Embedded Legal Services as a Child Welfare and Justice System Primary Prevention Strategy
Research: The law requires certain professionals (“mandated reporters”) to report to local child protective services (“CPS”) agencies what those professionals perceive as potential child abuse or neglect. Because these mandated reporters—for example, physicians or teachers–lack alternatives, they sometimes also refer to CPS cases that they do not have to report, and might prefer not to report if there were an option other than CPS to attempt to address the situation. To reiterate, these optional reports are for cases near the margin – cases for which, if there were another alternative, reporters would not refer to CPS. Mandated reporters inform the A2J Lab that many of these “marginal cases” exist. These marginal cases often share some characteristics of instances of actionable neglect but might more accurately be characterized as resulting from poverty and its associated legal consequences. If so, then the problems could be susceptible to poverty-focused social and legal assistance (such as help with benefits applications, bankruptcy, or domestic violence protection orders) instead of CPS’ more punitive approach.
What We’ll Learn: This project will field a randomized controlled trial (“RCT”) of a program that integrates poverty-focused holistic legal and social work services into medical and educational settings that include mandated reporters. These poverty-focused holistic legal and social programs target marginal cases, again, cases approaching but not on or over the line of a mandated CPS report. The hypothesis is that such poverty-focused services will reduce the frequency with which these marginal cases are reported to CPS. In particular, the hope is that there will be fewer reports to CPS that result in “no-action” determinations, i.e., cases in which CPS investigates (thus imposing harm on the family) but takes no action (thus providing no benefit to the family). Given the national reach of the CPS system, evidence that poverty-focused legal and social services reduce the rate of investigations, especially no-action investigations, would improve the wellbeing of children and families and could revolutionize national CPS reporting policy.
Research Team: We partner with the Carolina Health Advocacy Medicolegal Partnership (“CHAMPS”), housed in the University of South Carolina (“USC”) School of Law, and the Kansas Holistic Defenders, serving Shawnee County, Kansas, to field the evaluation. We partner with Dr. Tricia Stephens, Associate Professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College to conduct the evaluation.
The Final Stage Reentry Project: Expungement
Research: Does expungement of a criminal record induce stabilization of housing and employment with concomitant reductions in recidivism? Should oversubscribed legal services providers dedicate their scarce resources to meeting the vast demand for assistance in obtaining an expungement under state law?
A randomized control trial will assign individuals eligible for expungement under state law to different levels of service (self-help materials or attorney representation) from oversubscribed legal services providers. If, as anticipated, expungement outcomes differ based on service level, the study will employ an instrumental variables design to infer the effect of expungement on recidivism, housing stability, and employment.
Working with Kansas Legal Services, the study team plans to enroll complete enrollment in 2022. All participants will receive some type of assistance, either full representation or self-help materials, and will be offered the opportunity to participate in follow-up surveys for two years.
What We’ll Learn: There is no clear evidence of the effect of record-clearing on recidivism. Further, there are no studies based in randomized field operations that show the effectiveness of record-clearing on housing stability outcomes. This study will show those effects.
Research Team:
Jim Greiner, Faculty Director, Access to Justice Lab; Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Renee Danser, Associate Director of Research and Strategic Partnerships, Access to Justice Lab
Marilyn Harp, Kansas Legal Services (ret.)
Evaluating the Impact of Virtual Proceedings in Family Law Matters
Research: This research examines the comparative advantages of online versus in-person appearances in sensitive cases for vulnerable litigants (Self-Represented Ls).
Research to understand the effect of widespread remote justice necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic is scant, and particularly scant in the area of family law. What we know thus far, from two articles, both with severe methodological limits, is that litigants believed that online hearings hindered procedural justice as compared to in-person hearings.1 But litigants believed online proceedings improved their ability to attend hearings as compared to in-person proceedings. No studies assessed how remote appearances affected case outcomes. Within the context of these studies, issues of civility and safety are not addressed either. Neither study deployed a credible research design.
On a related front, research using sampling and qualitative analysis has attempted to understand the effects of different types of custody orders on children. Most of these studies occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, after a movement away from a presumption of primary or sole maternal custody.2 As such, arguably, we may have some knowledge of the preferred arrangement for children.
But we do not know how methods of conducting hearings, which constitute the key decision points in the judicial process, affect or inhibit courts’ capacity to order preferred arrangements. It is easy to suspect that parental poverty poses challenges to reaching optimal court decisions. Perhaps online proceedings, which may lessen the formidable mental bandwidth, scheduling, and organizational challenges low-income parents face, are a partial solution. But, if we believe remote appearances hinder procedural justice, will the outcomes resulting from a more organized, more accessible hearing still be meaningful if litigants do not feel heard, and if that dissatisfaction translates to dissatisfaction with their orders? Again, we do not know, and we need to in order to promote better outcomes for families.
