Email: k.l.leader@lse.ac.uk

Thesis Title: 'Inventing the Litigant in Person'

Thesis Abstract: This project examines the experiences of litigants in person in the civil justice system. Litigants in person [LiPs] form a growing proportion of people participating in our courts but despite this, LiPs particular experiences remain largely under-researched and neglected in legal writing, indicative of the general paucity of information on lay participants in the legal field as well as the marginalization of litigants in person in our current understanding of courtroom process. This project seeks to redress this imbalance by putting the voices of the litigants in person back into our understanding of criminal and civil justice procedure. In collaboration with the National Life Stories (NLS) venture at the British Library, curated by Dr Rob Perks, the project will involve in-depth interviews with people who have acted as Litigants in Person in courtroom and tribunal processes. The project will draw on this interview data as well as further research to flesh out the role litigants in person play in our justice system, as well as to provide greater insight into the barriers to access to justice for litigants in person in our justice system. The in-depth interviews will subsequently form an archive of LiP life stories which will become a publicly accessible resource at the British Library.

Supervisors: Professor Nicola Lacey and Professor Linda Mulcahy

Research Interests: Laypersons and the law, Law and Performance, International criminal law, criminal law, law & architecture, Sociolegal studies, Gender and representation, media, technology & law.

Publications:

'Closed Circuit Television Testimony: Liveness and Truth-telling‏', law text culture Volume 14 (December 2010).

'Bound and Gagged: The Role of Performance in the Adversarial Criminal Jury Trial', Philament 11 (December 2007).