Public Legal Education Evaluation Framework

Evaluation is particularly crucial for PLE projects as the benefits of such projects can be hard to measure. This makes it all the more important to identify outcomes quite precisely in order to be able to assess whether they have been achieved. It is only through evaluation of PLE projects, and by sharing the results, that we can show the effectiveness of a preventive approach.

The Framework and accompanying Guidance set out the issues to be faced when undertaking the evaluation of a PLE project. They aim to provide practical help by identifying what a project could seek to achieve and giving examples of the questions and techniques needed find out whether those outcomes have been reached.

The evaluation framework takes the notion of legal capability as its starting point and begins by describing what we mean by legal capability, in other words ‘what we should know and be able to do when faced with law-related issues in everyday life.’

The evaluation framework divides the capabilities people need into four areas or domains.

• Recognising and framing the legal dimensions of issues and situations

• Finding out more about the legal dimensions of issues and situations

• Dealing with law-related issues and situations

• Engaging and influencing by understanding the relationships between the law in our everyday lives, the democratic process and wider social issues.

Public Legal Education Evaluation Framework (PDF, 618kB)
Legal capabilities table - the four key domains (PDF, 35kB)
Guidance for evaluating Public Legal Education (PDF, 605kB)