Digital legal consciousness and relationality

“Law and technology” is a rapidly growing field and offers vast opportunities to socio-legal scholars for inquiry. Our essay focuses on a particular aspect of the law and technology discussion, namely that of access to justice. This includes questions about how people access, experience, make sense of, and navigate the digital justice landscape. In this digital and technology context, access to justice also requires the ability of individuals to effectively engage with legal systems through digital means. In other words, access to the justice system requires people to have digital capabilities. For example, access to the Internet and a device, the ability and knowledge to navigate different platforms, to engage with chatbots, to upload documents and many other skills form our digital capabilities. Additionally, the legal aspect of the problem itself must be addressed by leveraging appropriate legal capabilities. While digital justice offers the potential to democratise access to legal resources and reduce case backlogs, it also introduces novel barriers that can exclude already marginalised populations.