What Makes Court Forms Complex? Studying Empirical Support for a Functional Literacy Approach

This article describes an empirical study examining the complexity of court forms. The researchers obtained direct feedback from individuals without legal training who were attempting to complete a standard court form. The researchers conclude that "using a functional literacy approach, coupled with robust human testing, generates useful insights about court-form complexity that will facilitate the redesign of court forms and supporting materials to better meet the needs of self-represented litigants."