Collaborative Research: Lay Deployment of Professional Legal Knowledge

尽管学说的假设与此相反，但现代司法体系的结构建立在这样一种假设之上，即个人既可以获取并运用那种曾经是法律专业人士专属领域的法律知识。大量的研究集中在提供获得专业法律知识的途径上。很少有人关注外行个人是否以及如何将这些知识运用到小额索赔诉讼中。这个项目将调查外行是否以及如何在知识获取问题被消除的情况下运用专业法律知识。该项目在通过实地实验评估非专业法律知识的运用方面具有创新性，这种方法可以阐明因果关系，但迄今很少在法律场所使用。该项目在方法上也具有创新性，将有关认知和行动的多个学科的见解纳入法律咨询的部署。实地实验包括两个比较：(i)解决家庭法律问题的法律方面的自助援助包与法律专业人员提供的代理服务，以及（ii）涵盖良好家庭管理实践的自助包与电话或亲自家庭管理咨询。自助包将直接邮寄给非专业人士，以消除人们是否有机会获得法律知识的问题。通过比较随机分配到分组的个体与随机分配到专业和准专业援助的个体所经历的结果，调查人员将发现非专业个人是否以及如何部署专业法律知识。该项目涉及在非专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，确保它对相关政策制定者有用。该项目还将有助于培训社会科学多学科方法方面的学者。

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.