Workshop Proposal: Quality Legal Representation: Definition, Measurement, Theory and Practice

人们普遍认为，穷人缺乏获得高质量法律服务的机会，提供这些服务的制度处于危机状态。然而，对提供优质法律代理的性质、原因或后果的科学调查是有限的。尽管在州和国家层面上存在着几套标准，试图描述优质服务的样子，但理解质量代表如何以及何时发生，或者它对接受服务的人有什么影响的经验基础却很少。该项目将举办一个讲习班，以促进关于法律代理的科学知识，并为提供法律代理的组织所作的政策和管理选择提供信息。该讲习班将汇集社会科学家、律师和参与提供法律服务的其他利益攸关方，以促进对优质法律代理这一主题的研究。科学几乎没有开始研究高质量的法律代表意味着什么，更不用说研究其原因或后果了。在这次会议上，我们将召集各个领域的专家来研究什么是法律代理，以及法院如何提供法律代理。我们还会思考，拥有高质量的代表对个人和司法系统都有什么影响。以调查法院如何运作为职业的学者将与执业辩护律师、他们的客户以及来自医学、教育和组织社会学等其他领域的研究人员进行对话，讨论如何推进高质量法律代表的研究。我们将把会议的部分演讲内容发布到网上，以备将来参考，并将制作会议讨论的摘要，以供更广泛的出版。

There is general agreement that the poor lack access to quality legal services and that the systems providing those services are in a state of crisis. Scientific investigation into the nature, causes or consequences of the provision of quality legal representation is limited, however. Despite the existence of several sets of standards at the state and national levels that attempt to describe what quality services look like, the empirical basis for understanding how and when quality representation occurs, or what difference it makes for those who receive it, is scant. This project will host a workshop to advance scientific knowledge on legal representation and inform the policy and management choices made by organizations providing that representation. That workshop will bring together social scientists, lawyers and other stakeholders involved in the provision of legal services to spur research into the subject of quality legal representation.Science has barely begun to look at the question of what quality legal representation means, still less to examine its causes or consequences. At this meeting, we will bring together specialists in a wide range of fields to examine what legal representation looks like, and how courts can produce it. We'll also be thinking about what difference it makes for individuals and the justice system alike to have high quality representation in place. Scholars who have made careers investigating how courts work will be placed in conversation with practicing defense lawyers, their clients, and researchers from other fields such as medicine, education and organizational sociology to talk about how research on quality legal representation can be advanced. We will post several of the lectures from the meeting online for future reference, and will produce a summary of the discussions at the meeting for wider publication.