• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Access to Justice Lab logo

The Access to Justice Lab

at Harvard Law School

  • About
  • Projects
  • Publications
  • Resources
  • People
    • A2J Lab Staff
    • Advisory Board
    • Collaborators
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Triage and Justice For All

September 23, 2016 by Erika Rickard

Triage and Justice for All

When legal resources are scarce, attorneys must prioritize who receives which services.

Legal services providers rely on triage to respond to the overwhelming unmet need, sorting cases into those who receive an attorney to represent them for all or part of their case, who receives brief advice, and who is pointed to basic information to navigate the legal system themselves. sorting-hatRichard Zorza referred to the triage process as a sorting hat, through which a person is sorted to an “appropriate level of meaningful assistance” for their legal needs.

The National Center for State Courts and the Public Welfare Foundation have recently put out a request for proposals to state courts and Access to Justice Commissions, encouraging each state to develop collaborations within the civil justice system. The Justice For All project calls for improved triage models and evaluation as key elements in moving toward 100% access to justice. States are currently drafting grant proposals for how courts, legal aid, and bar associations will collaborate to improve their approach to triage and connecting people with legal resources.

This emphasis on triage and improving existing models raises two important questions:

  1. What would improved triage look like?

  2. How does triage work right now?

Courts and attorneys make triage decisions every day, but they do so without the benefit of evidence. There is no research that demonstrates how to triage well in the legal field.

At the Lab, we’re hoping to change that. We are working with a legal aid program in Ohio to begin to understand what factors lawyers use to determine what level of service to provide, and how to effectively sort people to the appropriate level of service to achieve just legal outcomes.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: triage

Using empirical research to make the U.S. justice system work better for everyone.

The Access to Justice Lab

Copyright © 2023 · Monochrome Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

 

Loading Comments...