Abstract:
The Intimate Partner Violence Triage Study will produce information for service providers of all kinds, including particularly legal services providers asked to represent victims of intimate partner violence (“IPV”) at adversarial restraining order hearings, on a critical question: how should we triage clients to different levels of service when resources are severely constrained? Currently, in northeastern Ohio, a legal aid provider’s resources are sufficient to provide traditional attorney-client representation to approximately one-third of eligible IPV victims who seek permanent restraining orders in adversarial court hearings. One third of such victims receive only self-help assistance materials, and one-third receive self-help assistance materials plus an explanatory telephone call. In the Study, eligible and consenting IPV victims will be randomized to one of two triage decision making processes, either the provider’s current process or a random process. A comparison of the adjudicatory outputs and the post-court experiences of victims in each group will provide information on the effectiveness of the legal aid provider’s current triage process. Further, the randomized arm of the study will allow several other direct and (through the use of instrumental variables techniques) indirect measurements of interest.