This chapter presents the second step of the systemic planning for people-centred legal and justice services. It highlights the main approaches to mapping legal needs as a method to understand them better, where and when they are needed, and the location of service providers.
Equal Access to Justice for Inclusive Growth
Putting People at the Centre
Chapter 4. Mapping legal and justice needs
Abstract
Step 2 rationale
The second stage of systematic planning for people-centred legal and justice services is closely related to the identification and measurement of legal needs: it investigates where and when these legal needs are experienced, the greatest and the most needed. Undertaking this exercise across a geographical area or determining at which stage in a process assistance is required assists governments and service providers to plan and deliver services where and when they are most appropriate. Mapping of legal needs is by definition a people-centric exercise since it requires policymakers to look closely at the location where individuals and groups require services.
Mapping helps informs policymaking and targeting of resources. Six approaches to mapping are discussed in this chapter. The first section outlines data analytics approaches that use proxies as legal needs: official sources of social, economic and demographic data, administrative data and other complementary and local data sources. These approaches are sometimes combined. The two following sections review other methodologies that are independent of legal needs surveys: mapping the location of existing legal and justice services, community-based mapping projects and journey mapping of particular justice processes to better understand legal needs in specific contexts and locations.
Data analytics and predictive models: Locating legal needs by proxy
National legal needs surveys provide an important foundation for mapping legal needs. It helps gain a sound understanding of who has experienced what kinds of legal needs at a jurisdictional (national or state) level. Similarly to other fields of government activity, small area modelling is necessary to identify legal needs in greater detail at the regional and sub-regional levels within jurisdictions.
To do so, countries may find it useful to “map” (or estimate) legal needs down to sub‑regional or lower levels corresponding to lower levels of political governance and/or levels useful for planning and delivering services (at least down to the level at which individual legal and justice services are planned and delivered). Legal needs surveys are often unable to provide detailed needs analysis down to small geographic areas, or even below the national or state levels. Sample sizes are usually such that only for larger geographic entities will there be sufficient survey respondent numbers to allow estimates of important parameters to be made.
A number of mechanisms can be used as alternative mechanisms to estimate the legal needs for smaller geographic entities, using insights drawn from:
official sources of social, economic and demographic data
administrative data
other complementary and local data sources
official sources of social, economic and demographic data.
Official sources of social, economic and demographic data
For those countries which undertook a national legal needs survey, there generally exist sufficient insights into the key demographic groups and other variables that impact upon legal needs. For instance, insights might include which demographic groups are most vulnerable to particular types of legal problems and the demographic groups more or less likely to take appropriate action to address those problems. Where this is the case, it is possible to utilise official sources of data – such as national statistics agency data concerning social, economic and demographic features of the country – to estimate legal needs down to smaller geographic areas. This can be done through the development of bespoke proxy indicators of legal needs or by simply focusing attention on particular demographic groups or locations (such as in rural, regional or remote areas), in accordance with national priorities.
This section focuses first on the potential use of proxies for legal needs to map these needs using the example of an Australian case study in New South Wales.
Developing and applying proxies for locating legal need: New South Wales case study
Geographical identification through general disadvantage indicator
There are a number of ways to approach the development of proxy indicators of legal needs that take into account relevant factors in the right balance. Area-based measures of general disadvantage, such as the Australian Socio-Economic Index for Areas (SEIFA), developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), are considered to be a proxy for the location of legal needs in the Australian context, given the general correlation of higher levels of an individual’s disadvantage with higher levels of legal needs experienced by that individual. However, such indicators might be limited as indicators of legal problem prevalence, in part because the experience of legal problems is widespread and not necessarily related to the characteristics included in the index (People et al., 2015[1]) (depending upon how the index is constructed).
Using the Australian example, based on the LAW Survey findings (Coumarelos et al., 2012[2]), about half of Australian residents experience a legal problem every year. Some people, due to their personal circumstances, are at increased risk of experiencing a problem, e.g. single parents, people with a disability and the unemployed. Having more than one type of disadvantage increases the risk significantly. However, it is important to note that not everyone who experiences a legal problem will identify it as such and not everyone who does require or prefer a legal response will seek legal assistance. Table 4.1 shows the average percentage of each priority group that experienced at least one legal problem in a year.
