Those Who Live It Should Shape It

We’re gathering insight from parents, guardians and carers who’ve lived through high‑conflict family cases in Australia. The aim is to redesign the early stage of these matters, so families aren’t trapped for years in reactive, repetitive litigation.

INTRODUCTION

Australia’s family law system is built to process conflict, not prevent it. People living through high‑conflict cases feel this more than anyone.

You can see patterns forming long before professionals do, but the system is overloaded and slow to connect the dots.

Each professional only sees a small slice of your experience, and that gap between what you live and what they’re told shapes everything.

You’re one of hundreds of matters competing for limited time and attention. It’s normal to feel frustrated, exhausted, and stuck in a process you can’t shift alone.

We want to change that, but we need your insight to do it.

PROBLEM

Families need to be in Court less and with their children more.

Right now, people are being pulled back into legal proceedings over issues that should never reach a courtroom, misunderstandings, technicalities, or behaviour patterns that are obvious to the people living them but take months for professionals to piece together.

Because there’s no structured way to identify relevance early, the system processes the majority of applications the same way. Even minor or untested allegations can trigger full legal action. This creates predictable overload: repeated hearings, long delays, rising costs, and children stuck in uncertainty.

This isn’t just emotionally draining, it’s a resource problem, a time problem, and a systems‑design problem.

GOAL

Our goal is to stop families being dragged back into Court by creating a way to make behaviour patterns and key information clear early.

The system has a critical gap, it has no consistent, structured method to screen what’s relevant, what’s evidence‑based, and what’s simply noise.

Everyone deserves to be heard. but without early clarity, the system can’t distinguish urgent issues from avoidable ones. That’s how families end up in years of unnecessary litigation.

We want to build a solution that fills this gap: a structured, scalable way to surface patterns early, reduce repeat Court appearances, and give children stability sooner.

But we don’t want to guess. We want to build it with the people who’ve lived it.

1. What recurring issues or patterns kept bringing your family back into the legal process?

2. In retrospect, what do you wish you had understood earlier?

3. Which parts of the process felt unnecessary, repetitive, or avoidable?

4. What should be screened or clarified early so minor or untested issues don’t escalate?

5. If you could change one thing to reduce repeat Court appearances for families, what would it be?

6. What has been the most significant impact on your children from being maintained in legal dispute?

7. If you selected “Other” for any question, or if there’s anything else you believe should be considered, you can add it here.

Thank you for your contribution. Your input helps us build what the system currently lacks: early clarity, early accountability, and fewer unnecessary returns to Court. These are the conditions that allow families to move out of conflict and toward stability sooner.