The Legal and Judicial Sector at a Glance database provides access to legal and judicial information and comparative indicators on court systems across over 100 developing and developed countries. The database has been developed by t he Legal Vice Presidency's Knowledge Management Cluster (LEGKM) at the World Bank as a tool for global knowledge sharing and for assisting legal and judicial reform initiatives.

As a tool for legal and judicial reform the database was first developed in 1999 to provide end-users with a well-designed set of baseline benchmarks and performance indicators for comparing court systems and measuring the progress of legal and judicial reform initiatives. As a tool for global knowledge sharing the database provides general qualitative and quantitative information. This includes an overview of the legal and judicial systems of countries, description of the organizations and institutions within each system and information on the judicial budget, legal education and the legal profession.

The database presents information and statistics for the years 2000 and 2002. It is currently being improved in collaboration with the Development Economics Vice Presidency (DEC) to include the latest legal and judicial sector information, new development indicators and methods for data collection.

The database differs from existing websites which contain basic descriptive information on legal and judicial systems, but few statistics or which contain only links to legal and judicial sector institutions and organizations. Legal and Judicial Sector at a Glance is a publicly available database that provides comprehensive legal and judicial information and statistics for individual countries and which can be compared to different legal and judicial systems.

The Legal and Judicial Sector at a Glance indicators are important to the Bank Group's agenda for promoting greater dialogue for the rule of law and for the transparent dissemination of data for empirical research, capacity building, and program design.