UIC Law Student Seeks to Break Down Barriers Concerning Readability of Legal Process with Triage Program for Pro Se Litigants
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UIC Law student Lucinda Smetana was chosen to participate in interdisciplinary training in science and law with a structured collaboration with the UIC School of Law and UIC College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, CAPACITY Lab.
This is a one-year independent study provided training in contributing to and using science to inform policy reform. As a selected law student in this highly competitive program, Smetana spent one year as a member of the Department of Psychiatry’s CAPACITY Lab, directed by Dr. Brittany Rudd, and helped to promote mental health by harnessing community-partnered research and implementation science to build mental health service capacity within the community organizations that serve vulnerable, systems-involved youth.
The Curriculum
The CAPACITY Lab has a large portfolio of research projects at the intersections of legal reform, mental health equity, and implementation science. As a member of the CAPACITY Lab, Smetana was required to complete CITI Program: Human Research Group 2. HSP, Social / Behavioral Research Investigators and Key Personnel. Smetana also participated in weekly team meetings, lead Journal Club where each member provides a Journal Article to the group in advance and leads a discussion and participated in a Humanizing Critical Race Theory Training by UIC Law Professor Terri McMurty-Chubb.
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| FALL SEMESTER | SPRING SEMESTER |
|---|---|
| 2 credits of Independent Study (LAW 596) | 2 or 3 credits of Research Apprenticeship (PSCH 591) |
| Gain exposure to a variety of research projects | Gain exposure to executing an interdisciplinary research project |
| Become a core member of a project | 2 (6 hours a week) or 3 (9 hours a week) credit hours are meant to create protected time to conduct this research and write up results in collaboration with other lab members |
| Contribute a “legal lens” to that project during meetings | Participate in weekly one-hour lab meetings to gain exposure to a variety of ongoing lab research projects related to legal reform |
| Propose an empirical research project to complement the ongoing work | Participate in twice-a-month journal club meetings to review research articles and participate in discussions around scientific dissemination and lead one journal club meeting |
| 40-page project proposal in the format of an introduction and methods section of an APA research report | Research report in the format of a results and discussion section of an APA research report |
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About the Project
The CAPACTITY lab project Smetana chose to work with was the Floyd County, Indiana Project -Families Matter Triage Program. After taking a Social Justice Lawyering course at UIC Law, Smetana became trained on how to look at how human research subjects have been used in the past in ways they did not consent and what improvements can be made to the process.
The project received grant funding from the Indiana Supreme Court to conduct the research, however Smetana was there to lend her legal lens. Instead of focusing solely on the research, Smetana instead focused on policies and served as a legal liaison.
Floyd County Indiana has a lot of pro se (on one’s own behalf) litigants due to the socio-economic status of many of the residents that live there. As a member of the CAPACITY team, Smetana created a triage program for pro se litigation and worked with Magistrate Judge Dr. Maria Granger who dealt with domestic relations and looked at how to build new systems and expeditated services for those experiencing partner violence.
Smetana’s research helped her to understand what hurdles or other justice issues exist by simply filing paperwork and helped to create a process in which residents had access to legal resources, like mediators, to help them understand readability. To satisfy her requirement for her Law 596 course, Smetana wrote a paper called Hurdle to Justice: Readability of Legal Forms Bar Pro Se Litigants from Legal Services, which discussed the “uniqueness that pro se litigants face in accessing the legal system and identifies themes as well as gaps in the existing research.”
The literature review also presented research from Smetana’s current work with the UIC Department of Psychiatry Community Academic Partnerships to Accelerate Community Implementation of Treatments for Youth (CAPACITY) Lab, and highlighted other fields that have explored research in reading accessibility and comprehension for adult learners.
The Motivation
“This experience has been unlike anything else I have encountered since being in law school,” Smetana said.
Working with the Families Matter Triage Program helped her to realize her passion for helping people who are self-represented in civil cases and breaking down the barriers concerning readability of legal processes. The experience also helped her understand the importance of having a legal voice at the table and has already begun to strategize how she can use her Six Sigma Black Belt to improve or build new systems.