Objectives

IJLID aims at establishing a multidisciplinary forum where scholars, practitioners, policy makers and legislators discuss the audio, visual and audio-visual (re)design of legal information.

Here, legal information refers either to the process of providing or gathering information in relation to legal or legally relevant knowledge, or to the contents themselves, that is, the legal or legally relevant knowledge conveyed. Legal or legally relevant knowledge relates to contents that have been legislated (what the law is/de lege lata) or require legislation (what the law ought to be/de lege ferenda), or to explanations of these two contents or to contents of the legal or legally relevant discourse. Design refers to producing legal information so that it can be listened to, read and viewed, or to the product of this creative process. Redesign refers to reproducing (remaking) legal information so that it can be listened to, read and viewed, or to the reproduction (remaking) of this creative process.

It is a core concern of IJLID that legal information will be easier to understand and to use, especially in business, the public sector (legislation, administration, jurisdiction), society and technology. IJLID aims at promoting the successful communication of legal information in all of these areas. Specifically, this involves conceiving new prerequisites for (re)designing legal information and for analysing, evaluating and, if necessary, reconceiving already designed legal information. This applies to spoken, written and visualised legal information as well as to legal information designed to be spoken, written or visualised.

IJLID also aims at exploring the cultural, economic, legal, social and technological foundations of (re)designing legal information as well as the historical basis of (re)designing legal information. Moreover, the purpose of IJLID is to debate new legislation regarding the (re)design of legal information, particularly with regard to the multicoding potential of new information and communication technologies (ICT). Here, multicoding potential refers to the capacity of ICT to encode information verbally, iconically and acoustically.

IJLID welcomes contributions from those representing disciplines and practices concerned with (legal) information design. Contributions striving to integrate basic and applied research into legal discourse and practice are particularly welcome. Such disciplines and practices include communication studies, counselling studies, digital storytelling, drama studies, education science, e-government, e-learning, graphic design, history, iconography, iconology, information management, knowledge management, linguistics, literary studies, media studies, narratology, psychology, semiotics, sociology, typography, visual communication, etc. Contributions from scholars and practitioners researching the interface of the law with the fields just mentioned or others are also welcome, as well as contributions from scholars researching the fundamentals of the law, such as legal history, legal philosophy, legal sociology, legal theory, legal visualisation, etc.

IJLID is thus committed to enriching and perhaps reforming the - mainly logocentric - practices currently adopted in legal information design.

Readership

IJLID assumes the role of a vehicle to enable scholars and practitioners working in the field of legal information design, as well as policy makers and legislators, to disseminate information and to learn from each other's work.

Contents

IJLID publishes original papers, review papers, general reports, case studies, conference reports, management reports, book reviews, notes, commentaries, news, etc. Special Issues devoted to important topics in legal information design will occasionally be published.