Types of Logistic Regression DiscussionJohn plans to do a logist.docx

Types of Logistic Regression Discussion
John plans to do a logistic regression using the default (enter)
method. His friend Barbara suggests that he should do a
sequential logistic regression instead, and another friend, Linda,
tells John that a stepwise logistic regression is the way to go.
· Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these three
options.
· What criteria should John use to decide which method is best
for him?
IMPROVING
CASEFLOW
MANAGEMENT:
A BRIEF GUIDE
David C. Steelman
National Center for State Courts
Revised February 2008
ii
© 2008
National Center for State Courts
The preparation of this brief guide to caseflow management was
funded by the

National Center for State Courts as a service to judges, court
managers, and others
interested in court administration and the operation of the
courts. The points of view or
opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the
official position or policies of the National Center for State
Courts.
Online legal research provided by LexisNexis.
iii
IMPROVING CASEFLOW MANAGEMENT:
A BRIEF GUIDE
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction............................................................................
....................................... 1
A. Caseflow Management as Central Theme in Court
Management .......................... 1
B. Essential Elements
...............................................................................................
2
C. Introducing Improvements in Your Court
............................................................. 3
Chapter I. Core Features
.............................................................................................
4
A. Effective Leadership

............................................................................................ 4
B. Time
Expectations............................................................................
.................... 5
C. Early and Continuous Court Control of Case
Progress.......................................... 7
D. Firm and Credible Trial Dates
.............................................................................. 8
Chapter II. Other Essential
Elements........................................................................ 12
A. Court Management Foundation
.......................................................................... 14
B. Active Management
...........................................................................................
16
C. Proven Methods and Techniques
........................................................................ 19
Chapter III. Careful Planning and Implementation
................................................. 24
A. Priorities and Readiness for Change
................................................................... 24
B. Current Situation and Feasible Alternatives
........................................................ 28
C. Implementation Plan for Best Approach
............................................................. 31
D. Implementation and Further
Refinements........................................................... 35
Appendix. Suggestions for Further Reading
............................................................. 40
iv

FIGURES AND TABLES
Page
Table 1. American Bar Association Time Standards
...................................................... 7
Figure 1. Steps to Ensure Firm Trial Dates
................................................................... 10
Figure 2. Effect of Scheduling and Continuance Policy on
Attorney Readiness ............ 11
Figure 3. Relationship Among Essential Elements of Successful
Programs................... 13
Figure 4. Possible Goals and Objectives in Addition to Time
Standards ....................... 17
Figure 5. Managing Court Events After Initial Disposition
........................................... 23
Figure 6: Checklist of Steps to Introduce a New Caseflow
Management
Improvement Program
.............................................................................................
25
1
INTRODUCTION
Justice delayed is justice denied.
William E. Gladstone
In America, delay reduction has been a primary focus of
twentieth-century court

reform efforts. To reduce and avoid delay, American courts
have developed a set of
principles and techniques that we refer to as “caseflow
management.” Caseflow
management involves the entire set of actions that a court takes
to monitor and control
the progress of cases, from initiation through trial or other
initial disposition, to the
completion of all postdisposition court work, in order to make
sure that justice is done
promptly.
A. Caseflow Management as Central Theme in Court
Management
None of the other responsibilities of court managers – such as
personnel
management, financial management, records management, and
facilities management – is
as closely and directly related to the basic purposes of courts as
the reduction and
avoidance of delay through caseflow management. In 1990, the
Commission on Trial
Court Performance Standards – a distinguished national group
of judges, court managers
and academic experts – listed the results courts should seek and

achieve, urging that a
court should measure its results in five areas.1 Avoidance of
undue delays is a theme that
appears throughout the trial court performance standards:
• Standard 1.5, Affordable Costs of Access, provides that “the
costs of
access to trial court proceedings and records – whether
measured in terms
of money, time, or the procedures that must be followed – are
reasonable,
fair and affordable.”
• Standard 2.1, Case Processing, provides that “the trial court
establishes
and complies with recognized guidelines for timely case
processing while,
at the same time, keeping current with its incoming caseload.”
• Standard 2.2, Compliance with Schedules, provides that “the
trial court
disbursed funds promptly, provides reports and information
according to
required schedules, and responds to requests for information
and other
services on an established schedule that assures their effective
use.”
• Standard 3.5, Responsibility for Enforcement, provides that
“the trial court
takes appropriate responsibility for the enforcement of its
orders.”
1 See Bureau of Justice Assistance and National Center for

State Courts, Trial Court Performance
Standards with Commentary (Washington, DC: US Government
Printing Office, 1997).
2
• Standard 5.2, Expeditious, Fair, and Reliable Court Functions,
provides
that “the public has trust and confidence that basic trial court
functions are
conducted expeditiously and fairly, and that court decisions
have
integrity.”
The National Association for Court Management (NACM) has
identified
caseflow management as one of the ten “core competencies” for
court managers.2
NACM’s Professional Development Advisory Committee,
charged with the development
of the “core competency curriculum guidelines,” writes about
the importance of caseflow
management:
Effective caseflow management makes justice possible both in
individual cases and across judicial systems and courts, both
trial and
appellate. It helps ensure that every litigant receives procedural
due
process and equal protection.

The quality of justice is enhanced when judicial administration
is
organized around the requirements of effective caseflow and
trial
management. . . . Properly understood, caseflow management is
the
absolute heart of court management.3
B. Essential Elements
If there is a need to make changes that will yield a faster, more
cost-effective, and
higher quality trial court process in your court, what steps must
be taken? National
research on the pace of criminal and civil litigation in American
trial jurisdictions has
shown that there is no single way to reduce or avoid delay, and
that successful
jurisdictions have used different techniques to achieve success.
Despite this variety of
techniques, there are common elements that can be found
wherever courts and court-
related agencies have had success in their efforts to prevent and
reduce delays. 4 Of these
essential elements, there are four that stand out:
2 For the initial discussion of the development and nature of the
core competency areas, see NACM
Professional Development Advisory Committee, “Core

