Category: News

The Superior Court in Pima County, Arizona implemented the FASTAR Pilot Program in November 2017.  The program was designed to address case management complaints concerning cases valued at $50,000 or less, which were automatically assigned to compulsory arbitration.  Under the pilot program rules, cases eligible for compulsory arbitration could be assigned to expedited case management tracks in which the parties could choose to resolve the case by bench or jury trial (Fast Trial) or by arbitration (Alternative Resolution).  Plaintiffs that failed to choose defaulted to the Alternative Resolution track.  With generous financial support from the State Justice Institute, the National Center for State Courts evaluated the FASTAR Pilot Program as a technical assistance project through its Civil Justice Initiative Implementation Plan.

The NCSC found that, in more than one-quarter of FASTAR cases disposed between November 1, 2017 and September 30, 2019, plaintiffs choose the Fast Trial track.  These cases were less likely to settle than cases in which the plaintiffs choose Alternative Resolution.  A total of 14 cases were ultimately disposed by bench trial (6 cases) or jury trial (8 cases), thus fulfilling the program expectations that attorneys would gain valuable trial experience.  The NCSC also surveyed attorneys who were listed as counsel of record in FASTAR cases.  The survey response rate was 11.9 percent, and differences between case and respondent characteristics suggest that self-selection bias may have prompted lawyers with more negative opinions about the FASTAR Pilot Program to respond.  For example, there was a consistent and strong consensus that the FASTAR Rules were unfair to plaintiffs.  Moreover, attorneys that affirmatively selected the Fast Trial track indicated that they did so to avoid prohibitions on appeals from arbitration rather than to take advantage of the opportunity to resolve the case by trial.  The evaluation report concludes with recommendations, including aligning case management rules for FASTAR cases with those for cases assigned to Tier 1 under the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure.

The full report is available here.

Last month, SJI featured the culmination of a two-year project by the National Judicial Opioid Task Force (NJOTF).  The report provided state courts nationwide with further information regarding the treatment of opioid-addicted defendants.

Housed withing the National Center for State Court Library’s eCollection is the final report and several special-subject bench cards or bulletins, which draw attention to general areas of the law and processes related to defendants in populations that may require special services.

• Understanding the Basics of Addiction
• The Fundamentals of Screening and Assessment
• Sample Court Transfer Agreement – State and Tribal Courts
• Parent Partner Programs – Promising Practice to Keep Families Struggling with Substance Use Disorder Together
• Prenatal Substance Exposure: Improving Outcomes for Women and Infants
• Tribal State Court Forums

The NJOTF received grant support from SJI for this content, and other elements of the project.

With grant support from SJI, the Fulton County Magistrate Court (FCMC), located in Atlanta, Georgia, received funding in 2017 through the National Center for State Courts’ (NCSC) Civil Justice Initiative for a demonstration pilot project to implement and test reforms on high-volume civil dockets.  The FCMC caseload consists primarily of small claims (up to $15,000), dispossessory (landlord/tenant evictions), and garnishment cases.

The reforms were originally promulgated as recommendations endorsed by the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators to secure the fair, speedy and inexpensive resolution of civil cases in state courts.  Specific improvements implemented by the FCMC as part of the pilot project included the development and promulgation of informational resources, including brochures and web-based materials, for FCMC litigants; adjustments to court calendars to relieve case backlogs in dispossessory cases; and the development of checklists and training for judges and court staff to ensure consistent and accurate case processing.  The reforms were implemented over an 18-month period beginning in March 2017 through October 2018.

At the end of the pilot project, the NCSC conducted a process evaluation to assess the immediate impact of the reforms and to glean lessons about effective implementation.  The evaluation found that the reforms led to significantly reduced backlogs in dispossessory cases and reduced the time from filing to disposition for both small claims and garnishments; it did not find a significant reduction in time to disposition for dispossessory cases, likely because the timeframe was already so short that meaningful reductions would be very difficult to achieve.  The evaluation also reported positive assessments of the informational resources developed for FCMC litigants, who found them very useful.

Conclusions about the pilot project highlighted challenges related to implementing reforms on high-volume dockets, especially the importance of stakeholder engagement and communication about how stakeholder input is integrated in program design; the need to allocate time, staff, and attention as key resources to ensure the success of pilot projects; and the value of soliciting litigant feedback both in the design and the assessment of pilot projects.  The report closed with recommendations for ongoing reform efforts.

