Reducing Barriers to Participation in Eviction Court

2026-04-01

2026-09-30

The share of cases in which an Answer is filed.
The share of cases resulting in default judgment.
The share of cases that are dismissed.
The share of cases in which the tenant secures legal representation.
Whether an eviction writ of possession is issued.

Answer filed: An indicator equal to one if any defendant on the case filed an Answer.
Default judgment: An indicator equal to one if the case resulted in a default judgment as recorded in court data.
Dismissal: An indicator equal to one if the case resulted in a dismissal as recorded in court data.
Representation: An indicator equal to one if any defendant on the case is recorded as having an attorney of record at any point during the case.
Writ of possession: An indicator equal to one if the court data records that a writ is issued.

The share of cases in which a Demurrer is filed.
Use of the online Answer tool (Answertool.org).
Use of the court website to access case documents.
Appearance at a hearing.
Time to case resolution.

Downstream outcomes that are contingent on our ability to link at the case-level:
Amount of monetary damages.
Stipulated agreement terms.
Use of help resources (e.g., self-help center).
Financial stability from credit bureau data.
Housing stability from mobile phone location data.

Demurrer filed: An indicator equal to one if any defendant on the case filed a Demurrer.
Use of answer tool: An indicator equal to one if any defendant on the case submitted a response using Answertool.org
Use of court website to access case documents: An indicator equal to one if any defendant on the case accessed case documents online.
Appearing at a hearing: An indicator equal to one if any defendant on the case appeared at a hearing.
Time: the number of days between filing and case disposition.

Tentative downstream outcomes:
Monetary damages: Dollar amount of damages awarded.
Stipulated agreement terms: indicators for whether the agreement possesses a move-out agreement, civil probation agreement, and damages agreement.
Help resources: An indicator equal to one if any defendant on the case interacted with a help center.
Financial stability: the change in credit score.
Housing stability: time from filing to first move, the length of time spent at first destination, the time to stable destination.

This intervention evaluates the effects of reducing barriers for tenants to participate in eviction court.

Not available

Treatment assignment is determined by the last digit of the court case number, which is assigned sequentially by the clerk at the time of filing, before any case information beyond the complaint is known to the court. We will test balance on pre-treatment observables (landlord characteristics, census block group characteristics, number of defendants) to validate the as-if random assignment.

Randomization happens at the case-level because it is determined by the case number.

No

20,000 cases

20,000, cases

2,000 cases

The study exploits a factorial design. Importantly, we will not primarily analyze this as a ten-arm experiment requiring pairwise comparisons. Instead, the 5×2 factorial structure lets us estimate the marginal effect of each intervention component — the redesigned notice, the case documents access, the e-filing tool, and SMS reminders — by pooling across the other dimension. The table below reports minimum detectable effects (MDEs) at 80% power (α = 0.05, two-sided) for Answer filing in percentage points (pp), which has a baseline rate of approximately 40% under the current notice. Estimate | What it Captures | Effective N Per Group | MDE Redesign Effect | New notice vs current notice | ~4,000 | 3.1 pp Document Access | New notice with vs without access link | ~4,000 | 3.1 pp E-Filing | New notice with vs without e-filing link | ~4,000 | 3.1 pp SMS | Text reminders vs no reminders | ~10,000 | 1.9 pp Pairwise (any single arm vs control) | Individual arm comparison | ~2,000 | 4.3 pp