Through its research and data gathering activities, ILS strives to become a repository for all known and available information on indigent legal services providers around the state. The Office gathers data through a variety of strategies including the collation of data from state agencies, research into available data from county sources, and direct contacts with indigent legal services providers themselves.

ILS aims to improve its understanding of indigent legal services across the state through the collection of data that are of the highest possible quality, and analysis of the greatest possible integrity. To that end, the Office aims to collect reliable and valid data in the in the following areas as enumerated in Executive Law §832(3)(b):

1. The types and combinations of indigent legal service providers in use in each county
2. Compensation of indigent legal service provider staff
3. Caseloads of indigent legal service provider attorneys
4. Caseloads in prosecuting agencies
5. The types, nature and timing of case dispositions among indigent legal service provider agencies
6. Expenditures on defense and prosecution services by county
7. Other resources expended on defense and prosecution in counties, including on ancillary and support services
8. Eligibility determination processes and outcomes
9. Attorney qualification standards

The Office also actively seeks to improve its research capacity by pursuing external funding and collaborations with other agencies when they can further the Office’s mission. The Office is pleased to have begun working with the School of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York at Albany to investigate the causes and consequences of counsel at arraignment in New York courts. Through the development of projects such as these, the Office aspires continually to enhance its insight into indigent legal services across the state in order to make better informed, empirically guided policy decisions.