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

人们普遍认为，穷人无法获得高质量的法律服务，提供这些服务的系统处于危机状态。然而，对提供高质量法律代理的性质、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几套试图描述质量服务是什么样子的标准，但缺乏经验基础来理解质量代表如何以及何时发生，或者它对接受质量代表的人有什么影响。该项目将主办一次讲习班，以增进关于法律代表的科学知识，并向提供法律代表的组织所作的政策和管理选择提供信息。该研讨会将汇集社会科学家、律师和其他参与提供法律服务的利益相关者，以推动对高质量法律代表这一主题的研究。科学界几乎没有开始研究高质量法律代表意味着什么的问题，更不用说研究其原因和后果了。在这次会议上，我们将汇集多个领域的专家，研究法律代表是什么样子，以及法院如何产生法律代表。我们还将思考，拥有高质量的代表对个人和司法系统都有什么不同。以研究法院工作方式为职业的学者将被安排与执业辩护律师、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对话，讨论如何推进高质量法律代理的研究。我们将把会议的几个讲座放在网上供将来参考，并将会议讨论的摘要制作成更广泛的出版物。

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.