{"id":1650,"date":"2015-03-23T10:55:32","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T14:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hlpr\/?p=1650"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:19:25","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:19:25","slug":"whats-access-to-justice-for-lets-get-more-philosophical-in-a-hurry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2015\/03\/23\/whats-access-to-justice-for-lets-get-more-philosophical-in-a-hurry\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s access to justice for? Let\u2019s get more philosophical. In a hurry."},"content":{"rendered":"

By D. James Greiner<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHarry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes. \u2018That will do,\u2019 he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor.\u201d —<\/em>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\u2019s Stone<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a statistician.\u00a0 My job is to measure things.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t want to be like Mr. Ollivander\u2019s tape measure.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to end up crumpled into a heap on the floor.\u00a0 I want the things I measure to be useful.\u00a0 Even more, I want the measurements I make to be used, which is a lot harder.<\/p>\n

What does that mean?<\/p>\n

It means that every time I think about measuring some thing, particularly if I\u2019m trying to find out whether that thing \u201cworks,\u201d the first thing I have to do is to ask, \u201cWhat is this thing for?\u201d.\u00a0 Without deciding first what the purpose of a thing is, there\u2019s no way to know what I should measure to see if that thing is working.<\/p>\n

Take legal services to low-income folks.\u00a0 Some lawyers and law students feel a strong desire to provide legal services to the poor.\u00a0 I\u2019m all for it.\u00a0 But unless the only reason we\u2019re providing the services is to make ourselves feel better, we ought to care about whether we\u2019re accomplishing anything by providing the services.\u00a0 And we ought to care about whether there might be a better or more efficient way to accomplish whatever it is that we\u2019re trying to do.\u00a0 That might mean less money for lawyers.\u00a0 But unless the point of legal services to the poor is full(er) employment for lawyers, that shouldn\u2019t bother us too much.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example:\u00a0 a few legal services providers have recently begun to provide services for defendants in small claims court debt collection cases.\u00a0 Incidentally, my guess is that this is a great idea.\u00a0 My speculation is that legal services providers have focused for too long on the \u201ciron triangle\u201d of government benefits, eviction defense, and family law.<\/p>\n

So, great.\u00a0 A focus on debt collection defendants.\u00a0 Super.\u00a0 Now, I want to measure whether debt collection litigation defense works.\u00a0 So how do I do that?<\/p>\n

I first have to ask what debt collection defense is for.<\/p>\n

Suppose I decide:\u00a0 debt collection litigation defense is about preventing the defendant from having to pay the debt.\u00a0 After all, a dismissal of the lawsuit with prejudice is the best possible legal outcome that a litigator can achieve through litigation defense of a debt collection defendant.\u00a0 OK, great, I can measure that.\u00a0 I can randomize a group of debt collection defendants to either an offer of representation or to no assistance, look at court records, and compare judgments in the offer-of-representation to the no-offer group.\u00a0 Super!\u00a0 Off I go to measure (as soon as I can find a legal aid office to do the study with me).<\/p>\n

Wait a minute.<\/p>\n

If the purpose of providing litigation defense to debt collection defendants is to keep the defendant from having to pay the debt, there\u2019s a far, far, far cheaper way to do that:\u00a0 Just buy the debt the plaintiff is suing on.\u00a0 Buy the debt on the open market, and then forgive it by telling the alleged debtor that she\u2019ll never have to pay.\u00a0 You can probably do that for, say, five cents on the dollar.\u00a0 So you can buy (and then forgive) a $2,000 debt for $100.\u00a0 Is that more efficient than litigation defense?\u00a0 It almost has to be.\u00a0 When you think about what a litigator needs to function (computer, printer, IT support, office, transportation, salary, benefits, administrative support, etc.), it\u2019s hard to think of how one can produce a functioning litigator for less than (this is a blind guess) $60,000 per year.\u00a0 And how many $2,000 debt collection cases can that lawyer realistically defend in a year?\u00a0 300?\u00a0 400?\u00a0 For $60,000, a legal aid office could buy and forgive 600 $2,000 debts.\u00a0 So, the best thing to do for the legal aid office is not to hire a lawyer; rather, the best thing to do is to buy debts on the open market and forgive them.\u00a0 You get twice the bang for the buck.<\/p>\n

The part about just buying debts feels wrong somehow.\u00a0\u00a0 More to come in the next post.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By D. James Greiner \u201cHarry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[105,171],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-legal-services","tag-statistics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/89\/2015\/03\/file000704919536.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-qC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}