The American Bar Foundation’s (ABF) Access to Justice Research Initiative is a hub for innovative research that connects access to civil justice scholarship, policy, and practice. It aims to advance civil justice research, support empirical studies that deepen understanding, and serve as a resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners addressing unmet legal needs.
With support from The JPB Foundation, the ABF has launched the Access to Justice Research Initiative Early Career Workshop. This program offers early-stage researchers opportunities for professional development, mentorship, and scholarly feedback within a community of engaged peers.
Participants will take part in monthly workshops with fellow members of their cohort, focused on providing feedback on work shared by members of the group and conversations about relevant professional development topics. Participants in this year’s cohort will also receive a research stipend, attend a two-day, in-person workshop, and present their work at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association in Chicago in June 2025.
Rebecca Sandefur, ABF Faculty Fellow and Founding Director of the Access to Justice Initiative said, “We’re excited to launch this new phase of the Access to Justice Scholars program, supporting emerging researchers who will become the next generation to produce intellectually rigorous and practically impactful discoveries that reveal how access to justice is critical to fighting poverty, improving lives, and making a world where everyone can engage and contribute.”
Meet the 2024-25 Early Career Scholars:
Meghan Maree Ballard (she/her) is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Irvine in Criminology, Law, and Society. She will explore how federal language access guidance has influenced the advancement of language rights in state courts through a qualitative analysis of extensive interviews, observations, and documents.
Ellie Frazier (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate in Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research examines the political history of community advice offices in South Africa and the implications for expanding the legal profession beyond lawyers in the U.S. and other contexts.
Anne Groggel (she/her) is a Research Associate III in the Office of Data Governance and Analysis at Legal Services Corporation. She is examining the intersection of domestic violence and housing instability by analyzing the legal filings of victim-survivors across multiple case types, including civil protection orders (CPOs) and eviction cases.
Vasundhara Kaul (she/her) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Sociology Department at Purdue University, specializing in the legal, social, and ethical dimensions of data privacy, surveillance, and AI. Her research delves into how individuals navigate the complex and evolving landscape of data collection and privacy-preserving technologies, and whether the legal system is seen as a reliable safeguard against the inequities these technologies may create.
Elizabeth G. Pfeffer (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Dartmouth College in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences, where she also manages the Class of 1964 Policy Research Shop. Her research examines the interaction between welfare state institutions and the criminal legal system.
Christina Plakas (she/her) is a 4th-year Criminology & Criminal Justice Ph.D. student at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the administration of justice within legal frameworks, with a particular emphasis on pre-trial justice and the quality of legal resources accessible to individuals in custody.
Jenna Prochaska (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at UIC Law, where she teaches Property and Professional Responsibility. Her research examines the intersections between social work and law in the context of providing housing legal aid, including by interviewing attorneys and social workers in legal aid settings, as well as tenants who have been represented by teams of social workers and lawyers.
Sonia Rupcic (she/her) is an Advanced Fellow at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Veterans, clinicians, and legal services providers, her research examines the non-clinical needs of Veterans who experience intimate partner violence, how these needs are linked to economic hardship, and Veterans’ experiences seeking and utilizing legal aid for these problems.
Maha Shehade Switat (she/her) is a postdoctoral fellow in the Sociology Department at Harvard University. She investigates the experiences and perceptions of justice among Muslim American plaintiffs involved in labor legal disputes, focusing on the influence of the intersection between their religion and gender affiliations.
Juliet-Nil Uraz (she/her) is a M.Phil./PhD. Candidate in the department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. Her research evaluates the introduction of right-to-counsel programs in the United States from a poverty alleviation perspective by assessing how civil legal assistance impacts the financial resilience of low-income tenants facing eviction and quantifying the extent to which it improves their access to the safety net.
###
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