Jess is a socio-legal and empirical researcher, specialising in issues of access to justice and family law.

Jess' current research interest focuses on the issue of self-represented litigants in family courts. In 2024, Jess was awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council to undertake an empirical study into the procedural justice of 'uneven' family court hearings, which involve one party appearing as a self-represented litigant. This project builds upon a previous study undertaken in England and Wales which was the subject of Jess' first monograph, Litigants in Person and the Family Justice System (Hart, 2022).

Jess also undertakes a broader range of competitively funded collaborative research relating to the accessibility of legal systems and the legal professions in the UK and Australia. Key examples include:

• A co-authored monograph entitled Legal Aid and the Future of Access to Justice (Hart, 2023), which reports the findings of the largest ever census of legal aid practitioners in England and Wales.
• A commissioned study for the UK Ministry of Justice into 'blended advice', which revealed new methods of advice provision emerging in England and Wales' not-for-profit sector following the initial outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• An original research study on pricing practices in Victorian legal services undertaken in partnership with the Victoria Law Foundation and the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner.

Jess is Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Justice Innovation within the Faculty of Law. Externally, Jess serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Law and Society and the Australian Journal of Family Law, and as an executive committee member of the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ).

Specific areas of interest include:

• Self representation and lay participation in legal systems
• Family dispute resolution
• Legal aid policy and governance
• Innovations in advice provision and legal support
• Understandings of legal need, legal capability and legal literacy
• Family violence and legal systems abuse
• Socio legal theory and approaches
• Empirical legal methods and qualitative methodology

Jess has an established record of consulting with the public and third sectors in the UK and Australia across her research interests. Previously she has undertaken consultancy work for organisation including: The Access to Justice Foundation, The Ministry of Justice, the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, and the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner.