Category: News And Announcements

With grant support from SJI, and technical assistance provided by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), the Utah Courts have completed a multi-year review of the online dispute resolution (ODR) program.

In September of 2018, Utah became one of the first states to initiate an ODR pilot effort to aid in the processing of small claims cases effectively and efficiently.  Often litigants are self-represented, and the dockets fill quickly – lending these case types to benefit greatly from streamlined and procedural improvements made possible through technology.  

The report, titled Impact of the Utah Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Pilot Program, provides a thorough evaluation of Utah Courts’ in-house, customized ODR system, the procedural requirements for ODR, and impact of their system.  In the recommendations, the consultant advises the Courts to review the findings of the 2020 University of Arizona’s usability study, to help guide improvements to the current ODR platform in advance of statewide deployment.

Ultimately, both reports acknowledge that, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, court users were both receptive and ready for online solutions.  With COVID-19, the national trend finds jurisdictions embracing remote courts as a way of creating fair, just, and equitable online legal environments that meet the needs of all users.

The SAMHSA-funded Opioid Response Network, with efforts by its grantees, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), Rulo Strategies, and Wayne State University, Center for Behavioral Health and Justice, has added a new report to their resources.

Adoption of Virtual Services in Judicially Led Diversion Programs: Preliminary Survey Findings is the first nationwide exploration of virtual services in judicially led diversion programs.  Since March 2020, public health measures designed to slow community spread of COVID-19, necessitated that practitioners in judicially led diversion programs quickly deliver services virtually to facilitate what had traditionally been in-person interactions.  

Released this month, the 43-page report highlights preliminary survey findings based on 500 respondents involved in judicially led diversion programs.  The survey respondents represent 298 unique judicially led diversion programs in forty states and territories and reflect the perspectives of practitioners from court operations, treatment and recovery support, and community supervision in November and December 2020.

Effective Monday, March 1, 2021, SJI’s new office address will be:

12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite

Suite 340

Fairfax, VA 22033

703-660-4979

For questions, please email contact@sji.gov

Three grant deadlines remain for FY 2021 SJI Grant funding:

• February 1, 2021 (2^nd QTR)
• May 1, 2021 (3^rd QTR)
• August 1, 2021 (4^th QTR)

All new SJI grant applications must be submitted via the online Grant Management System (GMS).  Refer to the Grant Application Guide for additional information.

The SJI Funding Toolkit provides support to local courts, state courts, and their justice system partners pursue federal and philanthropic funding opportunities.   

Recent additions to the toolkit include:

1. New Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) updated weekly: https://fundingtoolkit.sji.gov/faq/

Updated Court ¢ents podcast addressing Formula Block Grant Opportunities for Courts: https://anchor.fm/funding-toolkit/episodes/Formula-Block-Grant-Opportunities-for-Courts-eolveu/a-a49suh9

Coined by Michigan Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack (MI), the expression “not the disruption we wanted, but the disruption we needed” captures the ongoing impact the pandemic has had on America’s state courts.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Conference of Chief Justices/Conference of State Court Administrators Rapid Response Team (RRT) and the NCSC have worked to identify and develop innovations and new practices in response to the pandemic.  To help spread innovation widely and to continue to learn from sites implementing new practices, the RRT and NCSC are launching the 2021 Implementation Lab.  Applications are welcome from courts that would like to participate. 

The goal of the Implementation Lab is to foster sustainable innovations across a large, diverse group of courts throughout the United States, to continue to learn about the impact of these innovations, and to share lessons learned throughout the process.

Applications are open to join the Lab in one of these areas of innovation:

1. Pre-Trial Practices
2. Remote and Virtual Hearings
3. Remote Workforce
4. Digital Divide
5. Online Dispute Resolution
6. Virtual Jury Selection and Jury Trials
7. Self-Represented Litigants
8. Language Access Technology
9. High-Volume Dockets
10. Eviction Diversion
11. Case Management

For the duration of the project, anticipated to run through 2021, NCSC and the RRT will provide resources and technical assistance to the selected sites as they develop and execute implementation plans, evaluate the impact of their innovations, and work to sustain best practices.  The Implementation Lab is made possible with SJI funding support.  Full details and an application package are available now. Applications are due Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. A first round of selections will be made in early February.

Also, in case you missed it, resources available at www.ncsc.org/pandemic continue to grow:

• With many states extending prohibitions on in-person jury trials, we have updated our map showing statewide jury restrictions (click on the “Statewide Jury Restrictions” tab).
• With large urban centers sometimes enacting tougher restrictions on jury trials, we have added a new tab called “Jury Trial Restrictions By County” that focuses on the nation’s largest urban centers.
• The “Virtual Hearings” tab now includes links to guides to remote hearings that have been published by state courts. Hover over a state, and if a guide is available, a link to that state’s guide will appear.

Finally, be sure to check out the many new resources published on the RRT Pandemic resources web page.

Through a Request for Applications (RFA) process launched in FY 2020, SJI funded multiple projects that will assist state courts in their response to, and recovery from, COVID-19, with a look towards the future of court operations. SJI gave priority consideration for RFA funding to projects that focused on institutionalizing and/or replicating practices that have been implemented during the pandemic.

SJI supported projects that planned a system change approach (as opposed to the replication of narrowly focused programs or projects), and emphasized the use of case triage to match cases and parties to appropriate resources and services both within and outside the courthouse. This also includes the use of technology for innovations such as online dispute resolution (ODR), portal development, virtual hearings, and other efforts to allow court business to be conducted outside of the courthouse. These projects will also take into account access and fairness, and costs/benefits, not only to the courts, but also to court users. 
 
