given Poviat registration number;
• online – sending an email to the given Poviat’s designed email or filling the form available at https://zapisy-np.ms.gov.pl;
• in person – at a Poviat’s Hall.

What do I have to bring with me?

For in person consultations attending in person, a written declaration stating the inability to afford paid legal help is required.

Entrepreneurs submit:

• a written declaration stating their inability to afford paid legal help;
• a written declaration confirming that they had no employees within the previous year;
• all the de minimis statements, including agriculture and fishing, about the aid received within the year where the free legal aid was requested and within the two previous fiscal years, or declarations with the aid amount during that period, or declarations confirming no aid was received during that period.

Where can I get free legal aid?

Citizens advice is offered at around 1500 facilities in Poland, in every Poviat. You do not have to sign up for a consultation in the Poviat of your residence. You might sign up at the most convenient location.

To check those facilities out and sign up for a consultation, click HERE.

Poviat, Local Government, and City Halls, and their respective websites, also feature information about the available facilities.

Can I benefit from free legal aid if I am disabled?

Free aid is also available to individuals with special needs. They may benefit from it. Special requests at consultations (such as a sign language interpreter) should be signaled upon sign-up or immediately afterwards. 

Individuals with severe physical disabilities, who are not able to leave their home, and those with communication difficulties, as stated in the Bill of rights from the 19^th of August 2011 on sign language and other means of communication, might also ask for a consultation at a different location or for a remote consultation, by phone or using an online communicator, independently of the epidemic situation.

For more information on free aid for people with special needs, click HERE.

The first type of facilities is run by attorneys and counsels selected by professional lawyer councils. Therefore, district bar attorney and counsel councils ensure that only trustworthy professionals become part of the free legal aid system.

The bodies of legal councils adopt internal regulations, determining, among others, the drawing of attorneys or counsels to the free legal aid system. The regulations require candidates to have no criminal history and to have never failed their professional duties and obligations, resulting from their membership in legal councils.

The recruitment process to counseling facilities operated by NGOs is transparent, allowing an easy selection of top professionals, delivering high quality advice. NGOs are selected through competitions following the existing legal guidelines. The competition is limited to NGOs listed by the voivodes as organisations entitled to offer free aid on the territory of the given voivodeship. To be added to the list and to stay on it NGOs need:

• at least two years of experience in advising in a given field;
• adequately qualified staff;
• reliable performance tracks, especially when it comes to confidentiality, professionalism, reliability, and ethics;
• compliance with established service standards and internal quality control norms.

Whether the facility is run by attorneys or counsels or by NGOs, the free legal aid is offered by qualified professionals.

The facilities offering free citizen's advice might have specific consultations hours for experts in a given field. These experts put their skills and experience to good use and offer complex help all over Poland thanks to remote consultations. The afore-mentioned specialisations include helping families with children with disabilities, helping victims of domestic violence, especially women and children, protecting personal data, and mediating.

For more information on the opening hours of facilities offering free citizen's advice and free legal aid, click HERE.

Although ancient Greeks were the ones to create the foundations of the Western civilisation, the concepts of State, politics, justice, and rule of law, and even Greek sophists (5th and 6th centuries B.C.) already acknowledged the social role of public speakers, presenting the views of the people or their own, the legal professions were only invented in Ancient Rome. The current professions of attorney and counsel stem from the Roman professions of advocatus and cognitor.

Advocatus was the plenipotentiary of a party in the legal proceeding and offered legal advice and help both at civil and criminal courts.

It would seem natural, that first a profession is created, and only then is it done pro bono. Nowadays lawyers are seen as high-paid professionals, who from time to time do pro bono work. However, legal help was initially free of charge. After a certain time, happy clients started paying a voluntary fee. Eventually, the professionalisation of legal services made lawyers establish fees for their work.

The expression pro bono (pro bono publico – for the public good) used nowadays comes from Latin. It describes professional services performed voluntarily and free of charge, in the name of public interest.

The legal aid system in Great Britain is a model example of free legal aid. It offers help at local and state levels both before trials and during them. Its backbone are NGOs financed by the State.

Until 2015 free legal aid in Poland was offered by a number of individuals, mainly lawyers working pro bono, but also by parliamentary and senatorial offices. Student law clinics followed a similar idea. The first university legal advisory office was created on the 1^st of October 1997 at the Jagiellonian University’s Law Department. Further, similar initiatives were organised within the Foundation of University Legal Advisories.

