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The SJI Board of Directors will be meeting on Monday, December 6, 2021 at 1:00 PM ET.  The purpose of this meeting is to consider grant applications for the 1^st quarter of FY 2022, and other business.

The National Center for State Courts has released a new white paper for evaluating the cost/benefit of various strategies for expanding access to justice, with a particular focus on litigant portals and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR).  The paper proposes more of an “engineering” approach by introducing an analytical tool for organizations working on closing the access gap to estimate the potential impact of proposed solutions. 

The tool can be used to:

1. assess the magnitude of an access problem that could be solved by a specific capability;
2. identify barriers that must be surmounted or reduced to achieve program objectives;
3. prioritize the tasks that must be performed and the capabilities that must be implemented to close the targeted gaps. 

The sub-equations in the tool can also be used to systematically think through steps to be taken for successful implementation.

In December 2017, The National Center for State Courts (NCSC), with support from SJI, released the Elements of Judicial Excellence Framework.

The framework was created to support a well-coordinated, evidence-based system of judicial professional development, and provides information court leaders can use when deciding how to structure judicial education, performance feedback programs, and mentoring programs for judges. It also provides judicial professional development program stakeholders with a common language that can be used in discussions about developmental objectives and to improve coordination of resources across developmental programs.

Recently, the National Judicial College of Australia (NJCA) adapted the framework as a basis for the development of their own judicial excellence framework.

As featured in the August edition of the SJI Newsletter, a partnership between the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ), Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA), National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), yielded a 41-page report, titled, Call to Action: Achieving Civil Justice for All.

An 8-page Executive Summary  is now available through the through the NCSC Library e-Collection. The summary provides the 13 recommendations that the full report presents in detail, including:

• Courts must take responsibility for managing civil cases from time of filing to disposition.
• Beginning at the time each civil case is filed, courts must match resources with the needs of the case.
• Courts should use a mandatory pathway-assignment system to achieve right-sized case management.
• Courts should develop civil case management teams consisting of a responsible judge supported by appropriately trained staff.
• Courts must take full advantage of technology to implement right-size case management and achieve useful litigant-court interaction.
• Courts must take all necessary steps to increase convenience to litigants by simplifying the court-litigant interface and creating on-demand court assistance services.

Recently, SJI committed significant resources to support the Civil Justice Initiative Implementation Phase, which will support technical assistance, education, and demonstration projects for state courts to implement some or all of the CJI recommendations.  For more information about the Initiative, please visit: www.ncsc.org/civil.

During its meeting on June 13, 2016, the SJI Board of Directors elected Chief Justice Chase Rogers as Chair. She is the first female ever to be elected Chair of the SJI Board.

Chase Rogers has been the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court since 2007.  She served as a judge on the Connecticut Appellate Court from 2006 to 2007, and as a judge on the Connecticut Superior Court from 1998 to 2006. Prior to becoming a judge, she was a partner at Cummings & Lockwood in Stamford, Connecticut, where she focused on employment law and commercial litigation. She served on the Board of Directors of the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) from 2008 to 2011. She has been a member of the Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction of the Judicial Conference of the United States since 2012; member of the National Center for State Courts Expanding Court Access to Justice Project Advisory Committee since 2012; member of the Conference of Chief Justices Civil Justice Initiative Committee since 2014; member of the Connecticut Bar Foundation Nominating Committee since 2007; Ex Officio Member, American Law Institute; and Ex Officio Director, Connecticut Bar Foundation.

Chief Justice Rogers was appointed to the SJI Board of Directors in 2010. She has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law since 2012. She received an Honorary degree from Quinnipiac University School of Law in 2010, and an Honorary degree from the University of Hartford in 2011. She received her J.D. from Boston University School of Law, and B.A. from Stanford University.

With SJI support, the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) recently published a report from its first-ever National Summit on Courts and Military.  Convened in March 2015 at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, the goal of the Summit was to create the groundwork for a collaborative relationship between the courts and the many military institutions, civilian agencies, and government departments that assist military families when they access the state courts.

The Summit represented years of planning efforts culminating in the engaged presence of nearly 100 individuals representing all branches of government and the military, specifically including:

• state court judicial leaders from across the country;
• armed forces personnel including former commanding officers;
• federal executive departments of Office of the Secretary of Defense and Veterans Affairs;
• federal and state legislators;
• various service organizations for military families, together with academic, research, and policy groups interested in the welfare of the military family.

The summit report covers the following considerations:

• Education and training in a more comprehensive, consistent, and widespread manner than currently exists.
• Resources and services for military-connected families.
• Judicial and Command collaboration.
• Judicial and Command [co-] leadership.
• Assessing the needs and risks of the military-connected family members.

The NCJFCJ also outlined eight specific ways in which it could leverage national support of military families and courts, based on shared insights from participants, some of which included: increasing membership on its Military Issues Committee; keeping participants connected and engaged in the discussion virtually; fostering support for local and state-level court and command collaborative; and development of training curricula for key stakeholders within the collaborative.  With ongoing information sharing and a demand for more resources to move the discussion forward, the NCJFCJ maintains an active Military Families portal on their website.

The full 10-page final report is available from the NCJFCJ.

Since the mid-1990s, state courts have implemented various strategies in an effort to ensure access to justice for limited English proficiency (LEP) individuals. Most state courts provide foreign language interpreters in criminal cases, and more are providing interpreters in civil, domestic relations, and other court proceedings.  Several factors have pushed state courts to establish policies and standards for serving LEP individuals, including recognition that there should at least be a common agreement that every court aspire to provide these services as a matter of fairness.

Since FY 2006, SJI has invested approximately $2.7 million in grants on this issue.  These include projects on interpreter training, remote interpreting, and forms translation.  In addition, the SJI Board established Language Access as a Priority Investment Area for grant funding in November 2011.

In FY 2012, SJI awarded a grant to the NCSC, in collaboration with CCJ and COSCA, to host a National Summit on Language Access in the Courts. This Summit, which was held October 2012, enabled state courts to share successful strategies and evidence-based practices, and propose implementation strategies that are consistent among the states.  Each state team that attended the Summit is working to develop or improve statewide plans to address the problem of serving LEP individuals.  A National Call to Action report documenting the Summit’s outcomes and strategies for implementation of language access plans was widely disseminated.

In FY 2013, SJI awarded a grant to the NCSC’s Language Access Services Section that provides direct technical assistance on this critical issue, and in FY 2014 SJI provided support for the National Virtual Remote Interpreting (VRI) Capability. State courts will be able to use the VRI to provide interpreters remotely, thereby increasing access and reducing costs.

The Board of Directors has appointed Vice Chairman Daniel Becker to serve as Acting Chairman until June 2016.  He has served as State Court Administrator at the Administrative Office of the Courts for the State of Utah since 1995. In that capacity, he is responsible to the Utah Supreme Court and Utah Judicial Council for the administration of the state court system. From 1984 to 1995, Mr. Becker worked for the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts serving in the positions of: Deputy Director (1993-1995); Court Services Administrator (1986-1993); and Assistant to the Director (1984-1986). He also held the position of Trial Court Administrator for the Fourteenth Judicial District of North Carolina, and Assistant Director of Operations for the Georgia Administrative Office of the Courts. From 2004 to 2005, he served as President of the Conference of State Court Administrators and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts. Mr. Becker was the recipient of the 2006 Warren E. Burger Award for Excellence in Judicial Administration. He was initially appointed to the SJI Board of Directors in 2010. He holds a B.A. and M.P.A. from Florida Atlantic University, and attended the Executive Session for State Court Leaders in the 21st Century at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.