About Us

From ACJI to the Warren Centre for Civil Justice

The Australian Centre for Justice Innovation has become the Warren Centre for Civil Justice. This transition reflects our renewed focus on strengthening civil justice through evidence, research, and collaboration.

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The mission of the Warren Centre for Civil Justice

Our work improves understanding of civil justice and informs innovation and improvements in processes, services, experiences and access in civil justice systems. We achieve this by generating high-quality research and effectively translating our work for impact in policy and practice. We work in partnership with people with lived experience of civil justice problems, community legal centres and law clinics, legal practitioners, courts and tribunals, colleagues across disciplines and others who share our commitment to improving civil justice.

The vision for the Warren Centre for Civil Justice

Shaping better civil justice access and outcomes through high-quality and impactful research.

Centre themes

The key areas of focus for the Warren Centre’s work are:

Socio-legal Studies: Socio-legal studies denotes a broad conceptual framework that uses methodologies from law and the social sciences. It includes empirical research (quantitative and qualitative), socio-legal history, law and sociology, legal anthropology, law-in-action research, and normative and policy-centred research. The underlying focus of socio-legal studies is the analysis of law in society and social context, often using interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. Ours is a socio-legal studies research centre, with a focus on building capacity for socio-legal studies in civil justice (particularly through graduate research training and work with research partners).

The People of Civil Justice: This theme investigates the views and experiences of people navigating, working in and contributing to civil justice systems, such as people experiencing legal problems, decision-makers, litigants, lawyers, judges, coroners, mediators, tribunal members, expert witnesses and journalists. We bring to this work a focus on person-centred justice, putting the experiences and perspectives of people who have civil justice problems at the heart of our work. We also explore sustainability, wellbeing and vicarious trauma, and ways to minimise trauma and improve wellbeing amongst the participants in civil justice problems, processes and systems.  

Civil Justice Problems and Processes: In this theme we explore the spectrum of civil justice problems, including family, consumer, government, disability, injury, death, housing, money, employment and business problems. We interrogate the processes by which these problems emerge, are recognised and resolved, and options for reform.

Civil Justice Institutions: This theme encapsulates our research on the institutions that contribute to civil justice, including courts, tribunals, agencies, authorities, organisations and bodies. It focuses on legal forums for resolving disputes, legal and case management practices involved in the administration of civil justice, and how technology is shaping dispute resolution processes and the dissemination of legal information within and by institutions.

Enhancing Access to Civil Justice: Our work in this theme investigates how to make the law and legal systems more user-friendly and accessible, including through technology, service innovation and evaluation. It investigates how civil justice problems are prevented, identified and resolved. It brings together our research on barriers to effective problem resolution, the costs of justice,  the role of technology in justice administration, lived experiences of civil justice problems and legal services.