People-Centred Access to Justice Research

Rebecca L. Sandefur is Professor in and Director of the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. She investigates access to civil justice from every angle -- from how legal services are delivered and consumed, to how civil legal aid is organized around the nation, to the role of pro bono, to the relative efficacy of lawyers, nonlawyers and digital tools as advisers and representatives, to how ordinary people think about their justice problems and try to resolve them. In addition to her appointment at ASU, Sandefur is Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, where she founded and leads the Access to Justice Research Initiative.  

Her public service includes her appointment by the Supreme Court of Utah to the state's Office of Legal Services Innovation and her appointment by the Supreme Court of Arizona to the Arizona Commission on Access to Justice.   She is co-founder, with Matthew Burnett, of Frontline Justice.

In 2013, Sandefur was The Hague Visiting Chair in the Rule of Law. In 2015, she was named Champion of Justice by the National Center for Access to Justice. In 2018, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on inequality and access to justice. In 2020, she was awarded the Warren E. Burger Award by the National Center for State Courts.

Sandefur was born in and spent her early years in Oklahoma, and is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation.

Matthew Burnett, is Senior Program Officer for the Access to Justice Research Initiative at the American Bar Foundation (ABF) and visiting scholar for Justice Futures at Arizona State University. Prior to joining the ABF, Matthew was Senior Policy Officer at Open Society Foundations (OSF), where he worked to advance access to justice and legal empowerment through research, advocacy, litigation, and grantmaking in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the United States.

Earlier in his career he co-founded and led the Immigration Advocates Network and served as law clerk to Justice ZM Yacoob of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the World Bank, and the International Development Research Centre. Matthew currently serves as an advisor to the National Center for Access to Justice and is co-founder, with Professor Sandefur, of Frontline Justice.

Georgina joined Victoria Law Foundation in June 2023 as a Senior Researcher.

Georgina has a PhD in Legal History from Monash University and has a history of quantitative and qualitative research, which includes working as a Senior Analyst for the Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office and several leading Australian universities.

Her work has been published in the International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy, and other journals.

With over 20 years of experience in monitoring, outcomes-based practice, and project management, Bridget is an evaluation specialist. She holds a Master of Public Health from Monash University, and is skilled in quantitative and qualitative measurement and analysis, and building evaluation capacity and systems. 

With a background working in international and community not-for-profits, Bridget previously led evaluation and research for over eight years at Victoria Legal Aid, driving evidence-based practice to underpin the design and delivery of effective, client-centred legal services.