What makes people think a problem is legal

by Nigel Balmer, Legal Services Research Centre

It matters because we have long known that how people perceive their problems drives what they do about them. A new paper written by me with colleagues tries to get to the bottom of that, by examining what shapes perceptions of legality and why it matters for service design and delivery.

You can find the paper, published in the Journal of Law and Society, with colleagues Catrina Denvir (Monash University), Hugh McDonald (Victoria Law Foundation), and Emily Taylor Poppe (University of California Irvine) right here.

Image of a woman looking at a painting of a country scene of a house with a road leading towards it.

Using an experimental design, we tested how features of civil legal problems – the type of problem, the amount at stake, who was at fault, and whether a person was owed or owed money – shaped 1,800 participants perceptions of legality and intended problem-solving strategies.

The findings confirm that legal characterisation is not purely subjective. Higher financial stakes, certain problem types, and specific combinations of fault and positionality all systematically increased the likelihood of a problem being seen as legal. And once again, the data tells us that people who see their problems as legal are far more likely to turn to a lawyer.

I know…. it sounds like the world's most obvious finding, but it has real implications for how we design and deliver services. If legal characterisation is a gateway to legal help, then services need to be designed in ways that do not depend on people walking through a door marked 'legal'.

I have also written a short blog which talks a bit more about this, the research journey behind the paper, and why I think it matters for policy and practice.

While the study was in the US, the implications are global, and of relevance right here. Findings from both our Public Understanding of Law Survey (PULS) and the ongoing Legal Understanding and Lawyer Use (LULU) survey confirm that legal characterisation matters in Victoria too, shaping how people respond and what they get when facing legal issues.

Better understanding what drives these perceptions is critical to building services that respond to how people actually experience problems.