Competency Curriculum Guidelines: History,
Overview, and Future Uses,” Court Manager (Vol. 13, No. 1,
Winter 1998) 6. For an updated version of
that discussion, see “Introduction and Interview,” in “Core
Competency Curriculum Guidelines: What
Court Leaders Need to Know and Be Able to Do,” Court
Manager (Vol. 18, No. 2, 2003) 6, or at the
NACM website on the Internet, see
http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/PDF/0_Overview.pdf.
3 See “Caseflow Management,” Court Manager (Vol. 18, No. 2,
2003) 16, or at the NACM website on the
Internet, see
http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/cccg_3_corecompetency_cfm.ht
ml.
4 For different formulations of these essential elements, see
Barry Mahoney, et al., Changing Times in Trial
Courts: Caseflow Management and Delay Reduction in Urban
Trial Courts (Williamsburg, VA: National
Center for State Courts, 1988); Maureen Solomon and Douglas
Somerlot, Caseflow Management in the
http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/PDF/0_Overview.pdf.
ml.
3
1. Exercising effective leadership;
2. Developing and meeting appropriate time expectations;
3. Exercising early and continuous court control of case
progress; and
4. Providing firm and credible trial dates.
Chapter I of this guide discusses these key features of
successful caseflow

management programs. The other common elements of
successful programs are
discussed in Chapter II, and they include
1. Further steps beyond the exercise of leadership for the
establishment of a secure
management foundation;
2. Active efforts to manage cases in keeping with time standards
and other
appropriate expectations; and
3. Application of other specific caseflow management methods
or techniques to
complement court control and firm trial dates.
C. Introducing Improvements in Your Court
While it is critical for you to understand what caseflow
management is all about,
you also have to know what to do in order to introduce a
successful caseflow
management improvement program in your court. To do so, you
need to take four broad
steps, which are discussed in Chapter III:
1. Plan for appropriate governance of the improvement effort;
2. Measure the gap between actual and desired performance and
develop feasible
alternatives to your court’s existing practices and procedures;

3. Choose the best approach and plan for its implementation;
and
4. Implement the new program and make further improvements
as needed.
If you want to do more reading, see Caseflow Management: The
Heart of Court
Management in the New Millennium (Williamsburg, VA:
National Center for State
Courts, revised edition, 2004). The appendix to this guide also
gives a short list of other
helpful titles that you may wish to consult.
Trial Court: Now and For the Future. (Chicago: American Bar
Association, 1987); and David Steelman,
John Goerdt, and James McMillan, Caseflow Management: The
Heart of Court Management in the New
Millennium (rev. ed.) (Williamsburg, VA: National Center for
State Courts, 2004).
4
CHAPTER I.
CORE FEATURES
Although there is no single approach to caseflow management
that will serve as a
"magic bullet" to assure success, there is an impressive body of
multi-jurisdictional

research showing that successful courts share a set of common
features.5 What
distinguishes the courts that are able to manage the pace of
litigation well? There are
four features that stand out above all others. This chapter
discusses those core features –
leadership, time standards, court control, and firm trial dates.
A. Effective Leadership
Experts on caseflow management have found in their assessment
of courts around
the country that leadership is fundamental to the success of a
caseflow management
program. The leader in an effort to improve caseflow
management is one who must
motivate others to invest themselves in the proposed program.
He or she might do this by
such means as (1) articulating a vision of how the changes will
improve the system; (2)
showing how individual persons who will be affected by the
changes will benefit from
them; and (3) by showing her own ongoing commitment to the
effective operation of the
proposed program, by disseminating information on program
progress and rewarding

those who are effective in helping the achievement of its goals.
Finally, the advocate of
the new program has to exercise leadership by building
consensus and organizational
support for it among the members of the court community who
are essential to the
program's success.6
5 See, for example, John Goerdt, Chris Lomvardias and Geoff
Gallas, Reexamining the Pace of Litigation
in 39 Urban Trial Courts (Williamsburg, VA: National Center
for State Courts, 1991); Goerdt,
Lomvardias, Gallas and Barry Mahoney, Examining Court
Delay: The Pace of Litigation in 26 Urban Trial
Courts (Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts,
1989); Brian Ostrom and Roger Hanson,
Efficiency, Timeliness, and Quality: A New Perspective from
Nine Trial Courts (Williamsburg, VA:
National Center for State Courts, 1999); and Larry Sipes, et al.,
Managing to Reduce Delay (Williamsburg,
VA: National Center for State Courts, 1980).
6 See Barry Mahoney, et al., Planning and Conducting a
Workshop on Reducing Delay in Felony Cases,
Volume One (Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State
Courts, 1991). pp. P8-2 to P8-4.
5
The significance of leadership as a critical foundation for
caseflow management

success is reinforced by its recognized importance in the more
generic management
literature. It is a central theme in effective overall court
management. There are several
different levels at which leadership can make an important
contribution to effective
caseflow management: (1) leadership by the chief or presiding
judge; (2) state-level
leadership: or (3) leadership from other key judges or from
members of the bar.
A critical dimension in the caseflow management process is the
relationship
between the chief or presiding judge and the court manager.
The notion is no longer new
that a court is better administered when the chief judge and the
court manager work
together as a team in the management leadership of the court.
In a recent report on their
study of trial court consolidation and court performance, David
Rottman and William
Hewitt write that court capacity to deliver results in areas
including expedition and
timeliness "depends on the chief judge and court manager
forming a team that can serve

as a link between line staff and the bench and between the court
and the outside world."7
B. Time Expectations
If one of the objectives of caseflow management is to promote
“prompt” justice,
then it is desirable to have measures of what “prompt” justice
is. As we note in the
introduction to this guide, the establishment and compliance
with recognized guidelines
for timely case processing is one of the standards offered by the
Commission on Trial
Court Performance Standards. The American Bar Association,
the Conference of Chief
Justices, and the Conference of State Court Administrators have
all urged the adoption of
time standards for expeditious caseflow management.
Courts with successful caseflow management programs know
what they are trying
to accomplish because they have goals reflected in case
processing time standards they
have adopted. Time standards or guidelines should not be based
on what had transpired in
the most difficult and complex cases that judges can remember

from their own experience
as lawyers or on the bench. Nor should they be set at a level
that simply reflects what can
easily be accomplished in view of the current circumstances and
practices among judges
7 Rottman and Hewitt, Trial Court Structure and Performance
(Williamsburg, VA: National Center for
State Courts, 1996), p. 86.
6
and the practicing trial bar. Rather, such standard or guidelines
should reflect what is
reasonable for citizens to expect for the prompt and fair
conclusion of most cases of a
given type. In determining what is reasonable for citizens to
expect, court officials setting
time standards should keep in mind the general principle set
forth by the American Bar
Association: "From the commencement of litigation to its
resolution, . . . any elapsed time
other than reasonably required for pleadings, discovery and
court events, is unacceptable
and should be eliminated."8

