Workshop Proposal: Quality Legal Representation: Definition, Measurement, Theory and Practice

Suny At Albany, Albany NY

Investigators

Abstract

There is general agreement that the poor lack access to quality legal services and that the systems providing those services are in a state of crisis. Scientific investigation into the nature, causes or consequences of the provision of quality legal representation is limited, however. Despite the existence of several sets of standards at the state and national levels that attempt to describe what quality services look like, the empirical basis for understanding how and when quality representation occurs, or what difference it makes for those who receive it, is scant. This project will host a workshop to advance scientific knowledge on legal representation and inform the policy and management choices made by organizations providing that representation. That workshop will bring together social scientists, lawyers and other stakeholders involved in the provision of legal services to spur research into the subject of quality legal representation. Science has barely begun to look at the question of what quality legal representation means, still less to examine its causes or consequences. At this meeting, we will bring together specialists in a wide range of fields to examine what legal representation looks like, and how courts can produce it. We'll also be thinking about what difference it makes for individuals and the justice system alike to have high quality representation in place. Scholars who have made careers investigating how courts work will be placed in conversation with practicing defense lawyers, their clients, and researchers from other fields such as medicine, education and organizational sociology to talk about how research on quality legal representation can be advanced. We will post several of the lectures from the meeting online for future reference, and will produce a summary of the discussions at the meeting for wider publication.