Priority target group identification through legal capability indicator
Given that the experience of legal problems is relatively widespread and not everyone may require or prefer a legal response, an alternative approach to service planning may be to focus on the use of priority/target group data to map legal needs and identify who is most likely to need access to legal assistance services once a problem is experienced, i.e. focus on those people who are least likely to have the personal or financial resources to manage their own problems and are most likely to be eligible for legal assistance services.
To facilitate this alternative approach to service planning, the Law and Justice Foundation in New South Wales, Australia, developed the Need for Legal Assistance Services (NLAS capability) indicator founded on the concept of legal capability.1 Other earlier predictive models were developed by the Community Legal Service in England (United Kingdom) and also compared to general deprivation indexes as a means to map local legal needs (Pleasence et al., 2001[3]).
Table 4.1. Average percentage of priority groups that experienced at least one legal problem in 2012
Note: These figures are for groups that in some cases vary from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census definitions.
Source: Coumarelos, C. et al. (2012[2]), Legal Australia-Wide Survey: Legal Need in Australia in Access to Justice and Legal Needs, Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales.
Legal needs research consistently highlighted that some people are less capable of managing legal problems themselves. Legal capability is defined as the personal characteristics or competencies necessary for an individual to resolve legal problems effectively. It generally comprises capabilities across a number of domains including sufficient cognitive, communication and literacy skills to successfully seek and obtain legal information or assistance (McDonald and People, 2014[4]). People with low legal capability are often less able to use self-help and unbundled services effectively and are unlikely to have the option of using a private lawyer due to financial constraints.
Legal capability cuts across all priority groups and problem types. The NLAS (Capability) indicator provides a proxy measure of legal capability by identifying people aged 15 to 64 with low personal income who also have a low level of education. As such it identifies those people likely to have limited access to personal financial resources and likely to have low knowledge and skill achievement. Other aspects of capability such as psychological readiness to act are not currently included in the indicator. Older people, due to their lower average income and lower average educational attainment are not included in the NLAS indicator as to do so would skew the profile to that of older people. Instead, it is recommended that the priority group “people aged 65 and over” is taken into account separately when planning services, recognising that overall, they are at a lower risk of experiencing legal problems.
The NLAS (Capability) indicator identifies 8% of the Australian population aged 15 to 64 as most likely to be in need of legal assistance services. Low capability clients are likely to have complex needs, and delivering services to these clients will present additional challenges and resource requirements, particularly when they are located in more remote areas. Although the absolute number of potential clients in these areas may be small, the lack of alternative accessible options for assistance may increase the relative priority of providing services to these communities.
Figure 4.1 displays the NLAS (Capability) indicator for the Greater Sydney area and for the remainder of the State of New South Wales respectively. These maps can assist service planning to determine where the greater number of legal assistance services are likely to be needed to meet the legal need in the community.
Figure 4.1. Legal capability proxy in New South Wales: Need for Legal Assistance Services (NLAS) capability
Note: Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) geographic area “SA2”. SA2s generally have a population range of 3 000 to 25 000 persons and an average population of about 10 000 persons.
Sources: Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics Data (ABS); Mirrlees-Black, C. and S. A. Williams (2015[5]), Collaborative Planning Resource - Jurisdictional Data: NSW, Law and Justice Foundation of NSW, Sydney.
In developing the NLAS indicator, the Law and Justice Foundation believed that, due to quite different characteristics and geographic distributions of key target populations, it might be useful to develop some specifically targeted indicators. Thus, in addition to the NLAS (Capability) indicator preferred for general use, two other NLAS indicators were created, focusing on two different target groups: indigenous persons and persons belonging to culturally and linguistically diverse communities, referred to in Australia as culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD).
Using proxies in other countries
Many OECD and partner countries collect reliable census and related data that can be used as a useful proxy to locate legal needs and the need for legal services.
Social housing
People living in disadvantaged housing and public housing have been shown in legal needs surveys to be one of the groups highly vulnerable to legal problems. Assuming that those living in social housing are likely to be on low income, the location of social housing tenants might be a useful proxy for mapping the local need for legal assistance services. Figure 4.2 maps social housing across Paris and is an example of a mapping exercise that could be applied across all regions of France and other countries.
Figure 4.2. Legal need proxy: Social housing in Paris
Source: Mairie de Paris (2016[6]), Logements sociaux financés à Paris, https://opendata.paris.fr/explore/dataset/logements_sociaux_finances_a_paris/map/?location=12,48.85945,2.33388.
