Author Archives
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Environmental Improvements Brought by Legal Interventions in the Homes of Poorly Controlled Inner-City Adult Asthmatic Patients: A Proof-of-Concept Study
This study investigates how legal assistance improves physical housing conditions. O’Sullivan finds that when legal aid can address some of the underlying housing conditions — such as mold and mice — emergency department use drops and medication necessary is reduced.
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Effects of Parental and Attorney Involvement on Reunification in Juvenile Dependency Cases
This study finds that parents who obtain legal representation in child welfare cases are more likely to have their children returned to them. And, if the father is present, this likelihood increases further.
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Effective Child Support Policy for Low-Income Families: Evidence from Street Level Research
Waller and Plotnick perform a content analysis on qualitative research that studied how low-income parents interact with the child support system. They find that low-income parents prefer informal arrangements of child support over formal ones and do not comply with the support orders if they perceive them to be unfair, counterproductive, or punitive.
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Medical-Legal Strategies to Improve Infant Health Care: A Randomized Trial
This study on medical-legal partnerships find that when parents have access to legal services, they are more likely to complete their child’s immunization schedule on time (p<0.01) at six and eight months. Further, those infants were more likely to have routine preventative care visits.
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Comprehensive Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking: Findings From Clients in Three Communities
Researchers at the Urban Institute conducted interviews with survivors of human trafficking and social service providers. They find a large unmet need for legal services.
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Debt Relief and Debtor Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Consumer Bankruptcy Protection
Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed 500,000 bankruptcy filings. They find that chapter 13 protection increases earnings, decreases mortality, and decreases foreclosure rates. When individuals are no longer followed by their debt, they experience several positive externalities.
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Addressing Social Determinants Of Health Through Medical-Legal Partnerships
Researchers at the National Center for Medical Legal Partnerships published a primer on the components of medical-legal partnerships and how they can address the intersections between health, social, and environmental issues. There are more than 300 MLPs nationally and they analyze the shared components of each.
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Expanding Access to Justice with Social Impact Financing
Social Finance, a nonprofit that specializes in Pay for Success (PFS) models, conducted a study about how PFS could be used to scale effective legal aid programs. To do this, they conducted an assessment of the legal aid landscape, the evidence base, the capacity to scale, and the potential for public-private partnerships.
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Special Issue Introduction: Immigrants and the Family Court
In this article, Theo Liebman and Lauris Wren, take stock of the landscape of the intersection between immigration and family law. They present what we know about immigration and family court, what we need to know, and implications for family lawyers and judges.
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Sequencing Disadvantage: Barriers to Employment Facing Young Black and White Men with Criminal Records
In this article, researchers had teams of black and white men apply for low-wage jobs throughout New York City. Half of the participants were given resumes with criminal records and the other half did not. They find that having a criminal record had a greater negative effect if the participant was black.
Legal Aid Research 