This blog provides an overview of aspects of new research relevant to Indigenous people's disadvantage in Australian legal systems presented at the 14th biennial conference of the International Association of Forensic Linguists at RMIT University in Melbourne from 1-5 July 2019.

The National Party’s 2014 reforms made significant changes to the family justice system, including introducing Family Dispute Resolution and removing lawyers from the early stages of some Family Court proceedings. An independent panel examined the 2014 changes and considered how they've impacted separating families and the children involved in those cases.

Women experiencing domestic and family violence are ten times as vulnerable to legal problems as the rest of the population, according to this research. In a twelve-month period, respondents who had experienced domestic and family violence had twenty legal problems on average, compared to only two legal problems for the rest of the population.

This report offers an empirical tool to help planners, statisticians, policy makers and advocates understand people's everyday legal problems and experience with the justice system. It sets out a framework for the conceptualisation, implementation and analysis of legal needs surveys and is informed by analysis of a wide range of national surveys conducted over the...

This paper was developed to support Legal Aid NSW undertake a review of their client intake and triage services. It provides a conceptual basis for further investigating and developing a systematic triage service model.