Provision Of Legal Services Research Articles

'Give Me My Allowance or I'll Run!' Everyday Resistance By Foster Children and Justice Outsourced

This essay will appear in a new book co-edited by Professor Michael L. Perlin and Dr. Kelly Frailing, JUSTICE OUTSOURCED: THE THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE IMPLICATIONS OF JUDICIAL DECISION-MAKING BY NON-JUDICIAL OFFICERS (Temple University Press) (2021). The chapter fits the overall theme of this book, which looks at the role of non-judicial officers as a hidden space in the U.S. judicial system through a Therapeutic Jurisprudence lens. It examines relationships between children and their state caregivers through their recorded experiences and testimonial voices, incorporating insights from poverty law and lawyering, child welfare law and policy, administrative law, clinical legal education, and TJ. The chapter builds on Austin Sarat’s socio-legal study of the complex relationships between welfare recipients and public assistance systems, and their ambivalent relationships with legal services providers, The Law is All Over”: Power, Resistance and the Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor, It integrates metaphors from this field study of the welfare poor into the analysis of formal and informal, abstract and material rules that envelope foster children, illustrated by examples from the University of Miami Children & Youth Law Clinic case docket. Although foster children can challenge decisions by the child welfare bureaucracy in court or fair hearings, many decisions fall beyond the purview of judicial or administrative due process. Less formal client advocacy enables children to resist state control as individuals and as a group and to overcome daily challenges such as getting personal allowances from caregivers. This paper is not to be cited until this book is published.

Adult Restorative Justice and Gendered Violence: Practitioner and Service Provider Viewpoints from Queensland, Australia

This paper presents findings from a study exploring the experiences and viewpoints of conventional criminal justice actors, social and legal service providers, and restorative justice (RJ) conference facilitators/convenors regarding the use of adult RJ conferencing in cases of intimate partner, domestic, family (IPDFV) and sexual violence (SV). Results indicated strong views about what IPDFV/SV victims needed from a system of justice, perceived failings of conventional justice systems in this regard, and the potential of RJ to deliver more efficacious justice. Nevertheless, using RJ in these cases posed concerns and challenges. Research participants identified steps that could be taken to overcome these issues through an RJ best practice framework underpinned by a victim-centred approach committed to victim empowerment, safety, healing, and practitioner training.

Big 4 Firms as Legal Service Providers: Implications for Audit Practice and Future Research Directions

SYNOPSIS The Big 4 accounting firms have expanded their legal service arms to historic proportions over the last decade, employing thousands of lawyers around the world. Although most of the Big 4's revenue from legal services is presently generated outside the U.S., they are now making inroads into the U.S. legal market, and rule changes are being considered that would further allow the Big 4 to offer legal services in the U.S. This essay summarizes the current status of Big 4 firms as legal service providers, discusses potential implications of legal offerings for their U.S. audit practices, and suggests directions for future research. Our proposed research questions are informed by several literatures, interviews with former Big 4 partners and practicing attorneys, and a survey of the general public. They center on the fundamental difference between audit and law practices, brand equity considerations, and culture changes within the Big 4.

Civil liability for non-performance and/or improper performance of the contract for the provision of legal services

Civil liability for non-performance and/or improper performance of the contract for the provision of legal services

Clinic in the Times of COVID-19

This paper considers the challenges faced by clinical legal education programs in responding effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic. Client needs are different and more acute. They also need to be balanced with the safety of students and staff. Services will need to be delivered remotely. The article considers some of the key legal issues generated by the pandemic, highlighting the need for clinics and other legal service providers to respond to these emerging legal and related needs. In responding, clinics will be best served by adhering to their pedagogical principles in the design of new services and in reshaping existing practices. This should enable clinical programs to ensure that the experience of students remains distinctive, albeit different.

Promoting the quality of legal aid in South Africa through better coordination of service provision

ABSTRACT Socio-economicaIIy, South Africa is a grossIy unequaI country. For the indigent there is a cIear need for IegaI aid services to enabIe meaningfuI access to the IegaI system as a mechanism to promote greater sociaI justice. This articIe proposes mechanisms to meet two aims: to promote high-IeveI free IegaI service provision through much improved coordination between IegaI service providers; and to incuIcate a co-operative and integrated approach to IegaI aid services for satisfactory standards of IegaI aid provision. This research has a quaIitative focus in contrast to aImost aII research on IegaI aid in South Africa, which has concentrated on the expansion of IegaI aid services quantitativeIy- ie in terms of increasing the number of cIients being assisted. If legal aid service provision is not of an adequate standard, it puts into serious question the value of the service delivery. A high quality and co-ordinated legal aid network is well positioned to act as a conduit for the realisation of legal rights and entitlements for a better standard of living for all. This article proposes various means for a more cohesive legal aid system in South Africa as well as the advantages which such cohesion would inevitably have for both legal service providers and those whom they serve. Keywords: South Africa; legal aid; civil legal matters; holistic; co-ordination; social justice; quality work; qualitative.

