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Law and lawyers not always relevant to solving legal issues, survey reveals
The law and lawyers are not always considered important or relevant across a number of legal issues, according to an Australian-wide survey.
Naomi Neilson
Australians tend to think the law and lawyers are relevant for certain issues, including unsafe working conditions, but not for others, like underpayment of wages.
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This means many people are not seeking appropriate legal aid for the help they need.
Victoria Law Foundation’s research director professor Nigel Balmer said of the survey: “If people don’t see their problems as legal, they may not get the help they need.”
“Understanding where people are in the levels of understanding offer insights that can be used to improve public legal education and it helps services deliver assistance that starts and ends with the needs and capabilities of users.”
The Victoria Law Foundation study found there is a global shift from “top-down” access to justice policy focused on normal processes, to a “bottom-up” perspective with onus on the needs and ability of the individuals in the legal system.
“This means recognising ‘that the different needs of individual members of community call for different responses’, including their capacity to engage with the justice system.”
Differences in demographics indicated the law tends to be seen as less relevant if they live in regional, rural and remote Australia, have fewer educational qualifications and speak a language other than English at home.
Other groups saw the law as more relevant, including women for legal issues involving family violence and workplace power imbalance, non-English speakers for problems involving authority figures and those with limited digital capabilities.
“Problems where law was considered relevant were typically the same as those where a lawyer was considered important,” the report said. “However, in general the law was considered relevant more often than lawyers were considered important.”
“For some typically less serious problems, lawyers were seen as far less important than the law. But in some serious cases, lawyers were regarded as more important.”
As well as the problem, the severity of the problem had a bearing on whether the law was seen as relevant and lawyers as important. For example, the report noted that the more severe workplace injuries or higher amount of money in dispute increased the likelihood law and lawyers were relevant for identical scenarios.
“Even though all scenarios had a legal dimension, not all problems were identified that way by respondents,” the report said. “Some problems were almost universally viewed as legal or requiring a lawyer, and others were not.”
