James Teufel (MPH, Ph.D.) has joined the American Bar Foundation as a Senior Researcher for the Access to Justice Research Initiative. He will work with Rebecca Sandefur (Faculty Fellow) and Matthew Burnett (Senior Program Officer) on a project to develop and test a new civil needs survey and other data collection related to access to justice for civil legal needs, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and in collaboration with NORC at the University of Chicago.
Teufel is currently a Visiting Scholar at Arizona State University’s Justice Futures Project. His research focuses on scaling and sustaining innovative solutions to social problems and in developing just solutions that empower people to prevent and intervene in health-related justiciable events. He has advised the Delaware Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. on right to representation and nonlawyer representation in landlord-tenant cases. Teufel was also the founding Director of Data of the Utah Supreme Court’s Office of Legal Services Innovation and the founding Data Analyst of Law Society of Ontario’s Access to Innovation.
Teufel has acted as consultant for Georgetown University’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, and the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership, receiving their Advocate of the Year Award in 2015 in recognition for innovating the financial and social return on investment model for medical-legal partnerships.
“The well-being of people, communities, and society is inextricably linked with justice. Civil justice regulates the primary drivers of population health, and surveys have supported health as the most common harm of justice events of people,” said James Teufel. “I am looking forward to working with Rebecca Sandefur, Matthew Burnett, the BSJ, and the NORC team to learn more about people-centered solutions to improve people’s experience with justice and the intersection of criminal and civil justice in the United States.”
To address the urgent need for reliable, nationwide data on the connections between civil and criminal justice systems, the ABF and NORC are collaborating with the BSJ to identify and rectify deficiencies in statistical coverage related to access to civil legal services. As part of this initiative, researchers will assess, refine, and field-test the Civil Legal Needs Survey using a representative address-based sample of respondents.
“We’re thrilled that James is joining the research initiative and excited about the work ahead,” said Rebecca Sandefur. “James brings a wealth of experience as a health and justice researcher and a scholar who puts ideas into action.”
###
About the American Bar Foundation
The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is the world’s leading research institute for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. The ABF seeks to expand knowledge and advance justice through innovative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous empirical research on law, legal processes, and legal institutions. To further this mission the ABF will produce timely, cutting-edge research of the highest quality to inform and guide the legal profession, the academy, and society in the United States and internationally. The ABF’s primary funding is provided by the American Bar Endowment and the Fellows of The American Bar Foundation.