Measuring the Impact of Legal Service Interventions

The “Measuring the Impact of Legal Service Interventions” project (2019-2024) is a multi-phase project aimed at assessing the effectiveness of different types of legal service interventions on the outcome of legal disputes. This project will also explore long-term effects on the health of clients and the costs and benefits over time of access to legal help when resolving disputes.

This project is funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO).

While longitudinal studies are common in fields such as health and education, they are very new to law. The “Measuring the Impact of Legal Service Interventions” project is one of the only Canadian civil justice studies ever to apply a longitudinal research approach to exploring questions related to the outcomes and impacts of different justice services.

This project, which is funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO), will assess the effectiveness of different types of legal service interventions in the context of specific legal problem types. This project will further seek to measure the impacts of different legal service interventions on the long-term health of justice seekers, while providing insights into the costs and benefits of such interventions.

The results of the “Measuring Impact” study will lead to a better and more accurate understanding of the relationship between legal service interventions, outcomes and impacts. This information will help the public to make informed decisions about how to deal with their legal problem(s). Findings from this research will also help governments, policy makers and funders to understand which justice pathways and tools show the most promise in particular scenarios. Finally, research from this project will also assist legal service providers with decisions around how to allocate budgets and scale different services.

CFCJ

• Lisa Moore
• Ab Currie
• Trevor C.W. Farrow

Institute for Social Research (ISR)

• Stella Park
• Richard Myles