As we have seen in health care, quality can be assured when information about the best treatments is made available. 'General practitioners' who know the local context, such as paralegals, will benefit enormously from protocols for the most frequent legal problems. As will their clients.
This was strategy number three for improving access to justice when 100 experts discussed our Trend Report on Basic Justice Care.
For responses to domestic violence there is a vast academic literature. Many interventions have been evaluated systemetically. Courts and other organisations helping people to deal with violence have developed best practices guides as well. Paralegals are beginning to share their working methods through their network organisation Namati, but this development is still in the early stages.
International legal practice would benefit enormously if these best practices would be scrutinised by academics and made available to practitioners in legal services, courts, police and tribunals in the form of protocols.
The challenge is mainly one of organisation and funding. Health care practitioners and researchers got this done. How can legal practitioners and researchers follow?
Ideally, such protocols can be developed for the most common and urgent problems that are described in an international classification system.
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