1. Overall Time Standards. A court should have overall
standards for the time
from case initiation to trial or disposition by other means. Such
standards for total
elapsed time provide a basic framework for caseflow
management efforts. . For example,
if 99 percent of all civil cases should be disposed in two years,
then the court’s caseflow
management plan should be designed to dispose of a substantial
majority of its cases
within 12 to 18 months, allowing the last 6 months for those
cases that are somewhat
more complex. Furthermore, the overall time goals provide the
basis for determining the
types of information that will be most useful in court caseflow
management reports. For
example, if one of the court’s goals is to dispose 90 percent of
all felony cases within 6
months after arrest, what percentage of the court’s disposed or
pending cases exceed this
time standard? Which individual cases are approaching the
longest time standard or
various interim goals? Time standards developed by the
National Conference of State

Trial Judges and approved by the American Bar Association
(ABA) are a common point
of reference for the consideration of overall time standards. See
Table 1.
2. Time Standards for Intermediate Case Events. As a means to
focus on the
progress of cases from initiation and assure that no case is “lost
between the cracks,”
courts should have time standards for the progress of each
major type of case through
each of its key intermediate stages from filing through
disposition and the completion of
all post-disposition court work.9 Elapsed time between key
events in cases is what
judges and court managers customarily see and count from day
to day. How long ago
was the last court event in this case? Has today’s scheduled
event been continued from a
previous date? When is the next scheduled event? Time goals
for intermediate stages
8 American Bar Association (ABA), Standards Relating to Trial
Courts, 1992 Edition, Section 2.50.
9 See ABA, Standards Relating to Trial Courts, 1992 Edition,
Section 2.51C.

7
give the court criteria for monitoring the progress of cases from
the time of case
initiation. Such monitoring permits the early identification of
cases whose progress has
been impeded. These are the cases that may need further
management attention from the
court to reach fair outcomes in a timely manner.
TABLE 1.
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION TIME STANDARDS10
Time Within Which Cases Should be Adjudicated
Or Otherwise Concluded
Case Type 90% 98% 100%
General Civil 12 Months 18 Months 24 Months
Domestic Relations 3 Months 6 Months 12 Months
Felony 120 Days 180 Days 365 Days
Misdemeanor 30 Days -- 90 Days
C. Early and Continuous Court Control of Case Progress
A basic tenet arising from caseflow management research in the
last twenty years
is that the court, and not the other case participants, should

control the progress of
cases.11 The court should accept responsibility for case
movement from the time that it is
filed, assuring that every case has no unreasonable interruption
in its procedural progress
from initiation through the completion of all court work.12
10 ABA, Standards Relating to Trial Courts, 1992 Edition,
Section 2.52.
11 See Thomas Church, et al., Justice Delayed (Williamsburg,
VA: National Center for State Courts, 1978),
pp. 66-67. This principle is embodied in the American Bar
Association's delay reduction standards, which
provide that, "To enable just and efficient resolution of cases,
the court, and not the lawyers or litigants,
should control the pace of litigation." ABA, Standards Relating
to Trial Courts, 1992 Edition, Section 2.50.
12 American Bar Association (ABA), Standards Relating to
Trial Courts, 1992 Edition, Section 2.51A and
Commentary.
8
National research shows that early court control is clearly
correlated with shorter
times to disposition in civil cases.13 In practice, early control
means only that the
commencement of a case triggers a monitoring process. In this
process, the clerk records

the initial filing and applies a system under which the case will
be reviewed at a fixed
time in the future to determine whether the next anticipated
event has occurred in keeping
with time standards for interim stages in the case's progress.
(This can and should be part
of the court's automated case-management information system.)
The court "controls"
case movement by setting it into the clerical and automated
case-management routine.
Early court control in case progress involves such things as
collecting case
information at case initiation; scheduling hearing or conference
dates; and issuing case
management orders that govern case progress to trial or
disposition by non-trial means.
The objectives of early intervention are to make the point of
case resolution happen as
early in the case process as is reasonable, and to reduce the
costs for the parties and the
court of getting to case resolution. This reflects recognition
that most cases are resolved
by negotiated settlement or plea, while only a small percentage
of cases are actually

resolved by the binding decision of a judge or jury after a trial.
The process of court control should also be continuous, so that
progress to each
scheduled control point or event causes the next scheduled
control point to be applied to
the case.14 If necessary, court control of case progress should
extend after the entry of an
initial judgment or disposition, until all trial court work is done.
D. Firm and Credible Trial Dates
Trials should commence on the first date scheduled. It is
critically important for
the court to create the expectation that events will occur as
scheduled. If case participants
doubt that trials or hearings will be held at or near the
scheduled time and date, they will
not be prepared. If, on the other hand, it is far more likely than
not that a court will be
prepared to commence a trial on the first-scheduled trial date,
then counsel and parties
will begin preparation for trial in time to decide whether to go
to trial or to reach a
13 John Goerdt, Chris Lomvardias, and Geoff Gallas,
Reexamining the Pace of Litigation in 39 Urban Trial

Courts (1991), p. 55.
14 Ernest Friesen, “Cures for Court Congestion,” Judges’
Journal (Vol. 23, No. 1, Winter 1984) 4, at 7.
9
negotiated resolution. Having reasonably firm trial dates is a
key feature of a successful
caseflow management improvement program.
Since most cases are disposed by plea or settlement, success in
providing
reasonably firm trial dates has the effect of producing earlier
pleas and settlements, while
at the same time encouraging trial preparation in cases that
cannot be resolved by other
means. National research shows that a court’s ability to provide
firm trial dates is
associated with shorter times to disposition in civil and felony
cases in urban trial
courts.15 Furthermore, a court’s ability to provide a firm trial
date in felony cases has
been found to be associated with shorter civil jury trial case
processing times.16
Enhanced trial-date certainty may have a positive effect on a
court’s juror costs.

