Increase Public Understanding

Measuring Success in Online Courts - An Empirical Challenge

Grant: £33,290
July 17, 2018

This expert stakeholder event will be held from Monday 22 to Tuesday 23 October 2018.The workshop brings together leading international figures from the judiciary, academia, policy and civil society to explore how we might measure whether online courts promote the correct application of substantive law and deliver improved access to justice.

"The Future of Justice" Joint Conference 14th/15th May 2018

Grant: £90,000
March 22, 2018

An international conference on ‘The Future of Justice’ held at UCL on 14-15 May 2018 a joint initiative of UCL, the Nuffield Foundation and the Legal Education Foundation. The focus of the conference was the impact of technological revolution in justice systems and the power of empirical research to understand change. A central aim of the conference was to develop a new agenda for empirical research into the justice system and begin to build the political will and resource necessary to deliver it.

Dissemination of the Scale Development Project

Grant: £12,000
June 21, 2017

Preparation of a publication on the results of research to develop standardised measures for legal capability, for submission to a high impact academic journal.

Development of standardised inventories of Legal Capability (field work)

Grant: £64,505
November 10, 2015

The project aims to arrive at a standardized tool for evaluating legal confidence which can be used to measure the legal confidence of individuals. To arrive at this standardized tool, a technique called factor analysis is used. Factor analysis allows researchers to investigate concepts that are not easily measured directly by collapsing a large number of variables into a few interpretable underlying factors. Factor analysis has been used to arrive at a standardised test for complex concepts such as “socio-economic status” or differential diagnosis of psychological conditions.

Development of standardised inventories of legal capability

Grant: £45,000
July 1, 2015

The project aims to arrive at a standardized tool for evaluating legal confidence which can be used to measure the legal confidence of individuals. In order to arrive at this standardized tool, a technique called factor analysis is used.

Factor analysis allows researchers to investigate concepts that are not easily measured directly by collapsing a large number of variables into a few interpretable underlying factors. Factor analysis has been used to arrive at a standardised test for complex concepts such as @ldquo;socio-economic status” or differential diagnosis of psychological conditions. Researchers collect a series of questions that relate to concepts that they believe to be associated with the phenomenon they are attempting to measure (for example, in the case of “socio-economic status” these might include questions about “income”, “education”, “house value”, “number of crimes per year in neighbourhood”). These questions are put to a large sample of individuals, the results collected, and the researcher examines the data to see if there are any patterns in the data which would indicate that the answers given to the questions that have been asked are related to an underlying phenomenon that is not being directly measured by the questions. For example, in the case of socio-economic status, researchers observed patterns in responses given to questions about income, employment, and level of education. Statistical techniques are then applied in order to work out which of the question responses are most likely to account for changes in the phenomenon that is not being directly measured (e.g. in the case of “individual socio-economic status”, (the underlying non directly measured phenomenon), difference in responses to questions about income level account for more change in socio-economic status than level of education). In order to be sure that the questions posed accurately predict the presence of the underlying concept across the population as a whole (and not just within a particular sub-group) they should be put to a group of people who are as representative of the wider population as possible. The best way to guarantee this is to pose these questions to a representative, random probability sample. In order to arrive at a tool for that is not overly long or onerous, the exercise must be repeated, this enables the researcher to refine and reduce the list of questions that are relevant to assessing the underlying concept.

It must be noted that this is an experimental project. Standardised tools for measuring concepts such as “legal confidence” have not been developed before. It may be that the questions that are posed do not reveal patterns in the data that indicate an underlying phenomenon that we might define as “legal confidence”. This is an unlikely but possible outcome that should be borne in mind when considering the level of funding that should be dedicated to this project.

Legal Needs Survey

Grant: £84,000
November 26, 2014

The survey has a number of aims which are shared between the three partner organisations. To:

• understand how consumer responses to legal problems are changing;
• provide a platform for the field (including TLEF grantees) to assess the impact of their work over time;
• understand more about legal knowledge, beliefs, capability, and capacity;
• capture how legal needs interact with other needs, such as health;
• assess the impact of legal aid and Jackson reforms implemented on 1st April 2013;
• monitor changes in the market that have arisen as result of changes to regulation.

At this stage, it is envisaged that the survey will be repeated every three years.

PLE programme with young people

Grant: £79,585
November 26, 2014

Through its 200 members nationwide, Youth Access is the largest provider of young people’s advice and counselling services in the UK. This funding is for phase one to scope out a longer term project to work in partnership with a number of local frontline voluntary sector agencies to deliver a national programme of public legal education aimed at young people.

Understanding, Capability, Confidence and the Experience of Civil Law Problems

Grant: £82,900
August 8, 2014

The grant will fund research and a report comprising a detailed secondary analysis of the English and Welsh Civil and Social Justice Panel Survey (CSJPS), specifically issues relating to capability, self-help and understanding (of the law and ‘legal’ services). It will be a key tool in providing the social context of legal problems and legal understanding/education, and in particular, exploring how experience and understanding interact with other aspects of peoples’ lives. Crucially, it offers the ability to examine the public’s perspective, whether or not ‘legal’ problems are experienced and whether or not problems involve legal advice or formal processes.