Unemployment rates
Similarly, a number of legal needs surveys have highlighted that unemployed people are also highly vulnerable to a greater number of legal problems in any period and, being likely to be on low income, are likely to also be a useful proxy for the location of the need for legal assistance services. Figure 4.3 highlights the varying rates of unemployment among 15-24 year-olds in the Saint-Denis area of France, to the north-east of Paris.
Figure 4.3. Legal need proxy: Unemployment rate
Source: INSEE – Recensement de population (2008) in Observatoire Départemental - Seine Saint Denis (2013[7]), Panorama Cartographique d’Indicateurs Sociaux.
Rigorously obtained census data can also be useful as it can allow for the mapping of trends and thus can assist in the forecasting and planning for legal services into the future. Figure 4.4, again from the Saint-Denis area of France, highlights the rate of change in the number of unemployed people in various areas within the same to near region between 1999 and 2008. This sort of data and mapping can be very useful for planning for change of legal needs over time.
Figure 4.4. Legal need proxy trend: Rate of change of unemployed
Source: INSEE (2008[8]), 2008 Population Census.
Priority demographic groups
In Australia, the 2015 National Partnership Agreement (NPA) on Legal Assistance Services between the Commonwealth of Australia and the states/territories identifies a number of priority groups for legal assistance services. The NPA requires that Australian states and territories use an evidence base to identify priority clients and the geographic locations in which people have the highest levels of legal needs. The Law and Justice Foundation of NSW has developed a Collaborative Planning Resource (LJFNSW, 2018[9]) to support this activity by providing information for each jurisdiction on the geographic distribution of:
the priority groups for legal assistance services identified by the NPA
those people most likely to be in need of legal assistance services for financial or other reasons.
Figure 4.5 highlights the application of this approach, mapping the distribution of two different groups – indigenous Australians and people from a culturally and linguistically diverse background (CALD). Note the contrast in the distribution of target groups across the state and the implications this would have for legal service providers targeting indigenous and CALD people.
Figure 4.5. Geographic distribution of legal needs, based on priority groups in New South Wales
Note: Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) geographic area “SA2”. SA2s generally have a population range of 3 000 to 25 000 persons and an average population of about 10 000 persons.
Sources: Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics Data (ABS); Mirrlees-Black, C. and S. A. Williams (2015[5]), Collaborative Planning Resource - Jurisdictional Data: NSW, Law and Justice Foundation of NSW, Sydney.
With robust national census data or the equivalent, there can be a certain degree of confidence in the location of the key demographic groups or other correlating variables down to lower geographic area entities. The key limitation of this approach is that it assumes that the characteristics of a particular demographic group observed in the legal needs survey findings at the state or national level can apply uniformly across all members of the demographic group in all areas, no matter how aggregated or disaggregated. While this could be a reasonable approach and only ever yield estimation, it may be that the use of complementary and other local data (discussed below) can be used to provide a more nuanced understanding at a local level for planning.
Administrative data
Administrative data concerning the delivery of legal services is important, particularly in providing insights where services are being delivered. Administrative data obtained from legal and justice service providers and agencies generally involve large datasets representing “populations” of service users. It may highlight sufficient evidence for small geographic entities that facilitates the data to be plotted or mapped at a finer geographic scale. Indeed, when services are delivered, most agencies collect some geographic information about the residence of the clients or the location of the incident. In this aspect, administrative data can be more versatile than survey data in mapping legal needs. However, as noted above, administrative data is mainly a reflection of the services delivered rather than adequate representation of the legal needs. There are a number of limitations, therefore, in using administrative data as a proxy for legal needs.
Another component of identifying and measuring legal needs is to locate existing legal and justice services. The legal and justice service infrastructure is often different between countries and each country will have a range of different services that are structured, targeted and operate differently.
While limited in scope, this relatively simple mapping provides a snapshot of regional variations (particularly urban-rural divisions) and a starting point for inquiry into the more contextualised assessment of legal needs. A similar but broader approach was taken by the American Bar Foundation in the first stage of its Access Across America project which features a state-by-state portrait of the services available to assist the United States public in accessing civil justice.
Substantial limitations to the use of administrative data as a proxy for legal needs exist. Whether it be in relation to the use of legal assistance services (e.g. legal aid) or the court or tribunal services, administrative data may leave out people with legal needs that do not use the service (see also Table 3.1).
