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On August 15, 2020, the Utah Supreme Court issued Standing Order No. 15, which established a regulatory sandbox for new kinds of legal services and service providers—those disallowed under the traditional regulatory framework—could emerge and develop. The stated objective of this new regulatory framework is “to ensure consumers have access to a well-developed, high-quality, innovative, affordable, and competitive market for legal services.” Utah’s regulatory sandbox is built largely on the model IAALS developed and published in 2019.
Rigorous data collection and evaluation is critical in understanding whether Utah’s regulatory sandbox is meeting its stated goals. To that end, IAALS is acting as an independent third-party evaluator for the sandbox.
We are conducting an interim evaluation, which we anticipate publishing in early 2024. This is part of a broader, longer term evaluation effort that we expect to publish towards the end of the sandbox’s pilot period, which is set to expire in 2027.
Objectives:
- Conduct a social return on investment (SROI) analysis—similar to cost-benefit analysis—that will assess the value of the impacts that the sandbox has created in Utah, including understanding the monetary value associated with each of the sandbox’s outputs.
- Identify the goals that entrants into the sandbox have, the degree to which those goals align with the goals articulated by the Utah Supreme Court for the sandbox, and whether those goals are being achieved.
- Understand consumer satisfaction and service quality for legal services provided in the sandbox.