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Despite an increasing reliance on fully-automated algorithmic decision-making in our day-to-day lives, humans still make consequential decisions. While the existing literature focuses on the bias and fairness of algorithmic recommendations, an overlooked question is whether they improve human decisions. We develop a general statistical methodology for experimentally evaluating the causal impacts of algorithmic recommendations on human decisions. We also examine whether algorithmic recommendations improve the fairness of human decisions and derive the optimal decision rules under various settings. We apply the proposed methodology to the first-ever randomized controlled trial that evaluates the pretrial Public Safety Assessment in the United States criminal justice system. Our analysis of the preliminary data shows that providing the PSA to the judge has little overall impact on the judge's decisions and subsequent arrestee behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We will never have enough lawyers to serve the civil legal needs of all low- and moderate-income (LMl) individuals who must navigate civil legal problems. A significant part of the access-to-justice toolkit must include self-help materials. That much is not new; indeed, the legal aid community has been actively developing pro se guides and forms for decades. But the community has hamstrung its creations in two major ways: first, by focusing these materials almost exclusively on educating LMl individuals about formal law, and second, by considering the task complete once the materials have been made available to self-represented individuals. In particular, modern self-help materials fail to address many psychological and cognitive barriers that prevent LMl individuals from successfully deploying the substance of the materials. In this Article we make two contributions. First, we develop a theory of the obstacles LMl individuals face when attempting to deploy professional legal knowledge. Second, we apply learning from fields as varied as psychology, public health, education, artificial intelligence, and marketing to develop a framework for how courts, legal aid organizations, law school clinics, and others might reconceptualize the design and delivery of civil legal materials for unrepresented individuals. We illustrate our framework with examples of reimagined civil legal materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assemble studies within a set that we label randomized control trials (RCTs) in the US legal profession. These studies are field experiments conducted for the purpose of obtaining knowledge in which randomization replaces a decision that would otherwise have been made by a member of the US legal profession. We use our assembly of approximately 50 studies to begin addressing the question of why the US legal profession, in contrast to the US medical profession, has resisted the use of the RCT as a knowledge-generating device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses unbundled legal assistance, summary evictions, and several randomized trial studies involving Massachusetts District Court litigants who received limited legal assistance as of February 2013. Rental payment waivers and the financial conditions of renters are addressed, along with an examination of a Manhattan Housing Court Study in New York. The civil right to counsel in the U.S. is mentioned, along with the Greater Boston Legal Services organization.

We discuss the history of the exit poll as well as its future in an era characterized by increasingly effective and inexpensive alternatives for obtaining information. With respect to the exit poll's future, we identify and assess four purposes it might serve. We conclude that the exit poll's most important function in the future should, and probably will, be to provide information about the administration of the franchise and about the voter's experience in casting a ballot. The nature of this purpose suggests that it may make sense for academic institutions to replace media outlets as the primary implementers of exit polls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constraints and barriers to advanced practice psychiatric nursing were reported by respondents of the Primary Mental Health and Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nursing survey of certified psychiatric clinical nurse specialists. Primary data (N = 507) were the qualitative responses to a survey item about constraints and secondary data were the literature and theoretical memos. Methodology was based on principles of qualitative data analysis and procedures for manifest and latent content analysis. Findings resulted in eight themes that explained both constraints and barriers to advanced practice: (1) reimbursement, (2) prescriptive authority, (3) admitting privileges, (4) bureaucracy, (5) practice environment, (6) colleagues, (7) image, and (8) personal. Themes were interpreted within the context of regulatory, market-based, and inter/intraprofessional constraints and barriers that led to suggestions for organizational and individual strategies for action. The survey was funded by the Society for Education and Research in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing with technical support from the Center for Mental Health Services.