The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data: Teaching Law Students Basic Survey Methodology to Improve Access to Justice in Unemployment Insurance Appeals

Abstract

A large number of individuals who appear before the District of Columbia Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) are self-represented, and many of them would benefit from having legal representation or at least more legal information about the hearing process. This article details one effort to ascertain whether self-represented parties, both employees and employer, in unemployment insurance (UI) appeals perceive a need for more legal assistance. Law students from The Catholic University of America administered a survey that asked self-represented parties in UI appeals whether, based on their experiences in the hearing, they perceived a need for more legal assistance and whether there were aspects of the hearings that they found particularly challenging. While this project began as an effort to improve access to justice in one particular setting, it evolved into something more — an interdisciplinary collaboration between a sociologist (Professor Pumar) and a lawyer (Professor Mullen) using a service-learning model to educate law students about how they could use survey methodology to improve access to justice. The hope was that the students would learn how to conduct empirical research, which might inspire them to undertake similar work after graduation and make them more astute consumers of data. This article details that collaboration, including how the research was conducted, with emphasis on the key role played by students in framing the research questions and drafting, pretesting, and administering the survey. The article also reports the results of the survey and its implications for improving access to justice. The article offers a model for others who might wish to engage students in similar law and sociology collaborations.