Research Database

Assisted Digital Support for Civil Justice System Users: Demand, Design, & Implementation

This report focuses on assisted digital support (ADS) – the process of assisting a person with lower digital capability to use a digital service. The report aims to build an understanding of the role that ADS services can play, as well as their limitations, to inform designers of online legal services. The report also addresses […]

Design for Justice: How Design and Technology can Help to Deliver Justice Better

This Australian report canvasses ways in which design principles and technology can be used to make the justice system work better. The authors recommend following several “design policies”, including: Build user-centred systems to deliver equitable solutions Make legal information easy to access and understand design data in a way that is open, transparent, and easy […]

Digital Delivery of Legal Services to People on Low Incomes 2017-18

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 […]

Does Community Legal Education Work? Educating English Language Students about Consumer Contracts

This Australian article presents the findings of a study that investigated the impact of a public legal education program for improving English language students’ knowledge and attitudes of the legal issues associated with buying a car. The findings demonstrate how public legal education can change participants’ attitudes and knowledge of the law.

Indigenous people and legal problem resolution

This report is one in a series of Australian reports published on the various types of barriers faced by Indigenous people facing legal problems. Using data from a previous nation-wide survey on civil legal needs, researchers found that Indigenous people are far more likely than others to have unresolved crime problems, and also the highest […]

Legal Secondary Consultation: How Legal Aid Can Support Communities and Expand Access to Justice

This report describes an innovative pilot project that took place at 3 community legal clinics in southwestern Ontario to help connect community workers and their clients more effectively to legal advice and referrals. The project work involves making a dedicated legal service professional available to provide one-on-one advice to community service providers. This in turn […]

Measuring Online Legal Resources: A Framework Inspired by the Drake Equation

This report explores an evaluation framework to try to assess whether online legal aid tools and resources make a different in addressing gaps in access to justice. The researchers used the “Drake Equation”, originally created in 1951 to list the factors that scientists should consider when determining whether there was extraterrestrial life. Through a series […]

Partners in care: the benefits of community lawyers working in a hospital setting

This report details the findings from the evaluation of an Australian community legal clinic’s health and justice partnership project. The aim of the evaluation was to detail the extent to which the project is operating as intended, and to assess the impact of the health and justice partnership on the patients and the health professionals […]

Preventing Digital Exclusion from Online Justice

This report addresses issues of digital exclusion in the United Kingdom context, where courts are increasingly relying on technology, including the eventual establishment of certain online courts and tribunals by 2020. This includes a plan for an “assisted digital service” that would strive to make sure that everyone can use the reformed justice system by […]