Abstract
This randomized controlled trial examines whether providing dismissed workers with clear legal information improves outcomes in Mexico’s mandatory pre-judicial conciliation process. Many workers arrive at conciliation with limited knowledge of their rights and the procedures governing severance, contributing to low settlement rates. In partnership with the Mexico City Conciliation Center, we randomize individuals who come to schedule their conciliation meeting into four groups: (i) a control group receiving no additional information; (ii) a short video explaining the conciliation process and basic legal entitlements; (iii) the video plus legally accurate information delivered by a trained law-student enumerator; and (iv) the video plus legally accurate information delivered through a calibrated large language model (LLM)–based interactive tool.
The study tests whether information provision increases worker knowledge, affects expectations, and improves settlement rates and terms. It also compares the effectiveness of human versus AI-based information delivery. Primary outcomes include settlement incidence, settlement amounts, worker understanding of rights, and subsequent legal actions. Results aim to inform scalable interventions to improve access to justice in labor disputes.