Litigants-in-person as intruders in court
The common saying that “the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client”1 conveys the view held by many legal professionals. Self-represented litigants experience many difficulties, which range from having to manage various administrative tasks and legal matters to standing before court and interacting with legal professionals and witnesses. Yet many lay people do choose to represent themselves and self-representation is especially common in divorce cases and small claims cases. Litigants opt for self-representation even in high-profile cases. The list of some of the notorious cases from the USA and UK is very versatile: John Allen Muhammad v. the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2003 (after presenting his opening speech, the defendant agreed to being represented by an attorney); Farhad v. United States in 1998-1999; USA v. Zacarias Moussaoui in 2002-2006 (the defendant was ordered to proceed with a court appointed attorney later in the course of the trial); Colin Ferguson v. USA in 1994; Kolender v. Lawson in 1983; David Irving v. Pinguin Books Ltd and Deborah Lipstadt in 2000; McDonald’s Corporation v. Helen Steel and David Morris in 1994-1996. There have also been cases with pro se litigants before International Criminal Tribunals2: a former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, represented himself in 2002-2004; the first president of the Republic of Serbia, Radovan Karadžic, represented himself in 2008-2009. Social, educational and financial background of the above-mentioned selfrepresented litigants widely varies; their reasons for representing themselves
Lay People as Cross-Examiners: A Linguistic Analysis of the Libel Case McDonald's Corporation v. Helen Steel and David Morris
Awarding Institution: Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic 
Date of Award: June 2010 
 
 
 
The PhD. thesis offers a detailed survey of linguistic problems lay litigants-in-person experience when cross-examining in court. It is a single-case study and the material for the analysis is drawn from the libel case McDonald’s Corporation v. Helen Steel and David Morris (tried in the UK High Court between June 1994 and December 1996). The thesis contrasts cross-examination questions and strategies used by the pro se litigants (Steel and Morris) with those used by the professional counsel representing McDonald’s (R. Rampton QC). It also aims to explore whether in the course of the case the two litigants-in-person improved their cross-examination skills and learned from the counsel. 
The thesis combines the quantitative approach with a qualitative analysis of the data. The quantitative part of the analysis is based on the corpus linguistics approach. The qualitative part draws on the methodology of conversation analysis, discourse analysis and the pragmatic approach. 
The findings of the study show that the pro se litigants improve their cross-examination skills, but their development remains unstable.
A Public Health Approach to Child Protection: Why Data Matter
In Australia, many researchers and policy makers believe that statutory child protection systems are overburdened and ineffective. The way forward, they suggest, is a public health model of child protection. A public health approach comprises four steps: (1) collecting surveillance data; (2) establishing causes and correlations; (3) developing and evaluating interventions; and (4) disseminating information about the effectiveness of intervention activities to the public health community. However, in Australia there are no reliable surveillance data. There is no information about ‘person’. Information is not collected about the characteristics of children (e.g., ethnicity) and parents (e.g., mental illness) reported to child protection services. Data are not comparable across place. This is because the states and territories have their own child protection legislation, definitions and data recording methods. Data are not comparable over time. This is because many jurisdictions have introduced new data recording systems over recent years. This paper concludes that it is essential to develop an effective child protection surveillance data system. This will ensure that services are located in areas and targeted towards populations in greatest need. It will enable large-scale evaluation of the effectiveness of prevention and intervention activities.