Communicating and Building Trust in the Profession: A Critical-Semiotic Inquiry of a Legal Aid Clinic

Abstract

This study investigated how communication practices, space, and visual cues mediate or discourage the indigent clients’ trust in the Legal Aid Clinic. It draws upon Critical Tradition which theorizes communication according to Craig (1999) as a “reflective challenge of unjust discourse” and Semiotic Tradition which theorizes communication as meaningful signs and symbols that can be interpreted in various ways (Craig, 1999). This study used multimodal analysis. Reflective essays of the student law practitioners were subjected to thematic analysis, while the Legal Aid Clinic to socio-spatial analysis, and the observations during the legal consultations to critical semiotic analysis.

The communication practices that emerged which may engender or discourage trust were affiliative humor, persuasive communication, mitigative communication, plain language communication, affective communication, adaptive dual-channel communication. Furthermore, the semiotic resources of legal aid clinic spatial (architectural design and layout), visual, (organizational shirt, posted materials), gestural (non-verbal cues such as side eying, and eye contact).

This study also found out that legal trust is multilayered and multidimensional. It is relational, procedural, and symbolic. Moreover, types of legal trust surfaced: unequivocal trust, provisional trust, involuntary trust, and pseudo or fake trust.