Some of the challenges that may be faced in mapping the legal services include:
Complexity in jurisdictions where there are numerous providers operating in different sectors (public, charitable and private).
Some geographic areas may be well serviced by specific legal service providers and others may not.
Services can be provided by local face-to-face services and remotely by services through telephone, Internet and periodic outreach.
Many services provided to assist people’s legal needs are provided by quasi-legal and non-legal services, the private sector or other unregulated sectors.
Some services will be provided by publicly funded legal assistance services and others may be provided through the pro bono support of the legal profession.
Some legal problems may be resolved or legal needs met through the provision of legal information, community legal education and the provision of limited unbundled services, while others will need substantial legal representation to resolve.
Other complementary and local data sources
Other data sources (beyond administrative data on the provisions of legal and justice services) reveals more fine-grained local level data including (Mirrlees-Black and Williams, 2015[5]):
fines, state debt recovery
social security data, such as disability pension, unemployment benefits, supported housing data, etc.
school attendance data
bankruptcy
refugee settlement
traffic and work-related accident
police and crime data
local government and community level population profiles
local transport and accessibility data
locations of other relevant human services
initial decision making by state departments. So not just who is getting benefits, etc., but also making applications that are being denied – e.g. benefits, tax, housing, immigration, etc. High concentrations of negative decisions could indicate pockets of legal needs or places where people might be at risk of decline, or indeed sources of pressure on the tribunal system.
Various analytical and statistical tools can be employed to correlate these types of data with legal needs. For example, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) represents a new set of analytical techniques adopted by the social sciences. It has the potential of increasing the effectiveness in determining the level of legal needs for the poor, measuring how services are delivered and determining the effectiveness of different programmes aimed at meeting these needs (Meeker, 2005[10]). GIS has been used for over two decades and is actively supported by the US National Institute of Justice in the criminal law enforcement context (Meeker, 2005[10]). GIS offers the ability to manipulate and link different data sources, apply different analytical techniques and determine spatial implications. This technique is used in several US jurisdictions to provide more detailed information about needs related to specific legal problems and contribute to access to justice.
GIS provides a technology to link different datasets together to gain a better picture of the neighbourhoods and the spatial concentrations of social issues such as domestic violence (Box 4.1).
Box 4.1. Capturing and linking data to respond to domestic violence
Many legal and justice agencies can be involved in responding to domestic violence and therefore capture relevant data:
Legal aid programmes have address data on clients who are seeking assistance for domestic violence problems.
Law enforcement agencies have data on calls for service and crime incidents involving domestic violence.
Battered women’s shelters have data indicating the neighbourhoods where their clients are coming from.
Hospitals and emergency room facilities will have data the location of domestic violence victims.
The courts have data on the location of those seeking restraining orders.
The federal government has census information about the location of poverty, minorities, unemployment and age distributions.
County assessor offices have parcel map data on zoning, property valuations and tax delinquencies.
Source: Meeker, J. (2005[10]), Utilizing GIS to Study Legal Needs Issues: An Analysis of the LSC OIG Southern California Mapping Project.
This, in turn, can be extremely important in determining where to focus resources and checking the effectiveness of programmes directed to specific areas. It also may be helpful in providing predictive models to anticipate where problems are likely to occur. Steps can be taken to address confidentiality concerns, ethics and laws that may prohibit the sharing of information among service providers (including for example through protecting individual identity). GIS has been used by the Legal Aid Society of Orange County (LASOC) to identify and map needs and to develop responsive services (Meeker, 2005[10]).
Contrasting administrative data on the location of existing legal and justice services with legal need proxy indicators
One of the optimal possibilities to map the location of legal needs appears to be using the insights gained from the prevalence of legal needs through legal needs surveys, and then using appropriate proxy indicators from robust national and state statistics sources to estimate the net legal needs down to useful local regional levels. The administrative data concerning legal and justice service delivery becomes crucial in contrasting levels of service delivery to mapped levels of legal need, and revealing areas of over or under provision of services.
Approximations based on map correlations of supply and likely demand can be enlightening. Figure 4.6, for example, highlights the impact of geography and the availability of services on the usefulness of service delivery data as a proxy measure for legal needs in Australia. Disadvantage (as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics) is used as a proxy for legal need (Panel A)2 and is contrasted with the administrative data on service delivery as shown in Panel B. The correlation between the eastern halves of the two maps reflects the location of legal assistance services that are available to clients, whereas the lack of correlation on the left-hand side reflects the lack of services available in the western part of the region.