Deregulation and the Lawyers' Cartel

At one time, the legal profession largely regulated itself. However, based on the economic notion that increased competition would benefit consumers, jurisdictions have deregulated their legal markets by easing rules relating to attorney advertising, fees, and, most recently, nonlawyer ownership of law firms. Yet, despite reformers’ high expectations, legal markets today resemble those of previous decades, and most legal services continue to be delivered by traditional law firms. How to account for this seeming inertia? We argue that the competition paradigm is theoretically flawed because it fails to fully account for market failures relating to asymmetric information, imperfect information, and negative externalities. In addition, the regulatory costs imposed on sophisticated consumers such as corporate purchasers of legal services differ radically from those imposed on ordinary consumers who use legal services infrequently. Merely increasing the number and types of legal services providers cannot make legal markets more efficient. We illustrate our theoretical account with evidence from the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia. For legal markets to better serve the public, regulators must tailor solutions by segment. Regulators should seek to minimize negative externalities associated with the delivery of legal services to the corporate segment and confront information asymmetries that lead to the maldistribution of legal services in the consumer segment. Deregulation alone is insufficient and may in fact exacerbate existing market failures.

Education for the provision of technologically enhanced legal services

Legal professionals increasingly rely on digital technologies when they provide legal services. The most advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) promise great advancements of legal services, but lawyers are traditionally not educated in the field of digital technology and thus cannot fully unlock the potential of such technologies in their practice. In this paper, we identify five distinct skills and knowledge gaps that prevent lawyers from implementing AI and digital technology in the provision of legal services and suggest concrete models for education and training in this area. Our findings and recommendations are based on a series of semi-structured interviews, design and delivery of an experimental course in ‘Law and Computer Science’, and an analysis of the empirical data in view of wider debates in the literature concerning legal education and 21st century skills.

Using Latent Class Analysis to Identify Types of Elder Abuse: Multidisciplinary Team Interventions

Elder abuse is a complex, multifaceted problem that can devastate the lives of older adults, and overwhelm medical, legal, and social service providers. To address this problem, the Elder Abuse Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) is an oft-utilized intervention that brings individuals from various professional disciplines together to address elder abuse. With the passage of the Elder Justice Act of 2010, the Federal Government included budgetary provisions in support of a particularly promising model of MDT: The Elder Abuse Forensic Center (EAFC). Although the EAFC model has been implemented at four sites in California with promising outcomes, the specific structures, processes, and practices that currently define this model have not been validated with rigorous research of other MDTs in the United States. In this study, we surveyed 81 elder abuse MDT key informants across the country, using instruments guided by the most current EAFC model (Yonashiro-Cho et al., 2019). We then used Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to group these teams based on EAFC model characteristics. We hypothesized that elder abuse MDTs would fall on a spectrum: those that were identical or nearly identical to the EAFC model, those that had some EAFC qualities, and those that were not identical. Results of the LCA supported our hypothesis and revealed three types of elder abuse MDTs: EAFCs (n=26), Semi-EAFCs (n=24), and Non-EAFCs (n=31). Policy makers, advocates, and professionals seeking to form new teams or support existing teams can draw on these findings to make decisions about MDT creation and sustainability.

The Death of the Legal Profession and the Future of Law

This article identifies the five large-scale changes that have happened or are happening to the legal profession: 1. How technology solutions have moved law from a wholly bespoke service to one that resembles an off-the-shelf commodity; 2. How globalisation and outsourcing upend traditional expectations that legal work is performed where the legal need is, and shifts production away from high cost centres to low cost centres; 3. How managed legal service providers – who are low cost, technology-enabled, and process-driven – threaten traditional commercial practice; 4. How technology platforms will diminish the significance of the law firm; and 5. How artificial intelligence and machine learning systems will take over a significant portion of lawyers’ work by the end of the 2020s. The article discusses how these changes have transformed or are transforming the practice of law, and explains how institutions within the law will need to respond if they are to remain relevant (or even to survive). More broadly, it examines the social implications of a legal environment where a large percentage of the practice of law is performed by institutions that sit outside the legal profession.

Legal Tech in Legal Service: Challenging the Traditional Legal Landscape in Malaysia

Digital technologies are now extending its function to the legal profession. But the existence of these technologies otherwise known as legal tech or law tech is challenging the traditional legal profession. The nature of legal practice regulation in Malaysia and the United Kingdom (UK) permits only lawyers and authorised persons as legal service providers. As a result, the legal tech or law tech companies although able to facilitate the service in the legal profession are met with resistance and/or indifference. Should the traditional legal profession fear the invasion of this legal tech? This article aims to analyse the situation in Malaysia and the UK. It examines the impact of technology on legal service and legal profession in Malaysia and in the UK. The article also highlights the implication of this legal technology on the laws governing the legal profession in Malaysia. Through analyses of key Malaysian cases, the study finds that the Bar Council has the power to halt the operation of legal tech companies in providing any legal service in this country.As a result, the Bar has been criticised for being a hindrance to the development of legal tech in Malaysia. In contrast, the UK and the United States of America (US) have been very receptive to legal technology despite the exclusivity in the legal profession.