1 Elizabeth G. Thornburg, Observing Online courts: Lessons from the Pandemic, 54 Fam. Law. Q., 181, 198-199 (2020); Lynda B. Munro & Nicole M. Riel, Our Virtual Reality: Facing the Constitutional Dimensions of Virtual Family Court, 54 Fam. Law. Q., 245, 261 (2020).
2 See, Robert Bauserman, Child Adjustment in Joint-Custody versus Sole-Custody Arrangements: A Meta-Analytic Review, 16(1) J. of Fam. Psych. 91 (2002) (analyzing 21 studies).
What We’ll Learn: This research will contribute two perspectives. It will examine whether SRLs in family court proceedings uniquely suffer when asked to participate in remote proceedings. It will also investigate whether online proceedings worsen, improve, or merely replicate the problems of in- person hearings with particular focus on issues of procedural justice, civility, and litigant safety.
Research Team: We partner with the Commissioners and the Self-Help Center of the Third District Court in Salt Lake County, Utah to field the operation. We conduct the evaluation in consultation with Emily LaGratta of LaGratta Consulting, LLC.
Community Diversion Program
Research:
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Toledo Municipal Court
Justice Study (Decriminalizing Poverty)
Research: Justice Study: Frequently Asked Questions
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Michel Maréchal, University of Zurich
Julian Langer, University of Zurich
Andreas Beerli, ETH-Zurich
Therapeutic Justice Foundation
RISE
Mother Up
Research:
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Mothers Outreach Network
Non-Lawyer Support in SNAP Benefits Cases
Research: There will never be enough resources to provide full representation to all Alaskans who could use it in civil cases. The question is: Are there other alternatives that could help the residents of Alaska get the support they deserve? Could trained advocates or other non-lawyer supports be part of the solution? This RCT is studying how effective trained advocates are at increasing success in SNAP benefits cases.
The Access to Justice Lab has partnered with Alaska Legal Services Corporation to design a randomized control trial to evaluate community advocates services in the context of the SNAP benefits arm of their program.
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Alaska Legal Services
Legal Services Funded Corp.
Social Work in Public Defense
Research:
The Problem: Since the formation of public defender offices, defense attorneys have sometimes incorporated social workers into the criminal defense team. More recently, some social worker involvement has extended to the provision of services that go beyond the clients’ legal needs. A minority of states (about 14) currently make use of this holistic defense approach, and some are working to expand their use of social workers. Other states are considering whether to adopt a holistic defense approach that incorporates social workers. But there is no credible evidence that incorporating social workers into the criminal defense team, as opposed to advising defendants to make use of social services available in their communities, improves either criminal justice outcomes or improves defendant quality of life. There is also no evidence to suggest that lawyers allocate scarce social worker resources well.
The Questions: Does integrating social work services into the public defense team reduce recidivism and improve other outcomes for defendants? How well do public defenders determine which defendants would most be helped by a social worker?
The Study: Working with Sarah Buchanan, Director of Social Services at the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office, the A2J Lab has designed a four-site, double-randomized evaluation to be implemented in multiple jurisdictions in Tennessee. In all four sites (Jackson, Franklin, Kingston, and Knox Counties), the RCT will investigate whether outcomes with a social worker as part of the criminal defense team are different from those where defendants are invited to take advantage of social workers in their communities. In Knox County, after attorneys make a provisional decision regarding incorporation of a social worker into the criminal defense team, the A2J Lab will randomize each potential client into one of two groups (the first level of randomization). In the first group, the attorney’s decision will be followed; in the second group, a random decision will replace the attorney’s. Among that second group, a computer-based randomizer will “decide” whether the defendant will be offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team. In the other three counties, a randomizer will determine whether the defendant is offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team; these three counties will not evaluate attorney triage decisions. In all the sites, the study team will follow various outcomes for each participant, including recidivism, for two years after randomization.
What We’ll Learn: The RCT design will discover how effective incorporating a social worker into the criminal defense team is at decreasing recidivism as well as housing insecurity, unemployment, and other risk factors for future criminal behavior. The double randomization in Knox County will also determine how successful lawyers are at determining which clients would most benefit from the scarce social worker resources.