Figure 4.6. Contrasting types of legal need proxy: Geographic disadvantage and the availability of services
Note: Disadvantage index: Central Tablelands, Cooperative Legal Service Delivery Program (CLSD) – Index of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage, as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics; Central Tablelands CLSD.
Rate of matter per 1 000.
Source: ABS, SEIFA, 2006 Census, LJF Legal Assistance Services Data Digest: LawAccess NSW, Legal Aid NSW (Advice) and NSW Community Legal Centres 2015.
In Ontario (Canada), a report presents the geographic distribution of civil legal services in the province and also examines its relationship with the demographic characteristics of the general population and its lawyers and paralegals (Baxter and Yoon, 2011[11]; 2014[12]). In this study, the distribution of lawyers and paralegals across the territory represents the supply and demographic statistics of the general population serving as proxies for the demand for civil legal services.
More involved mapping involves linking information about legal needs with information about existing services to assist in planning where services should be delivered. This type of mapping is discussed in Chapter 6.
Community-based mapping projects
Mapping can be carried out as a collaborative form of needs assessment that involves community members and service inventories to develop an understanding of community needs. An early approach to assist legal and justice service providers in identifying local legal needs was developed by the Legal Services Research Centre (LSRC) in England and Wales (United Kingdom) (Pleasence et al., 2001[3]). The LSRC developed guidelines for the conduct of local needs surveys and explored the efficacy of predictive need models developed by the legal aid providers. At its base, mapping local legal needs requires information about legal needs (or proxies thereof) and supply of services, but also advice-seeking behaviour. Even where predictive needs models are accurate, efficacious and up to date (which can be difficult to achieve), local knowledge and understanding are always required to properly carry out legal needs assessments.
The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice in mapping legal needs also undertook a community-based approach in the province of Alberta (CFCJ, 2010-11[13]). The reports from this participatory research initiative provide data on legal needs, what legal assistance services are available, how they are co‑ordinated, who accesses these services, how the available services align with community legal needs and how legal services can be improved. These mapping projects are often designed as community-based, collaborative research initiatives with extensive involvement of a range of individuals and organisations in project design, execution and analysis. As a result of the multiple perspectives, including people-focused ones, community-based mapping research can go beyond recording geographical distribution to include multiple perspectives on service accessibility, effectiveness and gaps within the context of local/regional social networks and relationships (Stratton, 2009[14]).
Similar mapping exercises were taken on a national level focusing on legal aid in Sri Lanka (The Asia Foundation-UNDP, 2009[15]) and one is ongoing in Afghanistan (Day and Rahbari, 2017[16]) with a specific focus on establishing priorities for improving access to justice. A Scottish legal needs assessment combined survey research, the development and testing of a proxy model of local needs and focus groups with local partners (Law et al., 2004[17]).
Other smaller scale projects taking this approach map the gaps between the identified legal needs of specific segments e.g. women and particularly indigenous women (Rhaman, 2010[18]), and the services available to them in areas of British Columbia, Canada. Courts also employed community-based mapping exercises, for example in the development of self-help services through the production of an access to justice map for rural and remote areas that describes issues, services, gaps, priority needs and a service vision (Reid and Malcolmson, 2008[19]).
The results of community-based mapping can contribute to the design of people-centred legal and justice services in a number of ways by:
Mapping social capital/infrastructure.
Highlighting the need for services and agencies to work together.
Helping individuals and the community identify legal needs.
Devising more innovative methods for researching legal needs on a smaller scale (Stratton, 2009[14]).
Mapping projects contribute to a refined understanding of needs within a geographic area, the capacity of existing services to meet these needs and identify gaps in service, the degree of effective collaboration between providers and the ease of pathways.
Common conclusions include the problematic fragmentation in the legal assistance sector and inequality of access.3 They also contributed to our understanding that legal problems occur in complex social contexts that often require a multi-sector collaborative response. The collaborative design aspect of these initiatives can assist in effective co‑ordination practices among service providers over the long term.
