If We Measure It, They Will Come: A Realist Evaluation Approach in a Therapeutic Jurisprudence Context

Abstract

Realist evaluation asks what works best for whom under what circumstances and why. Therapeutic jurisprudence seeks to explore how the therapeutic design and application of the law can support therapeutic and anti‐therapeutic outcomes. This article presents a proposed evaluation framework utilizing realist evaluation in a therapeutic jurisprudence context for family court interventions. Three key topics that make up the framework are described: mediation and moderation to document what works best for whom under what circumstances, analytical strategies to achieve good enough measurement of relevant constructs in the theory, and context‐mechanism‐outcome pattern hypotheses and generative causation used in realist evaluation.