Citizens' Evaluations of Institutionalized Advice Providers Used for Dealing with Everyday Problems in Japan
Citizens' Evaluations of Institutionalized Advice Providers Used for Dealing with Everyday Problems in Japan

Summary/Abstract: In Japan, there are various professionals, governmental organs and non-governmental organizations which provide citizens who are caught up in conflicts or problems potentially relating to law with advice about how to deal with the matters. Lawyers occupy only a small part of the whole universe of these institutionalized advice providers. In most cases, advice is provided by non-lawyers for free or for only a small amount. Based on a national survey conducted in 2006, this paper examines how citizens who used these advice providers evaluate their experience and why they do so. Whether the users’ initial expectations of what institutionalized advice providers they used would do for them were realized, as well as whether their problems were settled with satisfaction after consulting with the advice providers, has significant influence on their evaluation of the advice providers. In addition, the evaluation of some features of an advice provider is correlated with the evaluation of other features of the same institutionalized advice provider. Based on those findings, a psychological structure of citizens’ evaluation of institutionalized advice providers can be depicted.

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