Abstract:
The purposes of this article are many: partly cathartic, educational, persuasive and
reflective. It seeks to examine the legal system, profession and discipline through my
experience of a Small Claims court case. The perspective I bring to this is
multidisciplinary: given my background in Cultural Studies, I am interested in legal
practice and how its associated relationships of power are negotiated between
practitioners and citizens; as a lecturer in Information Technology, I am intrigued by
the usability of systems; and as an academic, I am fascinated by the discursive
differences between disciplines. Therefore, this article will examine how the cultural
and technical practice of law impacts its usability as a system through my personal
experience as a user interacting with the system and its legal practitioners.
