Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
The relationship between the Federal Court and unrepresented litigants will be tested as part of a strategic partnership with UNSW.
Led by UNSW faculty of law and justice’s Associate Professor Harry Hobbs and School of Psychology’s Professor Kristy Martire, the research project will examine the way unrepresented litigants approach the court system to shape institutional approaches.
It comes as the number of unrepresented litigants in the Federal Court system has risen sharply in recent years, “presenting challenges for the court and also for the litigants themselves who run or defend complex litigation without lawyers”.
Between 2024 and 2025, there was an almost 65 per cent jump in claims filed by an unrepresented party and allocated to a judge.
In addition to understanding why litigants conduct proceedings without a lawyer, the research will examine whether changes made to court procedures are effective.
This includes the Litigants in Person and Pro Bono Project, introduced in August 2024 for a “coordinated, whole-of-court approach to the management of matters involving litigants in person”.
The Litigants in Person practice note was also introduced this year, which assists self-represented people with legal jargon or technical words, has a summary of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976, and provides a list of free legal research databases.
The research will also collect data on the extent of judicial time and court resources committed to litigants in person. It will identify effective ways to direct them to pro bono and legal services.
The Federal Court and UNSW collaboration received “generous seed funding” from the university’s Translational Impact Seed Fund and the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration.
