The impact of LASPO on routes to justice

This research underlines the emotional, social, financial and mental health impacts for individuals who have attempted to resolve their legal problems without legal aid, following the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) in 2013. LASPO introduced funding cuts to legal aid and narrowed the scope and financial eligibility criteria, with the result that fewer people could access legal advice and representation for problems in areas such as family, employment and welfare benefits law. We interviewed over 100 people in the Liverpool City Region, with problems in at least one of these areas of law, to understand how LASPO had affected their options for resolving those issues. We also interviewed a number of advice providers and legal aid practitioners, and analysed national data from Citizens Advice. Many participants reported significant financial deprivation as a result of trying but not being able to resolve their legal issues. Some were unable to afford food, adequate housing or other essentials. A lack of preventive legal help led to delays in resolution, which often made problems worse. There was also evidence that costs were passed to other parts of the public sector, including an increased reliance on welfare benefits as a result of unresolved employment issues. Family law • The high cost of legal fees is a key barrier to justice. Some participants who paid for legal advice or representation reported going into debt as a result. • People’s inability to pay for expert or specialist evidence without legal aid may have led to courts making decisions on the basis of insufficient information. • Cuts to legal aid have had a negative impact on children’s lives, especially in relation to child contact cases. Employment law • The main barriers to justice are the high cost of legal representation, the difficulty of navigating the tribunal process without support and a low level of knowledge about employment rights. • Many participants reported that the costs of bringing their claims to tribunal were disproportionate to the value of the claims. This deterred them from bringing claims and made it harder to find a solicitor willing to take their case. • Participants had fewer options for accessing third-sector specialist advice and representation. Those participants who went to tribunal had to represent themselves as a result, and in general they lacked the skills or experience to do this competently. Welfare benefits law • LASPO has significantly reduced the capacity of voluntary sector organisations to provide welfare law advice. There is almost no specialist advice left to provide support to appeal benefits decisions. • The removal of welfare benefits law from the scope of legal aid has exacerbated the impact of recent welfare reforms, which is likely to have affected disabled people disproportionately. Most participants tried multiple routes to resolve a single issue: attempting to resolve problems on their own, trying to access free advice and taking steps to get paid advice or representation before courts or tribunals. But without legal aid, almost all the participants struggled to solve their problems

Two-step solid-state synthesis of PEPPSI-type compounds

peer-reviewedThe two-step mechanochemical preparation of carbene–pyridine complexes of palladium and platinum is reported. The organometallic products, which represent a class of commercially available catalysts, are rapidly formed in excellent yield proving solvent-free synthesis to be a viable synthetic alternative even in the case of NHC-containing compounds

Mouse Hind Limb Skeletal Muscle Functional Adaptation in a Simulated Fine Branch Arboreal Habitat

The musculoskeletal system is remarkably plastic during growth. The purpose of this study was to examine the muscular plasticity in functional and structural properties in a model known to result in significant developmental plasticity of the postcranial skeleton. Fifteen weanling C57BL/6 mice were raised to 16 weeks of age in one of two enclosures: a climbing enclosure that simulates a fine branch arboreal habitat and is traversed by steel wires crossing at 45° relative to horizontal at multiple intersections, and a control enclosure that resembles a parking deck with no wires but the same volume of habitable space. At killing, ex vivo contractility properties of the soleus (SOL) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles were examined. Our results demonstrate that EDL muscles of climbing mice contracted with higher specific forces and were comprised of muscle fibers with slower myosin heavy chain isoforms. EDL muscles also fatigued at a higher rate in climbing mice compared to controls. SOL muscle function is not affected by the climbing environment. Likewise, mass and architecture of both EDL and SOL muscles were not different between climbing and control mice. Our data demonstrate that functional adaptation does not require concomitant architectural adaptation in order to increase contractile force

Using self-definition to predict the influence of procedural justice on organizational, interpersonal, and job/task-oriented citizenship behaviors

An integrative self-definition model is proposed to improve our understanding of how procedural justice affects different outcome modalities in organizational behavior. Specifically, it is examined whether the strength of different levels of self-definition (collective, relational, and individual) each uniquely interact with procedural justice to predict organizational, interpersonal, and job/task-oriented citizenship behaviors, respectively. Results from experimental and (both single and multisource) field data consistently revealed stronger procedural justice effects (1) on organizational-oriented citizenship behavior among those who define themselves strongly in terms of organizational characteristics, (2) on interpersonal-oriented citizenship behavior among those who define themselves strongly in terms of their interpersonal relationships, and (3) on job/task-oriented citizenship behavior among those who define themselves weakly in terms of their distinctiveness or uniqueness. We discuss the relevance of these results with respect to how employees can be motivated most effectively in organizational settings

Engaging Undergraduates in Science Research: Not Just About Faculty Willingness.