Honorarium Notary for Legal Services in Making Authentic Deed

The purpose of this study was to analyze the Notary's honorarium for legal services in making authentic deeds. Notary is one of the professions in the legal field, which provides legal services for citizens in terms of making authentic deeds. Every authentic deed made, of course, a notary as a legal service provider is entitled to receive an honorarium. This research is a normative juridical study, with a descriptive approach. In this research, it is further studied regarding the Notary's honorarium for legal services in making authentic deeds. In accordance with the provisions in Article 36 paragraph (2) UUJN, Notary fees for legal services in making authentic deeds are based on the economic value and sociological value of the deed that has been drawn up. In Article 36 paragraph (3) of the JN Law, it is determined that the economic value is determined from the object of each deed. Thus, the Notary's honorarium is important for legal services as an authentic deed maker.

Clinic in the times of COVID19

This article considers the challenges faced by clinical legal education programmes in responding effectively to the COVID19 pandemic. Client needs are different and more acute. They also need to be balanced with the safety of students and staff. Services will need to be delivered remotely. The article considers some of the key legal issues generated by the pandemic, highlighting the need for clinics and other legal service providers to respond to these emerging legal and related needs. In responding, clinics will be best served by adhering to their pedagogical principles in the design of new services and in reshaping existing practices. This should enable clinical programmes to ensure that the experience of students remains distinctive, albeit different. The experience of the Monash Clinical Program is provided to demonstrate the value of using a clinical best practices framework to guide the responses to the challenges generated by COVID19. Research related to clinical best practices undertaken as part of the planning for implementation of the Monash Clinical Guarantee has shaped the programme’s response to COVID19. The article then considers a range of issues generated by the move to virtual delivery of client services and the clinic’s teaching programme. The article concludes with contemplation of how clinical programmes can best plan for ‘the new normal’ that will present itself after the pandemic.

Legal Technology and the Future of Women in Law

Much has been written about how automation will change the legal profession as a whole, less so about how automation might affect women in legal practice. This paper briefly maps the likely changes that legal tech (legal technology) will bring to the provision of legal services, and explores how these changes might affect the barriers to advancement that women face in the profession. It determines that, while the use of legal tech may improve women’s work/life balance and overall job satisfaction by bringing about more flexible working hours, positive changes to the billing hours’ system, and fairer hiring and promotion mechanisms, an unfettered inclusion of legal tech might lead to increased working hours for less wages, increased competition for case files among associates, and the perpetuation of existing gender biases when using algorithms in the hiring and promotion process. Finally, the paper makes several recommendations on how law societies, bar associations and other relevant regulatory bodies could ensure that legal tech promotes rather than hinders Equality & Diversity in the legal profession. It proposes that: (1) detailed data on men and women lawyers should be collected to better inform equality and diversity policies; (2) law firms should be required to report on their progress in pursuing equality and diversity; (3) management techniques to promote work/life balance and more flexible pricing systems should be encouraged; (4) female entrepreneurship in legal tech should be promoted; and, (5) technological due process procedures should be required when using algorithms in law firm management to ensure fairness, accuracy and accountability.

Legal Technology: The Great Disruption?

This paper considers how legal technology, defined here as the use of digital information and communication technologies to automate or part automate legal work process, to provide decision support to legal service providers, and to provide legal information and advice directly to clients/end users, is re-shaping both legal work processes, and the organisation and governance of legal practice. Starting from an essentially descriptive and functional account of legal technology, the paper explores its role in changing the temporal-spatial and organisational characteristics of practice, and in creating new challenges for the regulation of legal services. The paper then moves explicitly into sociological theory to address the question how new legal technologies are reshaping the landscape of professional knowledge and expertise itself. It concludes by drawing together implications of these various strands for the future sustainability and legitimacy of the legal profession in its present form.

