Language of DIY Justice: Communication practices and processes

This project (2019-2023) explored communicative, procedural and legal barriers court users experience in small claims cases and private family proceedings in England and Wales. These are typically considered to be high-volume and low-impact cases for the justice system. But what makes them complicated is the legal representation pattern: many court users cannot afford to hire a lawyer and have to represent themselves, without much prior experience or legal knowledge. Despite the fact that self-represeted parties are a common sight in lower courts, the legal process is designed by lawyers for lawyers, which only complicates the proceedings for everyone involved, including the judiciary, court staff, legal professionals and, of course, primarily court users.

Focusing on interactional and wider linguistic processes which complicate legal and procedural disadvantages experienced by lay, the project made several key contributions to socio-legal studies and language and law scholarship:

• developing a methodological and theoretical framework for exploring discursive practices embedded in court processes and procedures;
• identifying unnecessary procedural complexities which restrict court users’ voices;
• establishing communication processes which can enhance court user’s perceptions of procedural justice and increase the effectiveness of their legal participation.

What was the impact of the research?

The project contributed to enhancing societal inclusivity through improving understanding of how courts interact with lay court users across the varied contexts of civil and family proceedings in county courts in England and Wales. The study showed how court users’ voices are muted and identified procedural steps which should be taken to enhance parties’ access to procedural justice and the overall effectiveness of legal participation for anyone involved in county court proceedings.

The project results continue to be submitted to government calls for evidence and third party reviews:

• Evidence submitted to the ongoing consultation of the Civil Procedure Rule Committee on Access to Court Documents by Non-Parties: Proposed New CPR 5.4C.
• Evidence submitted for JUSTICE report Improving Access to Justice for Separating Families. (2022). 
• Evidence submitted for JUSTICE report Understanding Courts. (2019)

The project contributed to legal practice by demonstrating the importance of  considering the impact of practice directions, procedure rules and adjudicative approaches on discursive practices and voice projection opportunities for court users.  

With respect to the everyday court practice, the study advocated for a unified approach to the provision of pre-court legal and procedural information which is tailored to lay court users’ needs, simplification of pre-court elicitation strategies and genres, and staged provision of support for narrativisation and argument construction. With respect to the wider justice system agenda, the study advocated for adjusting complex court procedures typical of adversarial legal systems to incorporate the needs of lay court users in the design and content of procedure rules and practice directions. 

By illustrating how linguistic planning can contribute to the core design of the legal system and enhance the access to justice process for everyone involved, the project has created a lasting legacy for court reformers across the UK and globally. 

Project team

• Dr Tatiana Grieshofer, Associate Professor in Language and Law 
•  Professor Robert Lee, Birmingham Law School (Co-Investigator until February 2021)
• Dr Ralph Morton, Research Assistant 
• Dr Chloe Waterman, Research Assistant 

Publications

• Grieshofer, T. (2024). Legal-Lay Discourse and Procedural Justice in Family and County Courts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Grieshofer, T. (2023). Court forms as part of online courts: Elicitation and communication in the early stages of legal proceedings. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law.
• Grieshofer, T. (2023). Reimagining communication and elicitation strategies in private family proceedings. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. 
• Grieshofer, T. (2022). Remote Interpreting in Immigration Tribunals. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. 
• Grieshofer, T. (2022). The importance of being heard: Stories of unrepresented litigants in small claims cases and private family proceedings. Language and Law – Linguagem e Direito 9(1): 1–19. 
• Grieshofer, T., Gee, M. and Morton, R. (2021). The journey to comprehensibility: court forms as the first barrier to accessing justice. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law.