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8 J. Open Access L. 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/jopacc8 and id is 1 raw text is: Visualising a Visual Movement - Reflections on a Growing Body of Research Michael Angelo Curtotti Honorary Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University In the two editions of the Journal of Open Access to Law dedi- cated to Visual Law we traverse a delightful panorama. We observe a diverse and maturing body, not only of scholarship, but also of prac- tical application of Visual Law. Closely allied to it are the themes and disciplines of Legal Design which are woven through much of its unfoldment. Practising what Visual Law preaches, virtually every article supple- ments its textual communication with visual examples and illustrations. While the articles collectively demonstrate the considerable progress that has already been made by the field (not to mention its already long heritage) the ample opportunities for continuing scholarship and innovation are also evident. There are many questions and issues yet to be explored. Were we to follow the journey of visual law further, we can imagine that it will scale up, as its innovative approaches are taken up on a larger scale by a growing body of practitioners in the many spaces in which law is influential. There are a number of themes or indeed values that underpin and run through much of the body of work that the two editions present. Most papers are concerned in one way or another with the accessibility of law. As Doherty outlines, accessibility ranges from digital access, through readability to comprehensibility. It is a thread that links to- gether waves of a movement that has emerged and continues to express itself in new and different forms: the Open Access to Law movement (concerned primarily with digital access), the plain language movement, and most recently visualisation and legal design. (Doherty, 2020) Ulti- mately the values pursued by this body of scholarship and application include equality and fairness among citizens, access to justice, and the effectiveness of the rule of law itself. These diverse approaches all have a common focus on the needs and rights of end users of law. Those end users are themselves diverse, implying a rich ecosystem in which visual law might be and has been deployed, as the articles demonstrate. Among those end users are current and aspiring members of the legal profession. Emily Allbon explores the application of visualisation

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