SCC-PG: Just Connect Us: A Community-Oriented Civil Justice Data Commons

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In the United States, cities are increasingly connected through a digital infrastructure that integrates services with the lives of their residents. These systems make cities “smart” by producing real-time data to manage services efficiently and promote the well-being of residents. This project extends this model to the courts, legal service providers, and administrative agencies that make up a community’s civil justice system. These institutions assist residents with legal problems like housing, debt, child custody, and public benefits. But, despite their centrality in people’s lives, they are neither “smart” nor “connected.” Currently, data from courts, legal service providers, and administrative agencies are collected in multiple formats and housed among multiple institutions. Access to these data, moreover, is governed by a hodgepodge of statutes, regulations, and rules. As a consequence, researchers and policymakers do not know whether the justice system furthers people’s well-being. This project investigates what rules and data standards will facilitate the sharing of data by civil justice institutions in a data commons to produce knowledge about how well these institutions serve people and what their long-term effects are on people’s lives.This project adopts a two-pronged approach to design a civil justice data commons. It will engage with civil justice stakeholders in several communities to understand their interests and concerns. What incentives exist to share data? What privacy concerns arise? The second prong involves engaging with academic data scientists about the technical requirements and best practices for the creation of a viable data commons in the civil justice field, learning from the development of data commons in other areas (e.g., biomedical data science; social survey research). By developing best practices for data management and sharing among community civil justice institutions, this planning study will encourage state and county courts, legal service providers, government labs, and policy institutes to take steps towards building a civil justice data commons in their communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.