If a court sets a high number of cases for trial, then it must
either provide a jury pool
large enough to accommodate the trial scheduled or estimate
how many of those cases
will actually go to trial. If the court guesses wrong, then it may
have too few or too many
jurors at the courthouse. This may have the additional effect of
causing dissatisfaction
for those serving as jurors. If the court has predictable trial
dates, however, there will be
more certainty about the number of cases to be tried, and juror
costs will be more
manageable (and they may be lower than before introduction of
the caseflow
management improvement program).
Effective caseflow management calls for a court to take four
steps to provide firm
and credible trial dates. Figure 1 below discusses those steps.
15 See Goerdt, Lomvardias, Gallas and Mahoney, Examining
Court Delay (1989), Figure 14, p. 38 (civil
cases), and Figure 26, p. 87 (felony cases), and related text.
Having firm trial dates has an especially strong
correlation with shorter disposition times in felony cases. See
Goerdt, Lomvardias and Gallas,
Reexamining the Pace of Litigation in 39 Urban Trial Courts

(1991), Figure 2.7, p. 23.
16 Goerdt, Lomvardias and Gallas, Reexamining the Pace of
Litigation in 39 Urban Trial Courts (1991),
Figure 4.1 and text on p. 63.
10
FIGURE 1. STEPS TO ENSURE FIRM TRIAL DATES
There are four steps to be taken in order to ensure firm and
credible trial dates. They are
the following:
1. Maximizing Dispositions Before Setting Specific Trial Dates.
The court should seek
opportunities to dispose of cases before they are put on the
court’s trial list. Whenever
possible, the court should rule on pretrial motions in cases
before they are set for trial.
2. Realistic Calendar Setting Levels. This has to do with how
many cases a court
schedules for trial on any given date. If a court anticipates that
some cases scheduled for
trial may settle or have to be continued, then it must set its trial
calendars realistically,
like airlines that “overbook” flights in recognition of the
prospect that some passengers
may not appear for flights. The most effective way to avoid
either excessive overbooking
or having too few cases set for trial is to develop a reasonable
“setting factor" and to
apply a reasonable but firm policy limiting the grant of

continuances. This promotes
reasonably firm trial dates and lets the court keep pace with
both time standards and new
filings. Determining what is a “reasonable” setting factor
depends on the dynamics in
each individual court. It is the lowest number of cases per
calendar that permits the court
to keep its pending inventory manageable in terms of size and
age. There is no magic
formula to determine what is an optimal setting level. Rather, it
must be based on
experience with the circumstances in each court.
3. Continuance Policy. The third part of the formula for
assuring credible trial dates is for
the court to adopt a firm policy for minimizing trial-date
continuances that is applied in a
firm and consistent manner. The court's practices with regard
to setting its trial calendars
can interact with continuance practices that are too liberal. If
the court is too lenient with
the grant of trial continuances, then it may not encourage
attorneys to be prepared, and it
may create a recurring negative cycle, as is shown in Figure 2.
4. Backup Judge Capacity. It is important for the court to have
some means to provide for
last-minute adjustments. The most reliable way to do this is to
have some kind of
“backup judge” capacity – the availability of one or more
judges to help their colleagues
faced with unanticipated calendar problems. A practical way to
provide such capacity is
for all of the judges of a multi-judge court to help one another.
This approach requires
that there be means to determine which judge can help if a

colleague is overburdened,
and to arrange for case files and case participants to be brought
to the courtroom of the
“helper” judge. Judges may simply call one another on the
telephone to ask for
assistance; or the chief judge and court manager may have
means to monitor the status of
all the judges’ calendars to determine who might be available to
help with a calendar. In
rural courts where judges sit alone in adjacent towns or
counties, it may be necessary to
have a reciprocal assistance agreement. In other rural areas
where judges ride circuit,
coordination may have to be done through state or regional
court administrative centers.
11
FIGURE 2.
EFFECT OF SCHEDULING AND CONTINUANCE POLICY
ON ATTORNEY READINESS17
As this illustration suggests, attorneys who are prepared request
that the court
grant continuances. If the court is too easy in its continuance
policy and grants too many
continuances, then the judge’s docket for the day collapses, and
his or her time is
underutilized. If the court is not aware of its calendar
dynamics, it may add even more

cases to the next day’s docket, making for a very long trial list.
Attorneys who are low
on the court’s trial list do not expect their cases to be reached,
and they are unprepared.
If they are reached, however, they must then request
continuances, so that the vicious
cycle starts all over again.
17 Source: Maureen Solomon, Caseflow Management in the
Trial Court (Chicago: American Bar
Association, 1973), p. 50.
Court schedules
unrealistically high
number of cases
Not being ready,
attorneys request
continuances
Cases low on list are
not usually reached for
trial
When low on list,
attorneys may not
prepare cases and
have witnesses ready

Too few cases are ready
to keep judges busy
Court routinely grants
continuances
12
CHAPTER II.
OTHER ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
If there is a need to make changes that will help improve
caseflow
management, are there further things to consider beyond the
core factors discussed in
Chapter I? The pyramid in Figure 3 below gives a graphic
illustration of what is
necessary overall to create and maintain a stable and successful
effort to manage the
criminal case process in a way that will reduce and avoid delay
and jail crowding.
As Figure 3 suggests, the establishment of a secure management
foundation
involves not only leadership but also (a) commitment to timely
justice, (b)
communication; and (c) creating and maintaining a learning

environment. Beyond that,
there must be active efforts to manage criminal cases, both at a
macro-level (all cases)
and at a micro-level (each case), which involves (a) setting any
other appropriate
expectation beyond time standards, (b) using information to
monitor actual performance;
and (c) responsibly enforcing accountability to see that actual
performance meets
expectations. It is only when these underlying foundational
elements are present that
there can be effective implementation of court control, firm trial
dates, and other
caseflow management methods and techniques that are
discussed here.
This chapter will address the details of what would be involved
in the
implementation of this recommendation. Section A considers
management foundation
issues, while section B has to do with what active management
involves. Then section C
addresses specific caseflow management techniques.