Despite the many benefits of involving undergraduates in research and the growing number of undergraduate research programs, few scholars have investigated the factors that affect faculty members' decisions to involve undergraduates in their research projects. We investigated the individual factors and institutional contexts that predict faculty members' likelihood of engaging undergraduates in their research project(s). Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute's 2007-2008 Faculty Survey, we employ hierarchical generalized linear modeling to analyze data from 4,832 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty across 194 institutions to examine how organizational citizenship behavior theory and social exchange theory relate to mentoring students in research. Key findings show that faculty who work in the life sciences and those who receive government funding for their research are more likely to involve undergraduates in their research project(s). In addition, faculty at liberal arts or historically Black colleges are significantly more likely to involve undergraduate students in research. Implications for advancing undergraduate research opportunities are discussed

Willing and able: action-state orientation and the relation between procedural justice and employee cooperation

Existing justice theory explains why fair procedures motivate employees to adopt cooperative goals, but it fails to explain how employees strive towards these goals. We study self-regulatory abilities that underlie goal striving; abilities that should thus affect employees’ display of cooperative behavior in response to procedural justice. Building on action control theory, we argue that employees who display effective self-regulatory strategies (action oriented employees) display relatively strong cooperative behavioral responses to fair procedures. A multisource field study and a laboratory experiment support this prediction. A subsequent experiment addresses the process underlying this effect by explicitly showing that action orientation facilitates attainment of the cooperative goals that people adopt in response to fair procedures, thus facilitating the display of actual cooperative behavior. This goal striving approach better integrates research on the relationship between procedural justice and employee cooperation in the self-regulation and the work motivation literature. It also offers organizations a new perspective on making procedural justice effective in stimulating employee cooperation by suggesting factors that help employees reach their adopted goals

In situ generation and intramolecular schmidt reaction of keto azides in a microwave-assisted flow format

Go with the flow! A method for conversion of keto halides to lactams by means of sequential azidation and intramolecular Schmidt reaction in a combined flow format is described (see scheme; MWI=microwave irradiation, TFA=trifluoroacetic acid)

The Impact of LASPO on Routes to Justice

This research underlines the emotional, social, financial and mental health impacts for individuals who have attempted to resolve their legal problems without legal aid, following the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) in 2013. LASPO introduced funding cuts to legal aid and narrowed the scope and financial eligibility criteria, with the result that fewer people could access legal advice and representation for problems in areas such as family, employment and welfare benefits law. We interviewed over 100 people in the Liverpool City Region, with problems in at least one of these areas of law, to understand how LASPO had affected their options for resolving those issues. We also interviewed a number of advice providers and legal aid practitioners, and analysed national data from Citizens Advice. Many participants reported significant financial deprivation as a result of trying but not being able to resolve their legal issues. Some were unable to afford food, adequate housing or other essentials. A lack of preventive legal help led to delays in resolution, which often made problems worse. There was also evidence that costs were passed to other parts of the public sector, including an increased reliance on welfare benefits as a result of unresolved employment issues. Family law • The high cost of legal fees is a key barrier to justice. Some participants who paid for legal advice or representation reported going into debt as a result. • People’s inability to pay for expert or specialist evidence without legal aid may have led to courts making decisions on the basis of insufficient information. • Cuts to legal aid have had a negative impact on children’s lives, especially in relation to child contact cases. Employment law • The main barriers to justice are the high cost of legal representation, the difficulty of navigating the tribunal process without support and a low level of knowledge about employment rights. • Many participants reported that the costs of bringing their claims to tribunal were disproportionate to the value of the claims. This deterred them from bringing claims and made it harder to find a solicitor willing to take their case. • Participants had fewer options for accessing third-sector specialist advice and representation. Those participants who went to tribunal had to represent themselves as a result, and in general they lacked the skills or experience to do this competently. Welfare benefits law • LASPO has significantly reduced the capacity of voluntary sector organisations to provide welfare law advice. There is almost no specialist advice left to provide support to appeal benefits decisions. • The removal of welfare benefits law from the scope of legal aid has exacerbated the impact of recent welfare reforms, which is likely to have affected disabled people disproportionately. Most participants tried multiple routes to resolve a single issue: attempting to resolve problems on their own, trying to access free advice and taking steps to get paid advice or representation before courts or tribunals. But without legal aid, almost all the participants struggled to solve their problems

What is the role of emotions in educational leaders’ decision making? Proposing an organizing framework

Purpose: Emotions have a pervasive, predictable, sometimes deleterious but other times instrumental effect on decision making. Yet the influence of emotions on educational leaders’ decision making has been largely underexplored. To optimize educational leaders’ decision making, this article builds on the prevailing data-driven decision-making approach, and proposes an organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making by drawing on converging empirical evidence from multiple disciplines (e.g., administrative science, psychology, behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroeconomics) intersecting emotions, decision making, and organizational behavior. Proposed Framework: The proposed organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making includes four core propositions: (1) decisions are the outcomes of the interactions between emotions and cognition; (2) at the moment of decision making, emotions have a pervasive, predictable impact on decision making; (3) before making decisions, leaders’ individual differences (e.g., trait affect and power) and organizational contexts (e.g., organizational justice and emotional contagion) have a bearing on leaders’ emotions and decision making; and (4) postdecision behavioral responses trigger more emotions (e.g., regret, guilt, and shame) which, in turn, influence the next cycle of decision-making process. Implications: The proposed framework calls for not only an intensified scholarly inquiry into educational leaders’ emotions and decision making but also an adequate training on emotions in school leadership preparation programs and professional development