Legal Services Corporation
State Justice Communities Planning Initiative Evaluation Instrument

August 2003

Since 1998 the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) has required its grantees to engage in client-centered, statewide strategic planning. The State Justice Communities Planning Initiative Evaluation Instrument is designed for use by LSC staff in assessing the quality of a state’s planning process, the implementation of its plan, and the outcomes of the planning process. LSC’s requirements and expectations for state-level legal services planning efforts are set forth in Program Letters 98-1, 98-6, 00-7, and 02-3.

The Evaluation Instrument is the result of a development process conducted for LSC by Greacen Associates, LLC, a consulting company with significant experience in performance measurement in the public sector. LSC and the consultants were assisted by a Design Team of fourteen persons from legal services programs, organizations representing legal services, the courts, legal services clients, and the public:

• Mr. Terrence J. Brooks, Director, ABA Legal Services Division, Chicago, IL.
• Mr. Robert Clyde, Executive Director, Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation, Columbus, OH.
• Ms. Colleen M. Cotter, Director of Programs and Organizational Development, Indiana Legal Services, Inc., Bloomington, IN (representing NLADA).
• Mr. Neal Dudovitz, Executive Director, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, CA.
• Mr. Michael Genz, Director, Office of Program Performance, LSC.
• Dr. Sarah Goodrum, NIMH Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Behavioral Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.
• Mr. Patrick McIntyre, Executive Director, Northwest Justice Project, Seattle, WA.
• Hon. Juanita Bing Newton, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for Justice Initiatives, State of New York Unified Court System, New York, NY.
• Mr. Richard Ross, Executive Director of Strategic Planning Initiatives, State of New York Unified Court System, New York, NY.
• Ms. Ada Shen-Jaffe, Executive Director, Columbia Legal Services, Seattle, WA.
• Ms. Sara E. Strattan, Executive Director, Community Legal Aid Services, Inc., Akron, OH.
• Ms. Deierdre Weir, Executive Director, Legal Aid and Defender Association, Detroit, MI.
• Ms. Randi Youells, Vice President for Programs, LSC.

LSC is indebted to the members of the Design Team for the time and effort devoted to this project and to their insights and suggestions for the Evaluation Instrument.

The instrument was field tested in three states in early 2003. LSC’s plan for utilizing the instrument calls for its usage by staff members and others engaged in state planning and in evaluations throughout the country.

The purpose of LSC’s State Justice Communities Planning Initiative is to insure the highest quality and maximum level of services for potentially eligible poor persons in need of services in each state, with the ultimate goal of fully meeting all of those needs. The evaluation instrument has been developed to help grantees and LSC achieve these purposes by to gathering information on the progress of state planning efforts thus far.

Additional Information:

• State Justice Communities Planning Initiative Evaluation Instrument, July 2003. (586kb, PDF) (Word)

• Guide for Evaluations Using the State Justice Communities Planning Initiative Evaluation Instrument (220kb, PDF)

• Interview Protocol (123kb, PDF)

• Greacen Associates, LLC, "State Justice Communities Planning Initiative Evaluation Instrument: Report on Pilot Tests," 19 June 2003 (369kb, PDF).

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