13
FIGURE 3.
RELATIONSHIP AMONG ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF
SUCCESSFUL CASEFLOW MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS
Apply
Proven
Techniques
Establish and Maintain a Secure Foundation for
Managing the Pace of Litigation:
Exercise Leadership; Stay Committed to a
Shared Vision of Timely and Cost-Efficient Justice;
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate; and
Promote a Learning Environment
Exercise Active
Management:
Set Goals; Monitor
Performance; and Enforce
Accountability
14
A. Court Management Foundation
Although a court may well be overwhelmed by problems, even

after having
introduced caseflow management and techniques, the success of
some courts suggests
that they have strengths even more basic than successful
application of any fundamental
techniques of caseflow management. These strengths have
much in common with the
attributes of successful organizations everywhere, whether in
the public sector, private
for-profit sector, or nonprofit sector. They involve basic
concepts of general
organizational management; and they go to the heart of
successful court management in
general. While they may ultimately not be sufficient to permit a
court to overcome such
problems as inadequate resources to deal with a burgeoning
workload, they represent
necessary conditions without which a court’s caseflow
management program has greatly
diminished likelihood of success.
1. Assure Commitment to a Shared Vision. For a caseflow
management
program to work, there must be involvement and commitment to
the program and the

vision that it reflects. One critical element is commitment to
the program by the bench,
and another is the involvement and commitment of court staff
members. Investment by
others outside the court can also be essential to the program's
ongoing success. In
addition, it is important that those with an interest in the court
process believe that they
can in fact make the program work. A shared vision of
effective caseflow management
not only provides a focus for strategic planning, but it also
serves as a source of
motivation for those engaged in the implementation of a
caseflow management program,
and it helps judges to address organizational and authority
relationships, such as the
management of judges by judges, which are crucial to success in
caseflow management.
There are several dimensions of what commitment to a shared
vision involves, including
(a) judge commitment; (b) court staff commitment; and (c)
support from such other
stakeholders as members of the bar and state or local funding
authorities.

2. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. One of the
problems of trying
to improve caseflow management is that the court does not
operate in a simple and
uncomplicated setting. Instead, courts operate in a
governmental environment with other
institutions that “do not share identical concerns or see the same
world,” and each
institution “perceives its own purpose as central, as an ultimate
value, and as the one
15
thing that really matters."18 In this setting, communications is
critical to the improvement
of caseflow management. The likelihood of success in an effort
to improve caseflow
management is greatly enhanced if the court provides for good
communication between
judges and court staff, as well as broad consultation among
court leaders, members of the
practicing bar, and the key representatives of other institutional
participants in the court
process. The level and scope of communication that may be

needed in order to establish
and maintain support for the ongoing implementation of a
successful caseflow
management improvement program is broad. It involves
communication in several
different dimensions, including (a) communication among
judges; (b) communication
between court leaders and court staff members; (c) state and
local communications within
the court system; (d) communication with members of the
private bar; (e)
communications with prosecutors, public defenders, and other
court-related agencies; and
(f) communication with funding authorities and other
stakeholders.
3. Establish and Maintain a Learning Environment. In A
Passion for
Excellence, the authors write that education “is the bedrock for
sustained creative
contributions” to the success of an organization.19 The NACM
curriculum guidelines are
in part premised on the recognition that “neither court systems
nor their constituent courts
can operate efficiently or effectively without competent court

leaders, professionals who
understand that their and their court staff’s continuing
professional development is a
necessity, not a luxury.”20 This is consistent with the spirit of
the trial court performance
standards, which provide that a court’s personnel practices and
decisions should, among
other things, establish the highest standards of competence
among its employees and
provide fairness in the development of court personnel.21
Courts that are successful with caseflow management are courts
that put high
value on education generally and that provide specific training
about their caseflow
management improvement programs. Providing education and
training about a specific
18 See Peter Drucker, The New Realities: In Government and
Politics/In Economics and Business/In
Society and World View (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), p.
84.
19 Tom Peters and Nancy Austin, A Passion for Excellence: The
Leadership Difference (New York:
Warner Books, 1986), p. 403.
20 NACM, “Introduction and Overview,” Court Manager (Vol.
18, No. 1, 2003) 6, at 8
(http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/PDF/0_Overview.pdf).
21 See Trial Court Performance Standards, commentary to

Standard 4.3.
http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/PDF/0_Overview.pdf).
16
jurisdiction’s caseflow management improvement program is an
important factor in
enhancing the likelihood of its success. It helps those in the
court process understand
why the program is being introduced, and the purposes of the
justice system it is intended
to address. It also should provide detailed information on how
the program is to operate.
As a means for communicating about the nature and details of
the program with judges,
court staff, attorneys, and other institutional participants in the
court process, it also
serves as a vehicle for engendering greater commitment to the
purposes and success of
caseflow management in the court.
B. Active Management
If a court has the elements of a general court management
environment conducive
to the successful introduction of caseflow management

improvement efforts, an
important element of day-to-day court leadership will be to do
the actual management of
all its cases. This involves the adoption of time standards and
other goals and
expectations about what constitutes “success,” monitoring and
measuring the court’s
actual performance to determine if it meets that definition, and
then accepting
responsibility and accountability for court performance.
1. Consider Establishing Other Caseflow Management Goals
and Policies.
Time standards are not the only goals relevant to the
effectiveness of a court’s caseflow
management efforts. Relating directly to caseflow management
are the size of a court’s
pending inventory of cases and its continuance policy. Of more
general importance are
the effects of court practices and procedures on the cost of
access to justice and the court’s
maintenance of equality, fairness and integrity. Figure 4 shows
some of the areas in which
goals and objectives other than time standards might be
appropriate for purposes of

