'Better justice?' or 'shambolic justice?': Governments' use of information technology for access to law and justice, and the impact on regional and rural legal practitioners

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study on whether government use of information technology potentially compromises access to law and justice by Queensland regional and rural (RR) legal practitioners. The paper describes current approaches to the use of information technology by state and federal governments, and provides an insight into the challenges and opportunities identified by individual RR legal practitioners, policy-makers and the judiciary on the use of such technology. The paper makes recommendations to promote increased access to law and justice for RR legal practitioners when using government information technology.