“Hay que seguir en la lucha”: An FQHC’s Community Health Action Approach to Promoting Latinx Immigrants’ Individual and Community Resilience

Latinx immigrants have poorer access to health care, compared to non-Latinx Whites. Federally-Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) provide clinical and community programing to address their clients’ health needs. One mechanism by which FQHC’s may strengthen Latinx immigrant well-being is by promoting their individual and community resilience. We partnered with La Clínica del Pueblo (La Clínica), an FQHC serving Latinx immigrants in Washington, DC and Prince George’s County, Maryland. We conducted in-depth interviews in Spanish with 30 La Clínica clients to explore the daily adversities they faced, how they coped, and how La Clínica helped them cope. We conducted thematic analysis using Dedoose software. All participants were from Central America; 37% were undocumented. Participants were 18–78 years old, 70% cis-females, 23% cis-males (10% gay men), and 7% transgender. 57% reported a serious health issue, including diabetes. Participants identified three main adversities: immigration legal status, language, and isolation/depression. Residents of Prince George’s, compared to DC, as well as sexual/gender minorities, reported more barriers to accessing health care. Sources of individual resilience for participants included fighting to improve their children’s lives, relying on supportive networks, and using La Clínica as a safety net to overcome health access barriers. Sources of community resilience included La Clínica’s safe spaces, support groups, referrals to outside legal service providers, and health promoter training. Latinx immigrants face multiple daily adversities, but we find evidence that La Clínica’s community health action approach promotes their resilience. We offer a conceptual model for how FQHCs can foster resilience and strengthen immigrant health.

Challenges of Payment Methods in the Iranian Health System and Solutions: A Qualitative Study

Background: The implementation of different reimbursement methods has various positive and negative effects on the health system of different countries. Identifying the challenges of these methods is essential to improve these reimbursement methods and modify them if required. This article aimed to qualitatively assess the challenges of current hospitals' payment systems in the Iranian health system and determine the required solutions for modifying these payment systems. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in 2019. Semi-structured interviews were conducted recruiting 20 experts including operational, middle and top managers working in three different levels of health systems. Data collection was continued until it reached a saturation point. MAXQDA 10 was used for data analysis. The data content analysis method was used to analyze the data and the themes and categories were determined. Results: The challenges of the payment systems were categorized into four main themes regarding policy, cost, regulatory and functional challenges, and 15 sub-themes. The findings related to the proposed strategies were presented in six main themes consisting of legal solutions, structural reform, cost, quality improvement, service provider and client, and monitoring and evaluation; and 12 sub-themes. Conclusion: This study showed that the health systems in Iran face various structural and procedural challenges in terms of reimbursement mechanisms. Therefore, it is recommended that policymakers pay attention to these challenges before making any changes. Using hybrid payment systems can be one of the proper solutions.

Multilingual language policy discourses and superdiversity at the peripheries: exploring language policy and practice in Eritrea

ABSTRACT Based on critical perspectives where normative and essentialist perceptions of language and ethnicity in policy discourses are challenged, and where the lack of attention to forms of social uses of language are highlighted, this paper discusses the limitations of even the most progressive pluralist language policy to capture the cultural and linguistic ‘diversification of diversity’ in Eritrea, a country in East Africa. The language policy in the country embraces all the languages of the country and promotes their use in education, mass media, provision of legal services, etc. Policy documents mention the equality of the nine languages. However, the presumed number of languages and, to some extent, their naming reflect a persistent colonial and missionary legacy, echoing the argument of some sociolinguists that languages in Africa are the creation of colonialists or missionaries. Based on insights from recent sociolinguistic and ethnographic studies on diversity, language and language use, this paper problematizes the notion of language, the naming of languages and their enumeration to highlight the limits of multilingual policy discourses to capture the superdiversity in countries of the global south, even within pluralistic language policy contexts such as the one in Eritrea.

How Artificial Intelligence Changes the Role of Lawyers in the Provision of Legal Services

How Artificial Intelligence Changes the Role of Lawyers in the Provision of Legal Services

Договір про надання правових послуг

Умови ринкової економіки визначають попит і пропозицію на безліч послуг, з'являється потреба в їх своєрідного ринку. Одним з інститутів цивільного права є договори з надання послуг. Це надзвичайно важлива група договірних зобов’язань, до яких належать перевезення, транспортне експедирування, доручення, страхування, комісія, туристичне обслуговування, зберігання, інформаційні послуги, позика, кредит, банківський рахунок, управління майном, оплатне надання інших послуг тощо. Однак, незважаючи на відображення в Цивільному кодексі України особливостей регулювання зобов'язальних правовідносин, предметом яких виступають послуги, виявляється недостатність і теоретичної і практичної бази договірного регулювання відносин, що складаються з приводу надання правових послуг. Численні зміни в законодавстві України: Цивільний процесуальний кодекс України викладений в новій редакції, зміни до Закону України «Про адвокатуру та адвокатську діяльність» створюють актуальність дослідження теми роботи. Можливість укласти договір, який має чітко визначену і закріплену в законодавстві конструкцію створює попит на таку конструкцію, оскільки встановлені в договорі умови є важливими для виконання сторонами. Ключові слова: договір про надання послуг, договір про надання правових послуг,договір про правову допомогу,представник, адвокат, захисник