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Welcome to the website of the Legal Services Research Centre, the research Division of the Legal Services Commission. On this site you can: Find out about the Legal Services Research Centre To navigate the site, double-click on highlighted text or on the subject buttons at the top of the page.
The Legal Services Research Centre (LSRC), formerly the Legal Aid Board Research Unit (LABRU), is the independent Research Division of the Legal Services Commission (LSC). It was set up in 1996 to inform legal aid policy and the implementation of reform. It has a broad remit to conduct strategic research in the civil and criminal justice fields. Over recent years, the LSRC has made a critical contribution to the development of the LSC's functions. LSRC projects have informed civil and criminal contracting, the development of the LSC's Funding Code, changes to the civil means tests, the development of the Community Legal Service, and the development and monitoring of LSC and Ministry of Justice (MOJ) strategic targets. The LSRC also has a responsibility to monitor the impact of LSC operations on the diversity of the LSC's supplier base. The LSRC conducts quantitative and qualitative empirical research, along with theoretical analysis of the political, social and philosophical underpinnings of publicly funded legal services. It has produced papers on matters as diverse as the impact of civil justice problems on morbidity, the nature of the "public interest", the use of standard fees for legal services, the nature of the legal aid means tests, the litigation strategies employed by personal injury solicitors, and the prediction of costs and outcomes in civil and criminal cases. The LSRC is currently working in seven main project areas, in addition to providing general support to the Legal Services Commission's policy and operational functions. Current project areas are the English and Welsh Civil and Social Justice Survey (formerly the LSRC National Periodic Survey of Justiciable Problems), money advice outreach pilot evaluation, delays in the youth court, spatial dimensions of 'legal need' and legal service provision, users perspectives on the criminal justice process, diversity of the Legal Services Commission's service provider base and crime victims, offenders and civil justice. As well as conducting research, the LSRC also participates in the steering and refereeing of non-LSC research projects, and in national and international research conferences. It organises its own biennial international research conference, drawing academics, administrators and interested parties from all around the world. The next conference will be held in June 2008. Many LSRC projects involve collaboration with expert academics and other research organisations. For example, recent projects have involved collaboration with the Institute for Fiscal Studies, BMRB, BMG, and academics including Hazel Genn (University College London), Roger Bowles (University of York), Simon Wessely (King's College London), Amy Iversen (King's College London) and Andrew Briggs (University of Oxford). The LSRC also draws on the experience of the wider research community through its Ethical Advisory Board. The LSRC comprises 7 (6.4 FTE) specialist researchers and a research administrator. The LSRC is also helping to train and develop the next generation of socio-legal researchers through an internship programme aimed at graduate students.
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WELCOME | PROJECTS | CONFERENCES | PEOPLE | PUBLICATIONS | CONTACTS | LINKS (c) 2000-6 Legal Services Research Centre (Last update 16 May 2008) Legal Services Research Centre, 85, Gray's Inn Road, London, WC1X 8TX website design |
