US Justice Needs Project Benefits From Collaboration with Our Partners

Last week, IAALS and our project partner HiiL (The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law) cohosted a series of virtual Justice Data Lab meetings with our US Justice Needs Advisory Committee and a few additional partners. In August launched the individual survey of legal problems, receiving responses from 10,000 individuals from across the United States, and we are now analyzing the data. The Justice Data Lab meetings play a critical role in that analysis. The goals of the data lab meeting were to:

• Share the preliminary data with our Advisory Committee members;
• Improve the validity and reliability of the study findings by pulling in knowledge and context from external partners;
• Get their input on how best to interpret the findings;
• Begin to outline action steps to improve access to justice in an evidence-based way.

We had originally planned to gather in Denver for an in-person convening, but shifted the meeting to a virtual format of short presentations and breakout groups. Despite the revised format, we benefited greatly from the feedback and brainstorming with our partners. This set of meetings has left us with much work to do and great insights into how to do it. We look forward to hitting the ground running in January with additional data analysis. We are excited to release a series of reports in the spring of 2021!