Justice system and journey mapping
Another people-centred methodology for mapping legal needs tracks the justice pathways used by individuals, families or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to address legal problems and/or the pathways established by various services and agencies for this purpose. This approach usually referred to as “journey mapping” is extensively used by the corporate sector and more recently by public service providers.4
Justice systems or journeys can be mapped at various levels including a specific legal process or procedure within a court or other institution and based on a legal problem or issue involving multiple legal and justice services providers and other types of service providers (e.g. health services) (Figure 4.7).
Figure 4.7. Justice pathway example
Source: Adapted from Attorney-General’s Department of Australia (2009[20]), A Strategic Framework for Access to Justice in the Federal Civil Justice System, A Guide for Future Action, Access to Justice Taskforce.
These mapping approaches are temporal rather than geographic and can help to refine the identification and measurement of legal needs. Similarly to community-based mapping, justice system or journey mapping creates opportunity for dialogue and the building of relationships between service providers.
One example of journey mapping was carried out as part of the British Columbia Supreme Court Self-Help initiative and involved mapping current patterns in service referrals experienced by unrepresented litigants (Reid, Senniw and Malcolmson, 2004[21]). The research tracked every time a respondent mentioned a referral to major service providers. The results were mapped in a diagram showing the enormous range of potential referral patterns and arrangements.
Another approach is to take this list of individual tasks and render it as a “journey map”: a visual diagram of the typical steps an individual goes through in accessing a court or tribunal. Journey mapping is a design tool that helps service providers understand and improve the experience of the user of their services.5 A study conducted by the National Center for State Courts identified the discrete tasks that unrepresented litigants must perform in various types of civil cases (Abel, 2010[22]). In her review of this study, Abel considers this list to be the most comprehensive list of self-representation tasks developed to date. More typically, journey mapping would be less detailed than a step-by-step listing of discrete tasks but would provide a higher level of synthesis. Pro Bono Net, an organisation that supports the delivery of legal services on a pro bono basis throughout the United States utilises journey mapping to better understand and serve legal needs in specific justice pathways.6 The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) also employs process mapping in its justice reform initiatives (Muller et al., 2012[23]). Portugal used this approach on a broader scale to enhance access to justice by simplifying people’s justice system journeys as described in Figure 4.2.
Box 4.2. Portugal’s “Justiça mais próxima”
“Justiça mais próxima” (Closer Justice Plan) aims to make the justice system more transparent, human and closer to the citizen. It was based on 360-degree review that placed people completely at the centre, a radical shift that questioned the way court business had been carried out over many years. The plan comprises more than 120 initiatives including the “Justiça mais próxima” and real time dashboards, innovative working spaces and methodologies, a pilot court project. Some of the main changes that have positively increased access to justice include creating a new citizen’s pathway through the justice system that is facilitated by simplified signage, a digital kiosk, a Court Sessions Directory, and user-friendly systems for presence confirmation and queue management, offering people a greater range of ways of interacting with the court (such as phone attendance). In addition to improving user experiences, these reforms have also resulted in cases moving faster through the system (reduction in pending cases) and substantial resource savings. The pilot project is being evaluated and plans are being developed to roll the strategy out across the country.
Source: Ministry of Justice, Portugal.
The Portuguese experience suggests that the methods employed in justice reform are key. People-centred justice services should be designed and developed from the outside in by: continuously questioning the status quo, putting yourself in the shoes of the citizen (ideally with different citizen profiles), continuously monitoring the quality of the provided service, asking for feedback from different perspectives/stakeholders, continuously communicating results and making decisions on the basis of evaluations and analysis. This approach entails working collaboratively, using proof of concepts, agile methods and active listening.
This type of process mapping can be used both to gain a better understanding of legal needs, to develop legal services that provide effective assistance and/or to undertake reform to simplify justice processes. A broader system mapping approach can be used to build a visual portrait of how individuals progress through a complex system involving both justice and other sectors and map their needs and possible points of intervention within the process from their perspective. For example, many societies respond to child maltreatment through a range of legal, health and social services responses and it can be of benefit to map these systems to identify legal and other needs of various people affected in these situations (WHO, 2015[24]). This form of mapping may be particularly relevant in addressing complex legal needs where an individual must navigate more than one facet of the justice system (e.g. mixed criminal and civil legal needs).
