Sky News spoke with Researching Reform this afternoon about the need for judges to understand the meanings behind emojis, after a rise in UK cases involving the symbols.

An article published by The Times this morning sparked national media interest in this area. The story, which highlights concerns among legal professionals in the UK that judges are not familiar enough with emoji uses and meanings, includes some thoughts from Researching Reform on what needs to be done to improve that understanding and the current gaps in technology which sites like legal databases also need to address.

We spoke with news presenter Isabel Webster about the use of emojis within family law judgments, as judges try to make child-related orders more accessible and easier for children to understand. We also discussed emojis appearing in evidence, particularly within criminal cases.

Researching Reform spoke with Yahoo UK News, who have written about the need for judges to adapt to changing forms of communication like emojis. We shared some more thoughts with Yahoo this afternoon.

The topic has also been covered by Scottish Legal News, which quotes The Times piece and Researching Reform’s comments about emojis within legal cases.

Twitter followers can catch the latest legal developments over at @JudgeJohnHack, @TheTimes and @TimesLaw.

A very big thank you to Sky News for having us.

A big thank you also to DadsHouse founder Billy McGranaghan for sending us photos of the interview, which we’ve included in this post.

You can watch the interview below.