 

Be sure to listen to court leaders share their stories about the Court Improvement Program (CIP), in a series of podcasts, moderated by Bill DeLisio, Colorado’s Family Law Program manager.

CIP provides federal money to help families at risk or in crisis. DeLisio conducted the 10 interviews at the National Judicial Leadership Summit on Child Welfare in Minneapolis in September.  The first podcast episode – a fireside chat – was posted in late November, and future episodes will be released every other week through March.  The most recently released podcast features Alicia Davis, a Denver-based principal court management consultant with the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).

Underscored by recent research from the ABA’s Commission of Women, which highlighted the need to address workplace-related sexual harassment, the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) received a grant from SJI in develop and deliver educational programming for the legal community.

NAWJ’s #WeToo in the Legal Workplace program provides content specifically for judges and other legal professionals on sexual harassment and misconduct in the workplace.  Among NAWJ’s education strategies, the program convenes state legislators and legislative women’s caucus leaders with lawyers who have expertise in employment law and the workplace. Legislators shared and updated participants on ‘landmark’ legislation, as well as the status of any recent efforts to curb sexual harassment in the legislature and in the courts.

Earlier this year, NAWJ released a report, on these activities, and future programming is planned. Additionally, the ABA Commission’s Women in the Profession has adapted the research that informed the #WeToo in the Legal Workplace program to include Zero Tolerance: Best Practices for Combating Sex- Based Harassment in the Legal Profession, which builds on work and introduces new information to the next generation. The Zero Tolerance Program educates women lawyers and firms alike on the signs and symptoms of an unhealthy work environment, and the best practices to correct it. Download the toolkit for offline use here.

After more than two years of work, the SJI-supported National Judicial Opioid Task Force (NJOTF) this week released a report that lays the groundwork for state courts nationwide to treat opioid-addicted defendants more like patients than criminals by using a combination of counseling services and medicated-assisted treatment.

The release of the report was attended by more than 100 court leaders and health and government leaders, including U.S. Surgeon General VADM Jerome M. Adams, and Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, James W. Carroll Jr., at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Watch the press conference here.

“Judges must exert leadership and advocate for the availability of quality, evidence-based treatment services as the best and most effective response to the opioid epidemic,” said Indiana Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush, who co-chaired the task force along with Tennessee Director of Courts Deborah Taylor Tate. In all, 34 state court leaders, representing 24 states, served on the task force, which was staffed by the National Center for State Courts.

Surgeon General Adams praised the task force and agreed with the report’s findings. “The opioid crisis has ravaged communities all across the country,” he said. “Everyone has a stake in our response, including our court systems. Just as addiction is complicated, so, too, is recovery – but we know that it is possible. Connecting people to care is important with any chronic condition, but it’s crucial when the individual is battling an opioid use or other substance use disorder. The earlier that connection is made, the better.”

The criminal justice system is the single largest source of referral to substance use disorder treatment. However, the report notes that “the opioid epidemic is not just a criminal justice issue,” but impacts every court, including family and bankruptcy courts.

“The misuse of opioids such as heroin, morphine, and prescription pain medications is not only a devastating public health crisis, it is critically affecting the administration of justice in courthouses throughout the United States,” Chief Justice Rush said. “It’s crucial that judges are involved in reversing this epidemic.”

According to the report, state courts must:

• Embrace medicated-assisted treatment, which involves using federally approved medications as well as counseling and behavioral therapies to treat those with substance use disorders;
• Partner with state lawmakers, federal agencies and executive branches;
• Realize that the most significant impact of the epidemic involves cases with children and families; and
• Design programs that can also be used for the next substance abuse addiction crisis.

“For years, the justice system knew how to be tough on drugs,” Tate said. “Now is the time for us to become smart’ on drugs.”

The task force was established in 2017 by the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators as the opioid epidemic increasingly impacted state courts.

The woman’s last name was called a few times in Collin County Court in north Texas before she finally appeared, 15 minutes late, with a baby in her arms and tears in her eyes. As Ben White (pictured in center), the court’s senior IT manager, watched her rush into the courtroom, he assumed the woman couldn’t find a babysitter and her job didn’t offer paid time off. He wondered if the money she was losing by being in court that day might cause her to go into debt.