Justice system mapping is used with more frequency in the criminal context, particularly as a way of integrating justice and health services, particularly in the United States. For example, the Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) provides the organising framework for information and activities leading to the creation of relatively simple maps. These maps can be used to facilitate the integration and co‑ordination of services and can be geared to identifying particular points in the justice process where health services such as drug treatment or health insurance coverage can be offered (Joplin, 2014[25]). The Oregon Center on Behavioral Health and Justice is in the process of developing these detailed maps for each county (local district).7
Key findings
Mapping where legal needs are experienced across a geographical area, or at which stage in a process assistance is required, assists governments and service providers to plan and deliver services where and when they are most appropriate.
National legal needs surveys provide an important foundation for mapping legal needs. Yet legal needs surveys are often unable to provide detailed needs analysis down to small geographic areas, or even below the national or state levels.
There are different data analytics approaches that build on legal needs survey and legal needs proxy indicators: official sources of social, economic and demographic data, administrative data and other complementary and local data sources.
Administrative data concerning the delivery of legal and justice services is key, particularly in providing insights where services are being delivered. However, there may be substantial limitations to the use of administrative data as a proxy for legal needs.
One of the optimal possibilities to map the location of legal needs appears to be the use of the insights gained from the prevalence of legal needs through legal needs surveys, and then the use of appropriate proxy indicators from robust national and state statistics sources to estimate the net legal needs down to useful local regional levels. The administrative data concerning legal and justice service delivery becomes crucial in contrasting levels of service delivery to mapped levels of legal needs, and revealing areas of over or under provision of services.
These approaches are sometimes combined. The two following sections review other methodologies that are independent of legal needs surveys: mapping the location of existing legal and justice services, community-based mapping projects and journey mapping of particular justice processes to better understand legal needs in specific contexts and locations.
Mapping can also be carried out as a collaborative form of needs assessment that involves community members and service inventories to develop an understanding of community needs (both community-wide needs and needs of specific populations). These projects contribute to a refined understanding of needs within a geographic area, the capacity of existing services to meet them and identify gaps in service, the degree of effective collaboration between providers and the ease of pathways.
Journey mapping is another people-centred methodology for mapping legal needs and tracks the justice pathways used by individuals, families or SMEs to address legal problems and/or the pathways established by various services and agencies for this purpose.
Justice systems or journeys can be mapped at various levels including a specific legal process or procedure within a court or other institution and based on a legal problem or issue involving multiple legal and justice services providers and other types of service providers (such as health services). These mapping approaches are temporal rather than geographic and can help to refine the identification and measurement of legal needs. Like community-based mapping, justice system or journey mapping can create opportunity for dialogue and the building of relationships between service providers.
References
[22] Abel, L. (2010), “Evidence-based access to justice”, Journal of Law and Social Change, Vol. 13/3, p. 305, https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/jlasc/vol13/iss3/3.
[20] Attorney-General’s Department of Australia (2009), A Strategic Framework for Access to Justice in the Federal Civil Justice System, A Guide for Future Action, Access to Justice Taskforce, https://www.ag.gov.au/LegalSystem/Documents/A%20Strategic%20Framework%20for%20Access%20to%20Justice%20in%20the%20Federal%20Civil%20Justice%20System.pdf.
[12] Baxter, J. and A. Yoon (2014), “No lawyer for a hundred miles? Mapping the new geography of access of justice in Canada”, Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series, Paper 3, http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/olsrps/.
[11] Baxter, J. and A. Yoon (2011), The Geography of Civil Legal Services in Ontario – Report of the Mapping Phase of the Ontario Civil Legal Needs Survey, https://lawsocietyontario.azureedge.net/media/lso/media/legacy/pdf/g/geography_of_civil_legal_services_final_report_en_nov_18_2011.pdf.
[13] CFCJ (2010-11), Alberta Legal Services Mapping Project, Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, http://cfcj-fcjc.org/our-projects/alberta-legal-services-mapping-project/.
[2] Coumarelos, C. et al. (2012), Legal Australia-Wide Survey: Legal Need in Australia in Access to Justice and Legal Needs, Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales.
[16] Day, D. and S. Rahbari (2017), Legal Aid Assessment and Roadmap, The Asia Foundation, https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AG_Legal-Aid-Assessment-and-Roadmap.pdf.
[8] INSEE (2008), 2008 Population Census.
[25] Joplin, L. (2014), Mapping the Criminal Justice System to Connect Justice-Involved Individuals with Treatment and Health Care under the Affordable Care Act (US Department of Corrections), National Institute of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice.
