Research Database

A Tool for Justice: A Cost Benefit Analysis of Legal Aid

This report canvasses the results of more than 50 cost and benefit studies of legal aid programs from around the world, including Canada, to identify the role of publicly-funded legal services vis a vis economic growth. The report concludes that “improving legal aid services is as important for economic growth as providing functioning hospitals, schools […]

Conducting legal need surveys in the Australian context: challenges and options

This Australian report canvasses challenges faced in conducting large scale legal needs surveys. The researcher notes that the demographic profile in Australia has changed significantly since the last large scale legal needs survey in that country, over a decade before. The report concludes that consideration must be given to the questions asked, including what types of […]

Investing in Justice: A Literature Review in Support of the Case for Improved Access

This literature review by the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice focuses on the cost to individuals and society resulting from the gap in access to civil justice. The researchers reviewed data from 50 countries around the world. The report offers case studies on legal aid funding in Australia, England and Wales, as well as the use […]

Law… What is it Good For? How People see the Law, Lawyers and Courts in Australia

This report explores findings from an Australian study canvassing people’s attitudes to the relevance of the law and lawyers in various everyday scenarios. In particular, the study and report measure: how accessible people feel courts and lawyers are how confident they are when faced with legal issues to what extent people recognise law as relevant […]

Narrowing the Access-to-Justice Gap by Reimagining Regulation Report and Recommendations from the Utah Work Group on Regulatory Reform

This U.S. report outlines the findings of a task force on lawyer regulatory change in the State of Utah. The task force recommends that Utah  significantly loosen, or possibly repeal, a state bar rule prohibiting law firms and other legal services operations from sharing fees with non-lawyers. Such a move would make it easier for […]

Summaries of Randomized Control Trials in the US Legal Profession

This research tool provides summaries of 50 randomized control trial studies conducted in the U.S. The studies were identified in 2016 research by Harvard’s A2J Lab. That research defined “randomized control trials” as studies that met five criteria: They had to be conducted in the United States They must have been field studies of real-world […]

The Digital Delivery of Legal Services to people on low incomes: Annual Report Summer 2019

This report provides an update about developments in digital delivery of legal services in British Columbia, Ontario, England, Wales, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the US, Australia, and the Netherlands. It discusses some of the issues digital delivery of public legal education and information (PLE) raises for governments, funders, providers and users, including digital divides. It builds […]

Using the law to address unfair systems: a case study of the Personal Independence Payments legal challenge

This UK research explores the litigation process in a successful 2017 case brought by a disability claimant and led by the Public Law Project (PLP) to challenge discriminatory changes to a disability benefit “personal independence payments” (PIPs) at the end of 2017. The legal challenge resulted in changing the assessment criteria for PIPs for thousands […]

Victoria Legal Aid: Information services literature scan

This report provides an overview of legal information services provided in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. It also describes six pieces of research on legal information issues, including two CLEO reports: Building an understanding of legal capability Public Legal Education and Information in Ontario Communities: Formats and Delivery Channels The report was prepared to help […]

What Makes Court Forms Complex? Studying Empirical Support for a Functional Literacy Approach

This article describes an empirical study examining the complexity of court forms. The researchers obtained direct feedback from individuals without legal training who were attempting to complete a standard court form. The researchers conclude that “using a functional literacy approach, coupled with robust human testing, generates useful insights about court-form complexity that will facilitate the […]