Research Team: Sarah Buchanan (formerly of TN Pub Def Office)
April Faith-Slaker, Executive Director, Texas Access to Justice Commission
Financial Distress Research Project
Research: The Financial Distress Research Project is a partnership among multiple branches of government, academia (students and professors), multiple non-profit service providers, and the private sector. People who participate in the project will be a part of a randomized control trial to understand the effectiveness of attorney representation, financial counseling, and self-help materials on financial health outcomes.
What We’ll Learn: A comparison of financial health across our four groups will provide gold-standard evidence regarding the effectiveness of self-help packets, financial counseling, and attorney representation. The result will be the richest and most detailed dataset ever conducted in an evaluation of what works for individuals in financial distress.
Research Team: Jim Greiner, Faculty Director, Access to Justice Lab; Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Dalié Jiménez, Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law
Lois R. Lupica, Professor of Law, University of Maine School of Law
Problem of Default: Debt Collection Default Study
Research: This study builds on the smaller pilot study in Boston, the Debt Collection Default Study, which measures what kinds of mailings from legal services providers to defendants are effective in reducing default rates in debt collection cases. To our knowledge, Part I of the study is the first of its kind to evaluate an intervention intended to reduce default rates in civil cases using a randomized control trial.
Part II of the A2J Lab’s study of default in debt collection cases has been in the field since June 2017. This iteration extends the study design from Part I to include more treatment arms and court venues.
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team: Jim Greiner, Faculty Director, Access to Justice Lab; Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Dalié Jiménez, Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law
Andrea Matthews, Bureau of Consumer Protection
Matthew Stubenberg, Innovator in Residence, William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii
Guardianship
Research: In partnership with the Boston Court Service Center and the Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association, the Lab’s Guardianship Service of Process study evaluates whether self-help materials can make a difference for court users navigating the complex web of court procedures to initiate a guardianship case.
The Guardianship Service of Process Study, which launched in early September 2017, tests Lab-designed self-help materials. Participants receive printed materials (developed in large part at our first hackathon) on a randomized basis for both adult or minor guardianship cases and in English or Spanish. In addition, minor guardianship petitioners randomized to receive the hard copy booklets will also gain access to an online tool developed by Bill Palin, the Access to Justice/Technology Fellow with Harvard Law School’s clinical programs. That site walks users through their case to provide personalized instructions, using new guided interview software similar to TurboTax. The RCT will compare rates of successful service, among other outcomes, between the treatment and control groups.
What We’ll Learn: If self-help packets or a new tech tool can help people file for guardianship and then correctly complete service of process, then legal services providers know what types of resources to invest in and how best to allocate their limited resources. And if the self-help materials aren’t at all effective, perhaps we can learn something about the procedural hurdles and have a better understanding of how these hurdles themselves may need to change.
Research Team:
Boston Court Service Center
Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association
Court Centers Services of Worcester & Springfield
Jim Greiner, Faculty Director, Access to Justice Lab; Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
Chris Griffin, Visiting Professor and Research Scholar, James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona
Erika Rickard, Senior Officer, Civil Justice Innovation Project, Pew Charitable Trusts
With intervention design thanks to our affiliates,
Bill Palin, Developing Justice, Harvard Law School
Hallie Jay Pope, Graphic Advocacy Project
Pretrial Risk Assessment Study
Research: The Public Safety Assessment-Decision Making Framework (PSA-DMF) System is a risk assessment instrument and decision-making framework designed to provide an accurate tool to distinguish criminal defendants according to the risk that they will engage in future misconduct. Jurisdictions across the United States have begun to implement the PSA-DMF System at the initial release/detention hearing at the start of a criminal case.
The A2J Lab will evaluate the effects of the Public Safety Assessment-Decision Making Framework (PSA-DMF) System report in several jurisdictions across the country. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the impact of the report, which eliminates the need for arrestee interviews, on several factors, including new criminal activity, the number of days individuals spend incarcerated pretrial; and racial and gender fairness. (Visit the Open Science Framework page about this study for more information.)
The A2J Lab is also completing four validation studies of the PSA. Unlike most of the A2J Lab’s studies, these studies are not RCTs. A validation study uses statistical analysis to determine how well the PSA classifies what it was designed to classify, i.e., the risk that certain outcomes will occur.
What We’ll Learn: The A2J Lab is conducting randomized control trials to assess whether providing the PSA-DMF System report to judicial officials making initial release/detention decisions leads to reductions in the following outcomes:
failures to appear at future hearings;
new criminal activity;
new violent criminal activity; and
the number of days defendants spend incarcerated pretrial
Research Team: Chris Griffin, James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona
Matthew Stubenberg, Innovator in Residence, William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii