You know that moment when a new law gets announced, everyone cheers, and someone says, “Now we’ll be protected” but then, in real life, nothing really changes?
That’s not always the law’s fault. It’s more about how we misunderstand what law’s actually supposed to do.
In access to justice circles, we’re always focused on information. Plain language. Simple factsheets. Translations. A website that doesn’t crash all the time. I honestly think all that stuff is important.
But there’s something big we keep missing.
Why don’t people use the legal tools that are supposed to protect them?
She did everything she was told to do
She showed up. She answered the judge’s questions. Made it through the whole court hearing.
Then she found herself standing outside the courthouse, holding a brand-new intervention order, a legit legal document. She picked up her phone and called a legal service, not because she couldn’t read, but because that document wasn’t really written for her. It was meant for a court registry, for the files, meant for processing, not for practical use.
She still didn’t know if it would keep her safe that night. She didn’t know if calling the police, if he showed up, would make everything better or worse.
The court order existed, but the protection? Not so much. Not in any way she could really grab onto.
Here’s what I want to point out: she had two problems, not one. First, figuring out what the order actually meant. Second, the harder part, how to actually use it in her own messy, complicated real life.
Those are very different problems. And we’ve built nearly everything to solve only the first.
Plain language: it’s the starting point, not the finish line
For years, we’ve said, “People can’t use the law, let’s make it clearer!” So we strip out legal jargon, cut the passive voice, toss out long Latin phrases. The plain language movement has done amazing, necessary work. Now, it’s required. Plain English isn’t optional anymore, and that’s exactly as it should be.
You can’t use a rule you can’t read. Plain language is the door.
But after twenty years of research, and honestly, just from talking to anyone who’s ever tried to teach these rules to real people, one thing keeps coming up:
Even when people totally understand a rule, they still often don’t act on it.
Most people don’t even realise their problem is a legal one
Let’s sit with this for a second.
The Victoria Law Foundation ran one of Australia’s biggest studies on this: 6,000 people. Turns out, only 34% of those who had a legal problem recognised it as a legal problem.
Two out of three people dealing with something law could help with didn’t see it that way.
Instead, they saw a fight with the landlord. Trouble at work. An awful neighbour. Something weird going on with an ex. They didn’t use words like “tenancy dispute,” “underpayment claim,” “intervention order,” or “family law proceeding” because those words are part of a system they don’t think is for them.
You can know the law exists and still not think it applies to you. You can know what an intervention order is and still not realise your ex’s late-night messages, or the way your coworker talks to you, are exactly what those laws were made to address.
Knowing about a law is one thing. Recognising it applies to your own life is another. And almost all our legal info is built to give people knowledge, not recognition.
Recognition is the piece you actually need, before anything else matters.
Before someone can worry about what the law means, they have to believe it’s even relevant to them.
The people who struggle most with that step are often the ones who need legal protection most:
People from multicultural backgrounds, who might remember law as something that hurts, not helps and who see factsheets built around someone else’s cultural norms.
People with disabilities, who often fall between cracks in the system that are left out by rules, overlooked by processes, or faced with complaint systems they just can’t navigate.
LGBTQIA+ folks, who know their rights “on paper,” but spend their energy calculating whether it’s even safe to ask for help, whether coming out is worth the risk, or if the system’s just not going to have their back.
Most of our info isn’t designed for their reality. It’s made for the person who already sees themselves in the system.
So if plain language, legal capability, and better forms aren’t the whole answer, what is?
When I pull together what frontline workers see, what the research says, and what people actually live through, the pattern is remarkably consistent. For the law to work as real protection in someone’s life, four things have to line up, in order:
- They have to understand the rule in words that make sense to them.
- They have to recognise that rule as being about their own situation.
- They have to trust that acting on it won’t make things worse.
- And they have to be able to use it in the middle of their real life, not an ideal one.
I think of this as a “law people can use” chain: understand → recognise → trust → use. If any link is weak, the protection mostly stays on paper. This isn’t a brand new theory out of nowhere. It’s a way of naming, very plainly, the steps people have to move through before a legal protection actually lands in their life.
What it actually takes for law to work for people
Step 1: Understand
Here’s where we’re finally making progress. More places are ditching legalese for plain language, easy translations, Auslan videos, and formats that work with screen readers or for people with low literacy. These are the basics. No one can use a rule they literally can’t read.
Some places, like Aotearoa New Zealand, have even made it the law that public agencies must use plain, clear, well-organised language when talking about benefits, duties, or public information. That’s huge. Clarity isn’t a “nice-to-have” anymore. It’s a legal requirement.
But understanding is just the start. It’s flipping on a light in the room. You still don’t know if you should be there, or what to do next.
Step 2: Recognise
Recognition happens when someone thinks, “Wait… this is about me.” Not in fancy legal terms, but in the language of their own life. Recognition is about real situations you know in your gut:
“Your ex keeps messaging late at night, and every notification makes you feel sick. That could be family violence, and yes, there’s help for that.”
“Your boss pays you less than you worked and tells you not to talk about pay. Turns out, that’s wage theft.”
Data from the Public Understanding of Law Survey (PULS) shows around two-thirds of legal problems go unrecognised. People just don’t see their situation as a legal one. Until someone spots themselves in the rule, nothing moves.
Recognition isn’t optional. It’s the first “click” from “the law exists” to “this law is for me.”
Step 3: Trust
You can understand and recognise that the law applies, but there’s still a tough calculation: “If I act, is this going to help, or will it make everything worse?” For many people, including people from multicultural communities, First Nations people, people with disability, and LGBTQIA+ folks, that’s a real question, not a theoretical one.
Research shows that bad experiences with the system crush trust, creating patterns where people opt out entirely. Trust doesn’t grow from a poster that says “You have rights!” It needs honest information: what the law can and can’t do, what usually happens next, where things often go wrong, and the real risks and trade-offs.
We need to own that sometimes “doing nothing right now” is wise, and people should get support to revisit their choices later if life changes. If we skip this, we end up reading silence as ignorance, when it’s often hard-earned caution.
Step 4: Use
This is where so many systems fall down. Can this actual person, in their real and messy life, take the next step the law expects of them? Forget the imaginary person with spare time, Wi-Fi, and a quiet afternoon. Think about the parent with a dead phone, hungry kids, a boss who won’t budge, and a partner due home in twenty minutes.
“Use” gets very specific, very fast. It’s not “make a complaint” but: call this number, it’s free, they’re open until 8 pm, the first call takes about twenty minutes. Not “seek legal advice” but: go to your local community legal centre, no appointment needed on Wednesdays, try your lunch break. Not “you have rights” but: do this one thing, keep this document, and here’s what probably happens next.
The access to justice sector has said for years that people need to “understand, use, and navigate” the system, not just have formal rights. But we almost never design for the person making a tough decision at 11 pm, with everything a mess and minutes to decide. That’s when the law truly matters. Not in a training workshop, but in the chaos of a real life.
What an actual solution looks like
Take that intervention order, for example.
What the law says: a court order requiring a respondent to follow certain conditions to protect someone from family violence. Breaking the order is a criminal offence.
What someone actually needs to know, right now:
You don’t have to be physically hurt. Controlling behaviour, threats, and financial abuse count. You can apply at any Magistrates’ Court, for free, without a cop or a lawyer. If it’s urgent, you can get an interim order right away. If he’s already been served and then contacts you, that’s a crime. Call the police. If you’re worried about your immigration status, there are people who can help you talk it through before you decide. The order won’t guarantee he’ll stay away, but it changes what happens if he tries.
Same law. Not just simpler words, but a totally different way of giving the info. It’s organised around what a real woman is actually deciding, with honesty about the limits and next steps. That’s the difference between a law that just exists and a law that actually helps.
This can work for any issue: unpaid wages, discrimination, tenancy fights, family law. The information’s out there. What’s missing is the part where we stop and ask: what does a person need to know, right now, to actually use this law?
And then we build that, instead of (or along with) the same old factsheet.
Why this gap won’t go away, even when everyone agrees it matters
People in the sector? They get it. Every access to justice inquiry flags this issue. Plain language workshops fill up fast. Everyone nods.
But that woman’s still standing outside the court, lost, clutching the paper.
It’s not about apathy. The problem is, the money and energy go where you can measure results.
A new law? That’s a headline. A factsheet in five languages? That’s a tick in the annual report. An outreach campaign? You get to count how many people saw it.
But who funds checking in, two years later, to ask if that woman knew what to do when he showed up again? Or whether the underpaid worker realised she still had time to file a claim? Or if the man being harassed ever learned there was a protective order for him? There’s no KPI for that. No budget line.
So the system churns out information and calls it “access.” It announces new protections and calls it “safety.” And the two-thirds of people who never connect their lives to the law stay right where they are.
Other places have shifted the standard. In New Zealand, the Plain Language Act 2022 legally requires public service agencies and Crown agents to use plain language in all communications. In the UK, the courts completely redesigned the online divorce application form with help from people who’d actually used it, cutting the error rate from 40% to 0.4%. Not because the words were easier, but because the form was built for the person completing it, not for the system accepting it.
Proof that things can be better has been sitting on the table for years. What’s missing is the call to make this the baseline, for every law, every resource, any protection that’s supposed to mean something in real life.
So the real question isn’t, “Did we make information accessible?”
It’s, “Can she use it?”
Those aren’t the same thing. And until they are, we’ll keep missing the mark.
If it’s not built for the person it’s supposed to protect, don’t expect them to use it.
And if they can’t use it, it doesn’t protect them.
It just sits there, on paper, meant for someone else.
That honestly breaks my heart. Because every law, every order, every scheme, somebody once truly believed getting the law right would mean people are safer.
Sometimes we do get it right, at least on paper.
And still, a real person is left standing outside court, unsure if they’re safe tonight.
That’s still our problem to solve.
References
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Victoria Law Foundation (2023). The Public Understanding of Law Survey (PULS): Volume 1: Everyday Problems and Legal Need. Victoria Law Foundation. Available at: victorialawfoundation.org.au/research-projects/the-public-understanding-of-law-survey
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New Zealand Government (2022). Plain Language Act 2022. New Zealand Legislation. In force from 21 April 2023. Available at: legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2022/0007/latest/whole.html
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HM Courts & Tribunals Service (2019). Putting People at the Heart of Reform. GOV.UK. Available at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk (HMCTS Reform, January 2019)