1.1 During the year under review, while overall legal representation reported a moderate drop, coinciding with a drop in Hong Kong's overall crime rate, the demand for legal representation in Care or Protection Proceedings in the Juvenile Courts, legal advice and legal information has grown steadily.

1.2 During the year, the Duty Lawyer Scheme represented 38,304 defendants charged with criminal offences in the Magistrates' and Juvenile Courts, representing a decrease of 0.87% over the previous year. The number of children represented in Care or Protection Proceedings in the Juvenile Courts was 3,070 representing an increase of 21.34%. The Free Legal Advice Scheme made 907 lawyers available at 9 evening centers advising 6,652 persons representing an increase of 3.47% over the previous year. The Tel Law Scheme recorded a total of 28,720 calls representing an increase of 1.36% over the previous year. The Service's website recorded 273,974 hits, representing an increase of 21.60% over the previous year.

1.3 Ongoing efforts have continued to be made to reduce the caseload of the duty lawyers with greater accessibility for defendants to meet their lawyers. There has been ongoing improvement to upgrade the quality of legal representation in the Magistrates' Courts. Within the resources available, these measures include the following:

•	defendants to have access to lawyers of their choice;
•	duty lawyers to better prepare trial cases by paying for pre trial conferences well before the trial date;
•	the same duty lawyer conducting trial as far as practical to be retained to deal with all outstanding matters after trial.

1.4 Review of remunerations of senior executives at the top three tiers had been conducted. It was concluded that the average total remuneration of each of the tiers was on par with that of the comparable rank in the civil service.