Collaborative Research: Lay Deployment of Professional Legal Knowledge

尽管有相反的假设，但现代司法系统的结构建立在这样的假设之上，即个人可以获取和使用过去是法律专业人员专属领域的那种法律知识。大量研究集中在提供获得专业法律知识的方法上。很少有人关注外行个人是否以及如何将这些知识运用于例如小额索赔诉讼法庭的案件中。这个项目将调查在获得知识的问题消除后，非专业个人是否以及如何使用专业法律知识。该项目在通过实地试验评估非专业法律知识的部署方面具有创新性，这是一种可以阐明因果关系的方法，迄今在法律网站中很少使用。该项目在将关于认知和行动的多个学科的见解纳入法律咨询部署方面也具有方法创新。实地试验包括两个比较：(1)涉及家庭法律问题的法律方面的自助援助包与由法律专业人员提供的代表，以及(2)涵盖良好家庭管理做法的自助包与电话或亲自提供的家庭管理咨询。自助邮包将直接邮寄给普通人，以消除人们是否有机会获得法律知识的问题。通过比较被随机分组的个人所经历的结果与随机接受专业和准专业协助的个人所经历的结果，调查人员将发现非专业个人是否以及如何使用专业法律知识。该项目涉及在非职业化环境中使用法律知识的重要问题。调查人员将广泛传播他们的发现，确保其对相关政策制定者有用。该项目还将有助于对社会科学多学科方法的学者进行培训。

Despite doctrine that assumes to the contrary, the structure of the modern justice system rests on the assumption that individuals can both access and deploy the kind of legal knowledge that used to be the exclusive province of legal professionals. A great deal of research focuses on methods of providing access to professional legal knowledge. Little has focused on whether and how lay individuals can deploy such knowledge in, for example, litigating small claims court cases. This project will investigate whether and how lay individuals can deploy professional legal knowledge when questions of access to knowledge are eliminated. The project is innovative in evaluating the deployment of lay legal knowledge via a field experiment, a method that can illuminate causation and that has as yet been seldom used within legal sites. The project is also methodologically innovative in integrating insights from multiple disciplines concerning cognition and action into the deployment of legal advice. The field experiment consists of two comparisons: (i) a self-help assistance packet addressing the legal aspects of household legal problems versus an offer of representation from legal professionals, and (ii) a self-help packet covering good household management practices versus telephone or in-person household management counseling. The self-help packets will be mailed directly to lay individuals to eliminate the question of whether people had access to legal knowledge. By comparing the outcomes experienced by individuals randomized to the packets versus outcomes experienced by individuals randomized to professional and quasi-professional assistance, the investigators will discover whether and how lay individuals can deploy professional legal knowledge. The project addresses important issues concerning the use of legal knowledge in a deprofessionalized environment. The investigators will disseminate their findings broadly, ensuring it is useful to relevant policymakers. The project will also contribute to the training of scholars in multi-disciplinary methods in the social sciences.