Can you tell us about a research topic you are working on this summer? 

As part of a larger project on rural access to justice, we are proposing a new model of access to justice. Instead of focusing on general notions of supply and demand, our model looks at legal need, comprised of legal vulnerability and contextual factors, and legal resilience, which is determined by the supply of legal information and expertise and access to that supply. Within this model, we are building a Legal Vulnerability Index, which will measure potential legal need in a community using a methodology and data that is easily accessible and replicable.

How does the research strengthen the area of law you are in?

Access to justice research, particularly in rural communities, is more commonly focused on a single aspect of legal supply: How many lawyers are there? How far away are they? Our research is part of a larger movement to shift the focus from attorneys to the people actually experiencing legal problems and to think broadly and creatively about policy interventions to increase access to justice.

Can you describe the approaches you are using in your research?

With the Legal Vulnerability Index, we want to build a tool that all communities can use and one which can be honed by scholarly conversation, critique, and revision. The LVI will be modeled on the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index. It will use accessible data from the Census, straightforward coding that will be available to the public, and foster cross-jurisdiction comparison of legal vulnerability. Because it will use Census data that covers all parts of the country, we can avoid the urbanormativity that grounds most access to justice conversations and interventions and leads to failed efforts in rural communities. And because it isn’t focused on lawyers, we hope it expands the range of possible interventions that policy-makers will consider.

What do you consider the most significant impact of your research thus far?

Rural access to justice discourse is very much shaped by the parallel narrative of a decline in the number of rural attorneys.One facet of our work to this point has been to recognize these as related but distinct phenomena. We currently “measure” access to justice by reference to the number of attorneys practicing in a county or per capita without an understanding of the actual need in that place or population. The LVI will help determine where the greatest needs exist. This is important as states like Iowa consider legislative action to incentivize attorneys to move to rural areas. The LVI could provide guidance on where, and what type of, an attorney could have the most impact on improving access to justice.