“I realized right then that ODR (online dispute resolution) was meant for her,” said White, a panelist at the recent 2019 ODR International Forum, attended by about 210 people from 17 countries.

eBay, Alibaba and hundreds of other companies have been using online dispute resolution for several years to resolve disputes related to the sales of goods and services. Only within the last few years have courts seen ODR as a realistic way to resolve lawsuits by allowing litigants to use their phones and computers to settle disputes without stepping foot in a courtroom.

The forum, co-sponsored by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), was an opportunity for court technologists and administrators, academic researchers and private-sector entrepreneurs — from nations such as Singapore and New Zealand to England and Israel – to share ideas and experiences about what has worked well, and what hasn’t. In the United States, ODR is being used in scattered courts in 17 states for small-claims cases, but some are also using it to settle traffic and family law cases.

Throughout the conference, in Williamsburg, Virginia, panelists echoed the sentiment of Utah Supreme Court Justice Deno Himonas, the keynote speaker, that ODR is just one technological advancement that courts must embrace to better provide access to justice for many millions of people who can’t afford lawyers and are not well served by the courts.

“Would it be ideal if everyone had access to an attorney and it was affordable?” Himonas said. “Yes, but that system has failed.” He dismissed those who don’t want ODR, saying, “Get over it. ODR is here to stay.”

Himonas announced new data that shows Utah’s ODR pilot project has yielded promising results. Cases are resolved faster than if litigants went to court, and only a very small percentage of them opted out. Hear Himonas talk more about the project on NCSC’s podcast, Court Talk.

Other speakers also shared data and stories that make it clear that ODR has enormous potential to resolve disputes faster, cheaper and more conveniently than what courts now offer.

Go here for a longer story about the 2019 conference.

Court leaders frequently express concern about the ability to: (1) recruit and retain qualified employees and (2) meet the development desires of a workforce that is increasingly hungry for “growth and learning opportunities.” Are you one of them? If yes, you are not alone. Leaders of both private and public organizations frequently express concerns about being able to recruit and maintain a high-performing, engaged workforce.

King County Superior Court (Seattle, Washington) recently developed two new employee programs thanks to a technical assistance grant from SJI, the hard work of a dedicated internal project team led by Deputy Court Administrator Linda Ridge, and the assistance of Dr. Brenda Wagenknecht-Ivey (who served as a consultant to the Court for this project).

The two programs are:

1. A multi-phased Onboarding Program for new employees; and,
2. A Leadership Development and Career Mobility program for “veteran” employees of 3 years or more.

Both programs are aimed at meeting the expressed desires and needs of today’s workforce and yield significant, noticeable benefits to Courts. Please contact article authors, Linda K. Ridge at linda.ridge@kingcounty.gov or Dr. Brenda Wagenknecht-Ivey at bwagen@praxisconsulting.org for more information.  You can read the full post-project summary here.

Judges, law enforcement officials, and health agency representatives recently met at the Hawaii State Supreme Court for the inaugural Hawaii Summit on Improving the Governmental Response to Community Mental Illness.  The summit was supported by SJI, the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators COSCA), with technical assistance from the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).

The summit helped Hawaii government agencies learn more about how they can guide people with mental illness to proper health care services before they repeatedly cycle through jails, hospitals, and courts.

During 2017 and 2018, the Hawaii Department of Public Safety (DPS) held 275 pretrial detainees in that category. The detainees with mental illness spent a cumulative 12,000 days occupying bed space at DPS before they were transferred to the Hawaii State Hospital, according to Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald. Chief Justice Recktenwald said he hoped to see a reduction in the number of “704” acquittal filings to ease the strain on the judicial system. In the first 10 months of 2019 alone, there were 440 of those filings from people who cited health issues that made them incapable of standing trial.

Chief Justice Recktenwald said solutions such as opening a crisis center could be a possibility for Hawaii. “To make that happen we need to work with the Department of Health and providers in the community to make sure those resources are in place,” Recktenwald said. “You can’t have a meaningful diversion system unless you actually have appropriate resources and a place you can take people to get treatment or care.”