Introducing LeNS: What is our Legal Needs Study?
The first major piece of work by Health+Law is our Legal Needs Study (LeNS). This is a legal needs survey, a form of legal research that helps us to understand people’s experiences of justiciable issues – everyday issues that could have a legal solution, regardless of whether a legal solution is sought. Justiciable issues can arise in all areas of life, for example in housing, employment, relationships and finances. A legal need occurs when a justiciable issue requires legal support to be dealt with appropriately and effectively.
Importantly, legal needs surveys emphasise a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach to understanding the law – that is, one that focuses on people’s everyday experience rather than the perspectives of institutions that make and uphold laws. A top-down approach that focuses solely on these institutions can only ever look at the tip of the iceberg of legal needs, because the number of people actually accessing legal services is only a fraction of those who need them. With LeNS, Health+Law will start to develop a picture of the whole iceberg. Legal needs surveys can reveal inequalities in how the law serves different groups, and highlight areas where change is required to ensure equal access to justice for all.
The most recent example of a legal needs survey in Australia is the Victoria Law Foundation’s Public Understand of Law Survey (PULS), which explores the general public’s experience and understanding of the law in Victoria. The design of our survey is similar, though we are focusing specifically on people living with HIV or Hepatitis B: we want to know how, why, and when our communities interact – or don’t interact – with the justice system and its institutions, and how they navigate their everyday rights and responsibilities in the context of living with a blood-borne virus. We want to know about the justiciable issues and legal needs they face, whether these needs are being met, and how their lives are affected by legal processes.
With LeNS, we will establish a comprehensive evidence base of the legal needs that specifically affect people living with HIV or Hepatitis B in Australia today. We will conduct in-depth personal interviews as well as a nationwide survey of people living with HIV or Hepatitis B to understand the impacts of legal needs on their lives. LeNS will be the first research project of its kind for people living with Hepatitis B in Australia, and will significantly expand and update our understanding of people’s experience of living with HIV and the law. LeNS will provide a solid foundation upon which to make informed policy decisions that reflect the needs and perspectives of affected communities, and so support better access to justice for all people living with blood-borne viruses in Australia.
Find out more and sign up to participate in this important research here.
Further Reading
Legal Need vs. Justiciable Issue: Untangling their Meanings
Victoria Law Foundation: The Public Understanding of Law Survey