Statewide Program and Systems Evaluation

The Administrative Office of the Courts, the State Bar of  California, and the Legal Aid Association of California - 030138

Abstract Number: 030138

July 2003

The California Legislature recently implemented a required evaluation for legal services programs who receive money from the state supported Equal Access Fund. To meet this new requirement, the Administrative Office of the Courts, the State Bar of California, and the Legal Aid Association of California are working with a group of consultants to prepare a report to the State Legislature on the effectiveness of programs funded by the Equal Access Fund. As a part of that process, the project team is developing model evaluation toolkits for use by legal aid programs. A series of meetings with representatives from different legal services programs have been held in order to gather the best evaluation tools within the state and the nation and to share strategies and gain participation in this major evaluative process.

The development of these evaluation tools has been an ongoing process between the project team, consultants, and legal services providers in California. Once preliminary evaluation tools were developed, the project team organized focus group testing with legal services providers in California. The feedback gathered from these focus groups has led to continued fine tuning and development of effective and appropriate tools. In the end, this project seeks to develop toolkits that will help in quantifying and qualifying accomplishments made by programs while assessing program performance.

To ensure the effective implementation and use of these evaluation toolkits, the Administrative Office of the Courts hired a researcher who is a former legal services attorney to review the evaluation toolkits as well as to provide technical support to legal services programs as needed. By creating model tools and providing technical support to help programs shape those tools to meet their needs, the project team seeks to ensure that programs are providing effective services to their client community as well as criteria by which programs can measure their success. To learn more about this project, access the evaluation toolkits Request for Proposals (RPF) below. The model evaluation toolkits are available on the Legal Aid Association of California's website and include the following tools:

• Toolkit 1: Client Satisfaction Survey
• Toolkit 2: Community Partner Survey
• Toolkit 3: Court Observation Process
• Toolkit 4: Client Followup Interview
• Toolkit 5: FAST Project Review
• Toolkit 6: Client Case File Review
• Toolkit 7: Case Outcomes
• Toolkit 8: Focus Groups

Contact information:

Bonnie Hough
Supervising Attorney
Judicial Council of California
Administrative Office of the Courts
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102-3660
Phone (415) 865-7668
Fax (415) 865-4319
Email

Additional Information:

• Evaluation Project Request for Proposals (RFP)

back to top ^