Systems Thinking
A System of Legal Service Demand, Delivery, & Effectiveness
One of the goals of this program is to better understand the general system of Unbundled Legal Services which operates in BC today. Since no formal models of the system exist, developing a conceptual model better enables us to reason together about the current behaviours of the ULS system, and the desired future behaviours we have of it.
The primary components of this conceptual system are:
The overall Demand for unbundled legal services;
which are addressed by the Delivery of unbundled legal services, and,
result in a measure of Effectiveness of the services delivery in meeting that service demand.
In short, the system's Effectiveness is a function of Demand and Delivery.
The ultimate goal of our work as a team is to discover and develop new ways to optimize the effectiveness of this system, thereby improving access to justice.
Dimensions of the unbundled legal services system
How does this work within the unbundled legal services system? What are the potential dimensions we could use to measure and describe unbundled legal service demand, delivery and effectiveness?
Dimensions of Demand
Some possible dimensions of demand are:
The Type of Service requested,
The Area of Law the service request was related to,
The Referral Source the demand came from,
The Communication Channel the service request was received on,
The Language the service request came in.
Dimensions of Effectiveness
Dimensions of effectiveness have historically been elusive and hard to define. Because of that, the legal profession can struggle agreeing on what success or “good” looks like. One of the stretch goals of this project is to validate a proven working set of Effectiveness Dimensions that could go on to create a working standard for other initiatives.
Ideally, dimensions of effectiveness should be outcomes focused, and answer important questions we have of the unbundled services system, such as:
Can clients find unbundled services? DISCOVERABILITY
Do unbundled services help clients to feel empowered to manage their legal problem? AGENCY
Can clients afford unbundled services, financially or otherwise? AFFORDABILITY
Were the unbundled services convenient to use? CONVENIENCE
Did the unbundled services help clients to progress through their legal matter? PROGRESS
Collecting data on these dimensions of effectiveness will in most cases happen by directly asking the client to assign a value to each of these. This will happen via a concise set of survey questions that can be asked of clients at key checkpoints in the service delivery process (see below).
How do we collect the data?
Once a conceptual data model is ready with empty "shelves" to receive information, how do we collect it?
We ask questions of those who have the information we want. In the case of the effectiveness dimensions, our clients have the answers–the data–that we're looking for. Here are 5 sample questions we can ask a client, one for each of the 5 dimensions of effectiveness:
How would you rate your experience trying to find the service you were looking for? DISCOVERABILITY
How did this service improve your sense of control over your legal matter? AGENCY
How affordable–money, time or otherwise–was the unbundled service you received? AFFORDABILITY
How easy-to-use was the unbundled service you received? CONVENIENCE
To what degree did this service help you progress through your legal matter? PROGRESS
How will we use the data?
All this effort to collect data must deliver sufficient value back to those who give their time and energy to provide it, or the system will not sustain itself. This means legal service professionals, the organizations supporting ULS, and even the clients must see value.
Knowledge = Value
Answers to specific and important questions is the clearest value this data will provide. With rigorously collected data, we will be able to ask a number of multi-dimensional questions which normally would be hard to answer. For example, we could ask of the data:
Did clients in the Interior find ULS services any less Discoverable than clients in Vancouver?
Have clients in BC observed an improvement in Progress of their legal matters since this time last year? And, were there any regions in BC that were significantly ahead of the others in this measure of the system?
Which referral source sent the highest number of wills & estates files to me last year?
Our goal is to be able to provide answers to questions like these to those on the front-lines of legal service development, moving the profession from advocacy-based service evolution to evidence-based decisions and services.
Building a database and asking it questions
The slides below illustrate how the dimensions can be used to collect and organize data surrounding a single ULS event.
Slide 1 shows the dimensions we're starting with across the top row, and the current values we can assign to each in the column beneath.
Slide 2 shows how a single event might be recorded, capturing a unique set of values under each of the dimensions. Remember not every event will necessarily capture data on every dimension. It all depends on the tools and methods we're using; such as client surveys, practitioner surveys, or collecting data automatically.
Slide 3 illustrates the power of a database of events, once we have it. We can ask sophisticated, multi-dimensional questions of the database once it has enough data to support.
A2JBC Triple Aim - linking dimensions
A2JBC has proposed and begun implementation of a measurement framework to support a shared approach to monitoring and evaluating improvements in access to justice in British Columbia. The unbundled legal services project has been heavily informed by this comprehensive province-wide initiative, which also shares the concept of system "dimensions" which need to be observed and better understood in order to improve access to justice.
The chart below illustrates how the ULS project's key dimensions link to the Triple Aim framework's existing dimensions, ensuring alignment and compatibility if the future sees the unification of data sets across organizations.
