Legal Research Associate

Position: Legal Research Associate Department: NYU School of Global Public Health Supervisor: Dr. Jean Bae Employment Dates: September 8, 2026 - July 29, 2027 Schedule: Part- Time 10-15 hours per week Jean Bae JD MPH, a clinical associate professor of public health policy and management at the School of Global Public Health, is research associates to work on the RELIEF study, a multi-year NIH R01-funded study examining the causal impact of court fees and other financial costs directly resulting from criminal legal involvement on substance use outcomes. Utilizing original legal research and implementation science approaches, this study will produce the first rigorous evaluation of court fees on overdose deaths and other substance use outcomes in the US. The legal research component of this project includes search, retrieval, and analysis of court fee statutes in all 50 states from 2018 to 2025, as well as additional data collection on fee policies and practices at the county level in a select subsample of 5 or more states. The Research Associate(s) will be responsible for: - Assisting in the retrieval of relevant statutes from Westlaw and/or LexisNexis for a 50-state survey of laws for the study period. - Attending the training on interpretation and coding of statutes for quantitative analysis. - Using a codebook provided by Bae and others, code the assigned statute texts for quantitative analysis. - Based on a compatibility check with other related law data, reconcile inconsistencies in coding under Bae’s guidance. Required Qualifications: - Ability to commit to at least 60 hours per month to complete coding tasks. - Experience using Westlaw or LexisNexis for legal research (preferably statutory research). Preferred Qualifications: - Experience with 50-state surveys or familiarity with statutory research and interpretation. - Interest in criminal justice and/or policies pertaining to subst