managing caseflow.
17
FIGURE 4.
POSSIBLE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES IN ADDITION TO
TIME STANDARDS
In addition to time standards, there are at least four other areas
in which a court might
develop other goals and objectives relevant to caseflow
management:
• Backlog Reduction and Size of Pending Inventory. Keeping
current with its incoming
caseload is an important element of optimal performance by a
trial court.22 The size of a
court’s pending inventory is a key measure of the effectiveness
of the court’s caseflow
management efforts. Slow courts are almost always
“backlogged” courts.
• Continuance Policy. Court policy should be to keep
continuances to a minimum.
Whatever is the continuance rate deemed acceptable to the
court, attorneys and parties
must have the expectation that continuance requests are more
likely than not to be denied,
and that any continuance request other than for a good reason
will be denied by the court.
• Controlling Costs of Justice. Trial court performance

standards suggest that a court
should ensure that “the costs of access to the trial court’s
proceedings – whether measured
in terms of money, time or the procedures that must be followed
– are reasonable, fair and
affordable.”23 As thus defined to include time and procedures
as well as money, costs of
justice present an additional dimension from which to view
court management of the pace
of litigation. Given that the relationship between caseflow
management and costs for
litigants may not be a simple one, it is important for courts to
be sensitive to ways in
which they can strike a balance between meaningful delay
reduction and cost control.
• Maintaining Equality, Fairness and Integrity. Effective
implementation of a caseflow
management improvement plan can be thoroughly consistent
with trial court performance
standards for equality, fairness and integrity. Through the
faithful and consistent
implementation of its caseflow management improvement plan,
the court can help to
provide a fair and reliable judicial process. Court decisions and
actions in such areas as
the grant of continuance requests should be based in individual
attention to cases and
without undue disparity among like cases. The court should
make clear how compliance
with its orders relating to scheduling and other caseflow
management issues can be
achieved. Finally, the court should take appropriate
responsibility for seeing that case
participants actually comply with its orders on scheduling and
other caseflow management

issues.24
22 See Trial Court Performance Standards, Standard 2.1
23 Trial Court Performance Standards, Standard 1.5.
24 See Standard 3.5 and related performance measures.
18
2. Monitor and Measure Actual Performance. Successful
caseflow
management requires that a court continually measure its actual
performance against the
expectations reflected in its standards and goals. For this
purpose, the court should
regularly measure times to disposition, whether it is disposing
of as many cases as are
being filed, the size and age of its pending caseload, and the
rates at which trials and other
court events are being continued and rescheduled. (See the
measures of performance
associated with Trial Court Performance Standard 2.1.)
Caseflow-management
information should be provided as part of the management
reports produced with the aid
of the court's automated case management information system.

Regular attention by the chief judge and court manager to the
court’s performance
in light of its caseflow management goals and objectives is a
powerful way to enhance
the likelihood of court success. If the chief judge and the court
manager meet regularly
to review reports and measures of the court’s caseflow
management performance, they
can deal promptly with caseflow management problems as they
arise. Measuring
performance in such a way with the use of relevant information,
the court should be able
to identify problems and determine where caseflow management
efforts are needed.
3. Enforce Accountability. The authors of Reinventing
Government urge that
government entities should have a new accountability system:
instead of being
“accountable for following hundreds of rules and spending
every penny of every line
item,” government officials should be responsible for the results
they provide for
citizens.25 The Commission on Trial Court Performance
Standards has explicitly

recognized the need for courts to be accountable for their use of
public resources.26
One part of accountability has to do with the court’s insisting
that lawyers and
litigants comply with reasonable time expectations applicable to
individual cases. Within
the court itself, accountability has to do with the assignment of
specific responsibility to
particular persons. The results of national-scope research on
caseflow management and
delay reduction in urban trial courts suggest that courts with
successful program have
judges with clearly defined responsibility for managing cases.
Furthermore, non-judicial
court staff members – such as judges’ secretaries, in-court
clerks, and data-entry personnel
25 See David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing
Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is
Transforming the Public Sector (New York: Penguin Books,
1993), pp. 136-165.
19
– have clear roles and responsibilities in case processing,
whereby their effectiveness can

be periodically assessed.27
C. Proven Methods and Techniques
Although courts may differ in their specific approaches to
caseflow management,
those approaches can generally be considered to be variations
on certain basic methods or
techniques that successful courts have in common. In addition
to court control and firm
trial dates, these include (1) differentiated case management
(DCM), (2) realistic
schedules and meaningful pretrial court events (3) management
of trials; and (4)
management of court events after initial disposition.
1. Use Differentiated Case Management. A specific means for
ongoing court
control of case progress is through “differentiated case
management” (DCM). This is an
approach by which a court distinguishes among individual cases
in terms of the amount
of attention they need from judges and lawyers and the pace at
which they can reasonably
proceed to conclusion. It is a more refined approach than the
distinctions that may

provide a basis for the allocation of jurisdiction between a
general- and a limited- or
special-jurisdiction trial court (as between a traffic case and a
felony, or between a small
claims case and a civil case in which more than $25,000 is at
issue). In its simplest
terms, a DCM plan might thus operate to put cases into three
categories:
• cases that proceed quickly with only a modest need for court
oversight;
• those that have contested issues calling for conferences with
the judge or
court hearings, but that otherwise do not present great
difficulties; or
• matters that call for ongoing and extensive judge involvement,
whether
because of the size and complexity of the estate involved, the
number of
attorneys and other participants, or the difficulty or novelty of
legal issues
presented.
Through an early screening process involving court-counsel
communications soon
after case filing, cases falling into these three categories would
be divided into three
"tracks" reflecting their respective case management
requirements. First, there would be

an expedited track, for cases that move quickly with little or no
judge involvement. Next
26 See Trial Court Performance Standards, Standard 4.2.
27 Mahoney, et al., Changing Times in Trial Courts, pp. 203-
204.
20
would be a standard track for those that do require conferences
and hearings, but are
otherwise not exceptional. Finally, there would be a complex
track, for those requiring
special attention.
Within an overall set of time standards, the court would
establish different overall
time expectations for each track. If the three-track model
described above were applied
to general civil cases, for example, the time from case initiation
to disposition might be
six months for cases assigned to the expedited track, 12 or 18
months for those in the
standard track, and 24 months for the small number in the
complex track.
2. Assure Meaningful Pretrial Court Events and Realistic

Pretrial Schedules.
In order for management of case progress to be effective, it is
critical for the court to
promote preparation for court events by parties and lawyers.
Creating the expectation
that court events are meaningful (i.e., that they will contribute
substantially to progress
toward disposition) and will occur as scheduled is an important
way to assure that
lawyers and parties will be prepared to make those events
meaningful in terms of
progress toward appropriate outcomes. If events are continued
without good cause, then
the emotional and financial costs of litigation may be increased
for parties because of the
need to prepare for and additional court appearances.
The scheduling of pretrial matters calls for the careful exercise
of court control.
The scheduling of future events should balance off a need for
reasonably prompt
completion of necessary case-related activities with reasonable
accommodation of the
conflicting demands being placed on the time of the participants
in the proceedings.