The creation of a universal system of free legal advice and civic counselling for persons who, due to their material status or life situation, do not have the possibility to obtain paid legal aid was finally considered justified. This resulted in the enactment of the act of 5 August 2015 on free legal aid, free counselling and legal education. This is the first legal regulation in Poland that defined the organisation of the free legal aid system and the main principles of its provision.

The act of 15 June 2018 amending the act on free legal aid and legal education and some other acts (Dz. U. 2018 poz. 1467) introduced free civic counselling and free mediation into the system of free assistance. Almost two years later, by the act of 14 May 2020 on amending certain acts in the area of protective measures in connection with the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (Dz. U. 2020 poz. 875), the possibility was made available for all citizens to receive advice on free assistance during the pandemic in a remote mode, i.e. using means of remote communication, i.e. telephone or instant messaging (e.g. Skype or Teams).

Are the facilities offering free aid opened during the pandemic?

The facilities offering free legal aid remain open during the pandemic. They work in person or remotely, i.e., using remote technologies such as the phone or online communicators (Skype or Microsoft Teams), depending on the Poviat. Some of them offer both in person and remote consultations.

Is it possible to ask for a remote consultation?

Some facilities might offer remote consultations by phone or using online communicators (Skype or Microsoft Teams). The general rule being that remote services are mainly for individuals with severe physical or communication disabilities. However, due to the pandemic, they are also offered to all other individuals.

To benefit from free legal aid, you need to fill in a request form. You might do so in person at the Poviat Hall or remotely, i.e., by phone or by filling the form available on https://zapisy-np.ms.gov.pl.

Is the help free of charge?

Free legal aid, free citizen's advice, and free mediation are free of charge. Individuals in financial difficulties, who cannot afford paid professional services, may benefit from it. The afore-mentioned help is financed from the State budget and aims at granting equal access to justice.

Do the facilities offering legal help also counsel in other areas?

All free aid facilities offer full-range counselling. The facilities offering specific legal help most often also offer general counselling. It is therefore possible to sign up for any type of legal advice. To find out what a given facility offers, it is advised to call the Poviat Hall.

Are the professionals offering free legal aid lawyers?

Free legal aid is given by attorneys, counsels, attorney or counsel trainees, and individuals with a post-graduate degree in law meeting the requirements, i.e., all are qualified lawyers. Furthermore, tax advisors may offer advice on tax law, except entrepreneurial tax law.

Can I signup for a consultation outside of the Poviat of residence?

There is no localisation, i.e., the necessity of doing the consultation in the Poviat of residence, within the system of free legal help. Therefore, individuals can sign up anywhere, independently of their place of residence.

Can I benefit from free aid if I am a Polish citizen living abroad?

Free legal aid is available to all Polish citizens, who are unable to afford paid legal help at market prices. Due to the ongoing pandemic, it is possible to do remote free consultations, i.e., by phone or using online communicators. Therefore, Polish citizens living abroad are also able to benefit from free legal help or free citizen's advice.

Can I benefit from free legal if I am a foreigner?

Any individual residing on the Polish territory may benefit from free legal aid and citizens advice. However, please bear in mind that most facilities will only offer consultations in Polish. In order to check the spoken languages at a given facility, visit the tab Help for foreigners or contact the adequate Poviat Hall.

Can I benefit from free aid if I am self-employed and hire employees?

Free legal aid is available to natural persons and self-employed entrepreneurs who did not have employees within the previous year. Entrepreneurs hiring employees can’t therefore benefit from free legal aid. The previous year is to be understood as the 12 months prior to the date on the declaration stating the inability to afford paid legal help, not the calendar year, fiscal year, or any other period.

Can I benefit from free aid more than once?

Entitled individuals may benefit from free legal aid and citizens advice to the extent needed by their situation. In other words, they may ask for more than one meeting. They may sign up for more than one services. They may also ask for consultations about different matters, independently of the time elapsed since their last consultation.

Is free aid anonymous?

Yes. Only before in person consultations, individuals are asked to sign a declaration stating their inability to afford paid legal help. The declaration includes their personal data, however that data will never be stored with the case data. Therefore, personal data and the case data are not correlated; the saved data are anonymized and the consultation is anonymous.

In case of remote consultations, i.e., by phone or online communicators, individuals do not sign declarations stating their inability to afford paid legal help, therefore, they do not share their personal data in writing.

Who is the data controller in the system of free aid?

The declarations stating the inability to afford paid legal help are not accessible to third parties. The Poviat authorities administer all the personal data. The leader of the Poviat stores the afore-mentioned declarations for three years, counting from the end of the calendar year when the declaration was filed, in order to allow potential inspections assessing whether free legal aid and citizens advice function properly.