[17] Law, J. et al. (2004), Community Legal Service: Assessing Need for Legal Advice in Scotland – Overview Report, Scottish Executive Social Research, https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/25954/0025031.pdf.
[9] LJFNSW (2018), Collaborative Planning Resource, Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales, http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/reports/2018cpr.
[6] Mairie de Paris (2016), Logements sociaux financés à Paris, https://opendata.paris.fr/explore/dataset/logements_sociaux_finances_a_paris/map/?location=12,48.85945,2.33388.
[4] McDonald, H. and J. People (2014), Legal Capability and Inaction for Legal Problems: Knowledge, Stress and Cost, Law and Justice Foundation of NSW, Sydney.
[10] Meeker, J. (2005), Utilizing GIS to Study Legal Needs Issues: An Analysis of the LSC OIG Southern California Mapping Project - Report to Office of Inspector General for the Legal.
[5] Mirrlees-Black, C. and S. Williams (2015), Collaborative Planning Resource - Jurisdictional Data: NSW, Law and Justice Foundation of NSW, Sydney, http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/ljf/site/templates/resources/$file/CPR_NSW_Jurisdictional_Data_2015WEB.pdf.
[23] Muller, S. et al. (2012), Innovating Justice: Developing New Ways to Bring Fairness Between People, The Hague Institute for the Innnovation of Law (HiiL).
[7] Observatoire Départemental - Seine Saint Denis (2013), Panorama Cartographique d’Indicateurs Sociaux.
[1] People, J. et al. (2015), Planning Legal Assistance Services by Area: Is SEIFA the Answer?, Law and Justice Foundation of NSW, Sydney.
[3] Pleasence, P. et al. (2001), Local Legal Need, Legal Services Commission.
[19] Reid, G. and J. Malcolmson (2008), Voices from the Field - Needs Mapping Self-help Services in Rural and Remote Communities (Submitted to the Supreme Court Self-help Information Centre (SHIC) Advisory Committee, Justice Education Society.
[21] Reid, G., D. Senniw and J. Malcolmson (2004), Developing Models for Coordinated Services For Self-Representing Litigants Mapping Services, Gaps, Issues and Needs, BC Self-Help Committee.
[18] Rhaman, S. (2010), Mapping the Gap – A Summary of Legal Resources for Women in British Columbia, West Coast LEAF, www.westcoastleaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2010-REPORT-Mapping-the-Gap-A-Summary-of-Legal-Resources-for-Women-in-British-Columbia.pdf.
[26] SAMHSA (2012), Sequential Intercept Mapping - Providing Framework for Behavioral Health & Criminal Justice Collaboration, GAINS Center for Behavioral Health and Justice Transformation, http://www.ocbhji.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Deschutes-County-SIM-FINAL-12-18.pdf.
[14] Stratton, M. (2009), “Reaching out with research: Engaging community in mapping legal service accessiblity, effectiveness and unmet need”, in Reaching Further: Innovation, Access and Quality in Legal Services, Canadian Forum for Civil Justice.
[15] The Asia Foundation-UNDP (2009), The Legal Aid Sector in Sri Lanka: Searching for Sustainable Solutions – Mapping of Legal Aid Services in Sri Lanka, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/srilanka/docs/governance/Legal%20Aid%20Review2.pdf.
[24] WHO (2015), Toolkit for Mapping Legal, Health and Social Services Responses to Child Maltreatment, https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/155237/9789241549073_eng.pdf;jsessionid=DAA17E3C0C372117D8E0061E03E6524A?sequence=1.
Notes
← 2. For the purpose of this paper we rely on rely on the Australian Socio-Economic Index for Areas (SEIFA), while we do not recommend it in practice (People et al., 2015[1]).
← 3. See for example, CFCJ (2010-11[13]).
← 4. See for example: Customer Journey Mapping: An Introduction (prepared by Oxford Strategic Marketing for the Customer Insight Forum, Government of the United Kingdom).
← 5. For example, Customer Journey Map tool at www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/8.
← 6. Probononet provides training on process mapping to legal assistance providers in 2015 www.probono.net/calendar/event.553727‑LSNTAP_Community_Training_Series_Process_Mapping_for_Civil_Legal_Services.
← 7. See the Completed Oregon SIM Maps at http://www.ocbhji.org/resources/completed-sim-maps.