Forthcoming events should be scheduled far enough in the
future to allow
accomplishment of necessary tasks. Yet they should also be
scheduled soon enough to
maintain awareness that the court wants reasonable case
progress and does not want to
have such forthcoming events to be scheduled and then
continued because participants
have not completed necessary preparation.28
3. Manage Trials. While trials occur in 5% or less of all cases
in trial courts,
trials are perhaps the most significant feature of American
jurisprudence to distinguish it
from that of many other countries. Trials (and especially jury
trials) consume a great deal
of judge time. It has been estimated that many judges spend
from one-third to one-half of
28 See Mahoney, et al., Changing Times in Trial Courts, p. 201.
21
their work time conducting jury trials.29 While non-jury trials
are generally not as time-

consuming as jury trials, they probably take as much or more of
a judge’s time in court
than almost any non-trial courtroom event.30
Different courts may vary considerably in the duration of their
trials for similar
kinds of cases. Researchers have found that both judges and
lawyers consider trials too
long in the courts with the longest trial times, and that a large
majority of judges and
attorneys find no lack of fairness or justice in the courts where
trials are conducted more
rapidly. Judges, most civil attorneys, and prosecutors all
consider it appropriate for
judges to control trial length. While criminal defense lawyers
have the most concern
about judicial management of trials, many criminal defense
lawyers in courts with longer
trials express support for greater judicial controls.31
There are specific steps that can be taken to manage trials.
These include the
following:
• Resolve pretrial motions before the trial date is scheduled.
• Hold a trial management conference shortly before trial.
• For jury trials, manage jury selection.

• Reduce unnecessary and repetitive evidence at trial.
• Hold continuous-day trials.
• Avoid interruptions and, if necessary, extend the trial day.
• Avoid interruptions of momentum, as by having the testimony
of a witness be
completed on a Friday afternoon rather than being interrupted
by the weekend
and resumed on the following Monday.
• When possible in non-jury trials, rule from the bench at the
close of trial,
putting findings of fact and conclusions of law on the record.
4. Manage Court Events after Initial Disposition. Most of the
research and
writing on caseflow management from the 1970s through the
1990s focused on felonies
and general-jurisdiction civil cases, in which the trial court
often has relatively little work
29 Brian Ostrom and Neal Kauder (eds.), Examining the Work
of State Courts, 1996: A National
Perspective from the Court Statistics Project (Williamsburg,
VA: National Center for State Courts, 1997),
pp. 25, 30 and 57.
30 In a multi-state study of trials in nine courts, researchers
found that median times for civil non-jury trials
were from 4 to 6½ hours, and that average times for criminal
non-jury trials ranged from 1 to 8½ hours.
See Dale Sipes and Mary Elsner Oram, On Trial: The Length of
Civil and Criminal Trials (Williamsburg,
VA: National Center for State Courts, 1989), pp. 14-15 and 19-
20.

31 Ibid., pp. 66-67.
22
to do after the entry of a judgment. Yet there is a large array of
proceedings in a trial
court that occur after the entry of an initial disposition.
Examples include:
• Post decree motions in divorce cases to enforce or modify
custody,
visitation and support;
• Placement review, permanency planning, termination of
parental rights
and adoption proceedings after findings of abuse or neglect;
• Proceedings in probate, guardianship and conservatorship
cases after
contested or uncontested appointment of a fiduciary;
• Criminal violations of probation (which often involve arrest
for new
offenses);
• Criminal petitions for post-conviction review;
• Violations of probation in juvenile delinquency proceedings
(which,
like adult criminal matters, often involve arrest for new
offenses);
• Child support enforcement proceedings after paternity or
divorce

decisions;
• Proceedings to enforce civil judgments;
• Collection of judgments in small claims cases;
• Enforcement of fine and fee periodic payment schedules in
criminal
and traffic cases.
Such events as these can consume a great deal of time for
parties, judges, court
personnel and attorneys. To ensure that timely justice is done
in these cases, as well as to
allocate court resources effectively and efficiently, it is
desirable to give appropriate
caseflow management attention to post-judgment court events.
While much less is
known about the dimensions of post-trial or post-disposition
delays and costs than about
pretrial delay, there are certain steps that should help a court
manage cases after
judgment. Figure 5 addresses the different dimensions of
managing caseflow after the
entry of an initial disposition.
23

FIGURE 5. MANAGING COURT EVENTS AFTER INITIAL
DISPOSITION
Management of case progress after the entry of an initial
disposition involves several
different dimensions. Among these are the following:
• Monitoring Cases in a Post-disposition Status. A court must
look closely at the
amount of time that elapses and the amount of resources needed
to address proceedings in
cases after the entry of a judgment, but before the conclusion of
all court work in the trial
court. The status of cases in which an initial disposition has
been entered, but for which
all work by the trial court has not yet been concluded, should be
periodically reviewed.
The court should develop methods to assure that cases in which
the court must hold
periodic post-disposition review hearings (such as those in
which a child has been found
abused or neglected) are automatically scheduled.
• Exercising Court Control over the Pace of Post-disposition
Events. Post-disposition
management of cases follows the same principles as pretrial
management, including the
exercise of continuous control and the realistic scheduling of
meaningful court events.
Time standards should be developed for such proceedings and
case progress monitored to
ensure timely case progress to determination.
• Managing the Post-disposition Link to Other “Cases.” To
monitor court operations

