Litigants in Person and the Family Justice System

Jessica Mant is Lecturer in Law at Monash University, Australia.

• 1. Introduction I. Litigants in Person and the Family Justice System II. The Family Justice Landscape III. Where Next for Family Justice? IV. Learning from LIPs V. Chapter Outline 2. The Changing Landscape of Family Justice I. Neoliberalism and the Family Justice System II. Family Justice at Breaking Point? III. Domestic Abuse and Family Justice IV. COVID-19 and Family Justice V. A Turning Point for Family Justice 3. Conceptualising Litigants in Person I. Tensions in Family Justice Research II. Marginalised Perspectives III. Inequality, Disadvantage, and Difference IV. The State and the Family Justice System V. Material Manifestations of Disadvantage VI. A Theoretical and Empirical Enquiry 4. Navigating the Family Justice System I. Procedural Requirements II. Legal Norms III. Physical Environments, Social Hierarchies and Cultural Expectations IV. The Full-Representation Model 5. Contributing to the Family Court Process I. Speaking in Court II. Using Paperwork to CommunicateIII. Asking and Answering Questions IV. Being Heard within the Family Court Process V. Changing the Conversation 6. Finding a Role in the Family Justice System I. Relationships with Judges II. Relationships with Opposing Lawyers III. Relationships with Other LIPs IV. Finding a Role 7. Perceptions of Family Justice I. The Expectation-Experience Disconnect II. Understanding Decisions and Outcomes III. A Cycle of Exclusion IV. Family Justice Journeys 8. Conclusion I. Litigants in Person and the Family Justice System II. LASPO: The End of Family Justice? III. How to Break a Cycle of Exclusion

[T]his book review welcomes Mant’s comprehensive, rich, and critical summary of LIPs and the family justice system … Mant’s book stands as a foundational text that will be useful for academics and policy makers to draw on, especially in the context of the Pathfinder Pilot, which adopts a more inquisitorial and investigative multi-agency approach, and to highlight the need to apply a transformative methodology to ensure that the rights of the child are centred in the family justice system.