The Ministry of Justice has published the results of a survey that attempts to understand the path that people take when tackling an everyday civil legal problem.
The survey team phoned just over 10,000 people and asked whether they had experienced certain problems, described to the listener as everyday but classified by the researchers as a legal issue covering:
- civil problems such as purchasing goods or services, neighbours' a problem, personal debt and personal injury
- administrative problems such employment disputes or state benefits
- family problems
The headline figure is that 32% of adults had experienced a legal problem in the past 18 months. Out of that sample the researchers found that 90% of them had tried to resolve the dispute themselves before resorting to a more formal process. 39% had then sought formal professional / legal help.
Interestingly those with family problems were more likely to seek professional help than respondents with the other categories of problem but 72% of them did not consider using mediation.
The full survey results can be found on the MoJ website.
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