A summary of these projects is available on the SJI website.

The SJI Board of Directors met virtually on December 7, 2020 to make decisions on quarterly grant applications, and approved a total of ten new grants. 

Two Strategic Initiatives Grants were approved in support of SJI’s Pandemic Response and Recovery Request for Applications (RFA); the Texas Office of Court Administration to assess the impact of remote hearings on judicial workload; and, the National Courts and Sciences Institute (NCSI) to provide sustainable case and evidentiary support for state court cases emanating from the pandemic.   Three Project Grants were approved: the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia for an appellate e-filing project; the Franklin County, Ohio, Municipal Court for a self-help resource center project; and the National Association for Court Management (NACM) to support educational programming for court managers and judges, including the impact of the pandemic on court operations.  Three Technical Assistance Grants were approved: the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts for a translation implementation project; the 5^th Judicial District of Colorado for a mental health improvement initiative; and the District of Columbia Courts to assess high volume calendars.  Two Curriculum Adaptation and Training Grants were approved: Lubbock County, Texas, for an educational program on mental health for mediators; and, the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) for a National Justice and Fairness Training program. 

The next deadline for grant applications is February 1, 2021 (FY 2021, 2^nd Quarter). 

“A man who became comatose after a fall counted on his daughter, who was assigned to be his guardian, to oversee his finances. However, she withdrew $10,000 from her father’s savings account and made $20,000 in cash advances from another account. When questioned, she said that her father always gave her generous gifts and would wish to continue to do so.” As the population of older Americans grows, so does the risk of abuse, neglect, and exploitation of the elderly. Courts are charged with protecting the well-being and assets of persons who are placed under a guardianship or conservatorship.  Because many judges only see a few guardianship cases, special resources to help them prevent and address problems are necessary. With support from SJI, NCSC has recently developed several such tools.

To guide judicial considerations when establishing a guardianship, the Pre-appointment Protocol provides examples and directs court staff to the next step at each stage in the process. The Guardianship/Conservatorship Judicial Response Protocol serves as an interactive tool to advise judges on steps to take and options to consider when allegations of wrong-doing have been made.

Courts cannot effectively monitor guardianship and conservatorship cases unless they have good information, yet the ability of state courts to provide basic data on these cases, let alone track those in which allegations of abuse or exploitation arise, is often inadequate. That is where the Guardianship/Conservatorship Monitoring: Recommended Data Elements come into play. They provide guidance on what data courts should collect and how to define it and use it to monitor cases. The need for judicial guardianship protocols, adequate data collection and tracking systems has become a priority for many state court leaders. NCSC’s newest resources contribute to reaching that goal. They can be found, along with other information and training resources, on the website for the Center for Elders and the Courts.

Before the coronavirus pandemic reduced court operations, state courts nationwide resolved 40 criminal felony cases and 100 criminal misdemeanor cases every minute of every day, but most courts failed to meet national time standards because of too many continuances and scheduled hearings.

These findings come from one of the most ambitious undertakings of its kind, the Effective Criminal Case Management project, a five-year examination of 1.2 million felony and misdemeanor cases from 136 courts in 21 states. The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) released a report that details the project’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The researchers who worked on the project say the recommendations provide a roadmap for how courts can operate faster and more efficiently.  They recommend that courts:

• Limit continuances;
• Compile good data that help them figure out why some cases are resolved more quickly than others; and
• Schedule hearings on dates that maximize the likelihood that prosecutors and defense attorneys will be prepared.

Here are some of the project’s major findings:

• The project allowed researchers for the first time to estimate the number of criminal cases resolved each year in the nation’s state courts – more than 18 million, five million felony and 13 million misdemeanor.
• The average time to disposition is 256 days for felony cases and 193 days for misdemeanors, but no court in the study meets the current national time standards. Current time standards say that 98 percent of felony cases should be resolved within 365 days, and 98 percent of misdemeanor cases should be resolved within 180 days. On average, courts in the study resolved 83 percent of felony cases within 365 days and 77 percent of misdemeanors within 180 days.
• The courts that resolve cases faster are led by presiding judges who make it clear that they dislike continuances, which lead to additional hearings and delays.
• Timely courts dismiss fewer cases, and they are faster across all case types and all manners of disposition.
• Differences in court structure play a small but surprising role in overall average timeliness, with single-tiered courts being least timely and two-tiered courts being most timely.

“The report’s most important conclusions revolve around what faster courts do to be fast and what slower courts do that make them slow,” said lead researcher Brian Ostrom. “We know courts are always striving to be more efficient, so our hope is that court leaders read the report and implement its recommendations. What’s at stake is whether every person’s constitutional right to due process is honored in the process of seeking justice in individual cases.”

NCSC consultants Ostrom and Patti Tobias will provide as much as 60 minutes of free advice to courts that want to know how to operate faster and more efficiently, as part of the NCSC’s Dr. Is In program.  Go here to sign up.

For more information about this project, including an appendix that lists the courts involved, go here.

With SJI support, the National Association for Court Management (NACM) has made content from its 2020 NACM Annual Virtual Conference and Expo available online.  This year’s event went virtual for the first time due to the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Plenaries, workshops, the annual business meeting and much more have all been uploaded as videos that you can watch sequentially or by subject/session area.

NACM is also accepting proposals for its 2021 Conference, Justice for All: Courts at the Crossroads.  NACM is committed to providing innovative, engaging and emerging trends at the    Midyear and Annual conferences.  Conferenc`es are made up of plenary and concurrent breakout sessions.

Private Sector – please contact Stacey Smith about sponsorships with speaking opportunities.