Social welfare lawyers will recognise the scenario. The flustered client who arrives with their shopping bag stuffed full of unopened correspondence. Each bill reveals one more unresolved issue. Problems rarely arise singularly but, like buses, they tend to come all at once and when they do, they are overwhelming.
Legal policy wonks have a name for the phenomenon: ‘problem clusters’. Someone loses their job, they can’t afford to pay their rent or mortgage, they have problems claiming welfare benefits, etc. It has been the subject of debate in the legal aid world, and some controversial policy initiatives, since the influential 2004 study Causes of Action: Civil Law and Social Justice.
Yet lawyers, the courts and much of the administrative bureaucracy surrounding public bodies, operate on a ‘single-issue’ basis. It is that complexity, and the indifference of our legal system to it, that is the subject of a fascinating and thoughtful book
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