People can chat to SA lawyers online

A new legal aid chat service is to be launched allowing South Australians to get advice online and for free.

The Legal Services Commission of South Australia is launching LEGAL CHAT, where people can get free legal advice in real time through a website chat window, in what is says is a national first.

"The digital meteorite has landed and technology is now reshaping the legal profession," commission director Gabrielle Canny said.

"That digital transformation must extend to the delivery of free information."

Ms Canny said a trial of the technology found younger people preferred a discrete chat window to a phone call.

"Many office workers are in open-plan workplaces. They don't want to be overheard by their colleagues," she said.

LEGAL CHAT provides advice on issues such as divorce proceedings and even neighbourhood fencing disputes.