The Representation Debate Continues
posted by Dave Hoffman
Jim Greiner and Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak have emailed me a reply to the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau’s comment on What Difference Representation. Since the topic has been the subject of several posts here, as well as some off-line communication from interested readers, I figured that I owed Greiner/Pattanayak a public space for reply. It consists of a bit of introductory text, and a longer (9-page) paper.
“We recently became aware that HLAB President Rachel Lauter and HLAB Faculty Director David Grossman had written an email to the clinical listserve addressing our paper “What Difference Representation?”. The email has been posted to various locations in the blogosphere. Because the email expresses criticisms of the paper that we also have received from one or two other sources, we thought we would take the opportunity the email presented to clarify certain issues. For example, President Lautner and Professor Grossman echo reactions we have received from another legal aid provider when they say that our study produced “only limited information,” and that more (and more useful) information would be available if we would just analyze the data properly. We explain here that the analysis the email (and one or two other legal services providers) have advocated is statistically invalid, and that in any event the data required for it do not presently exist and cannot at this time be ethically collected. As ought to be clear by now, we have the greatest respect for the students of HLAB, including President Lautner, and HLAB’s clinical faculty, including Professor Grossman. We are using President Lautner and Professor Grossman’s email as a convenient foil representative of a few other comments we have received.
The substance of our response can be captured in the answers to two questions.
1. Why study the effect of offers of HLAB representation? All agree that the effect of actual use of representation is interesting, although as we will explain, perhaps less so than one might think at first. But why study the effect of HLAB offers?
2. Why not compare those who got offers from any source, not just HLAB, to those who did not get any such offers?} This is what President Lauter, Professor Grossman, and a few others have suggested. Why not make this comparison?
We also answer one final question:
3. So how can we find out about the effect of offers from other service providers?”
To read the full response, click here.
January 31, 2011 at 6:20 am
Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Empirical Analysis of Law, Law School, Psychology and Behavior
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Responses (1)
Jocuri cu impuscaturi - March 4, 2011 at 2:57 am
Definitely agree with exactly what you wrote, perhaps others can learn from this. It was a pleasure visiting your site and I will add http://www.concurringopinions.com to my favorites right now.
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