Legal Aid and Self-Representation in the Family Court of Australia

A considerable amount of research has now been undertaken in response to the emerging phenomenon of self-represented litigants in the Family Court. Some of this research has been concerned with the impact of legal aid cuts. Other studies have documented how the presence of self-represented litigants impacts on participants in Family Court processes. A third group of studies are those addressing how courts might best accommodate self-represented litigants. This study is the first research to focus in a sustained way on the link between self-representation and the availability of legal aid funding in family law, to employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches to the question, and to gather information from both self-representing litigants and Legal Aid Commissions.