and to aid in management decisions, judges and court managers
typically think of a
“case” largely in terms of a single sequence of events or court
proceedings between initial
filing and disposition, without reference to whether any party is
or has recently been
involved as well in any other “case” before the court. In
situations where one person or
family may have more than one “case” before the court at or
near the same time,
however, it may be important for the court to look beyond a
narrow definition of a “case”
to address the situation of a party or a family. This is
especially desirable if doing so will
help the court impose sanctions quickly (as in an adult criminal
or juvenile delinquency
cases) or address a person’s need for services (as in a child
protection case). It will
usually have the additional benefit to the court of making more
efficient use of judge-
time and other valuable court resources.
• Determining When All Court Work is Done. A final element
of management after
initial disposition involves the determination of when all court
work is done in a case. In
a civil case, final closure may depend on the filing of a notice
that the matter has been
“settled and satisfied.” Divorce or probate cases may linger for
years with the possibility
that the court’s continuing jurisdiction may be evoked. Periodic
review of such cases can
aid the court to determine if there is a possibility of any further
action, thus permitting the
court to ascertain when cases no longer have the potential to be
pending further decisions

by the court.
24
CHAPTER III.
CAREFUL PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION
The introduction of caseflow management improvements can
involve dramatic
changes in the day-to-day operations of a court and those who
participate in the court
process. Assuring the application of caseflow management
fundamentals to the court’s
workload calls for careful planning and continuing commitment
by judicial leaders and
court managers to the objectives of caseflow management.
Undertaking the change
process to introduce caseflow management improvements will
test all of what a chief
judge and a court manager should know and be able to do with
regard to caseflow
management. For an overview of all the steps discussed here
for implementing a new
caseflow management improvement program, see Figure 6 on
the following page.

A. Priorities and Readiness for Change
Any improvement enhancement effort in a court must be
organized and managed,
so that everyone knows what are its objectives, what specific
people must do, and when
activities are to be completed. It is therefore important to
develop and effective
governance structure for the undertaking. Those overseeing the
effort must determine its
scope, define expectations for it, determine what resources will
be needed, and how the
people carrying out the improvement will go about their work.
1. Designate a Steering Committee. To support and oversee the
caseflow
management improvement effort from start to finish, a court
should have a steering
committee, headed by the chief or presiding judge. The steering
committee should
usually also include the court administrator and the clerk of
court, and possibly other
appropriate supervisors from the court who have major
responsibility for aspects of the
process under scrutiny. It is important for members of the
steering committee to know its

role in the improvement effort.
2. Plan from a Strategic Perspective. It is important that the
effort to improve
caseflow be seen in terms of a broader shared view of what the
court’s future should be.
25
Judges and court managers can then develop strategies for how
to get from the present
situation to the preferred future. The Trial Court Performance
Standards provide
FIGURE 6: CHECKLIST OF STEPS TO INTRODUCE A NEW
CASEFLOW
MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
A. Assure That the Improvement Effort is Well Grounded
¸ Designate a Steering Committee
¸ Plan from a Strategic Perspective
¸ Don’t Try to Go Beyond What Your Court is Organizationally
Ready to Do
¸ Involve Key Stakeholders and Seek System-wide Effectiveness
¸ From the Beginning, Build Support for Change
B. Assess the Current Situation and Possible Alternative
Approaches in Light of
Goals and Objectives and Best Practices
¸ Conduct a Caseflow Management Review
¸ Analyze the Pending Inventory

¸ Find Out How Successful Courts Do It
¸ Weigh the Costs and Benefits of Alternative Approaches
C. Choose the Best Approach and Plan for Its Implementation
¸ Choose the Most Desirable Approach
¸ Pay Attention to Detail
¸ Make the Case for the Desired Approach and Prepare a Plan
for Managing
Change
¸ Publish a Written Caseflow Management Improvement Plan
¸ Plan Before It Starts for the Program to be Evaluated
D. Implement the New Program and Make Further
Improvements as Needed
¸ Deal with Backlog in the Pre-Program Pending Inventory
¸ Manage New Cases in Keeping with the Caseflow Management
Improvement
Plan
¸ Monitor Implementation and Make Midcourse Corrections
¸ Overcome Resistance to Change
¸ Evaluate Implementation and Refine Caseflow Management
Operations Based on
Evaluation Results
¸ Institutionalize the Improved Caseflow Management Operation
¸ Capitalize on Success and Make Ongoing Further Program
Improvements
26
assistance to such strategic planning and management, by
offering a vision of the

fundamental purposes and results that should be achieved by
optimally functioning trial
courts. They thereby give courts a strategic mission and
purpose, along with objectives
and performance targets.
The performance standards provide that expedition and
timeliness in case
processing is one of the indicators of a well-functioning court.
Developing,
implementing, evaluating, revising and institutionalizing
improved caseflow management
practices is an important part of a court’s strategy to achieve
overall optimal
performance.
3. Don’t Try to Go Beyond What Your Court is
Organizationally Ready to
Do. Caseflow management improvement is not something to
undertake lightly, and you
need to understand what skills and resources may be needed for
success and the possible
changes in internal organization and local court culture that may
be associated with it.
Even if it is clear that the court needs to improve its

management of the pace of litigation,
it is important for you to assess organizational readiness for the
kind of change that
would be involved in a process enhancement effort. After such
an assessment, the
steering committee may decide that it is not now prudent to
proceed with efforts to
change one or more processes because the court and its
environment are not ready for
what would have to be done for there to be a reasonable chance
for success.
4. Involve Key Stakeholders and Seek System-wide
Effectiveness. In the day-
to-day operations of a trial court, there are a number of regular
participants – such as
private lawyers, police, prosecutors, public defenders, probation
officers, caseworkers,
and service providers – whose individual and organizational
goals are different from
those of the court. Any effort to introduce changes in caseflow
management, such as the
introduction of court control of case progress and of a policy
limiting continuances – will
significantly alter established working relations among the

regular participants in the
court process.
A unilateral effort by court leaders to introduce significant
changes in the
management of cases, without prior consultation and
accommodation with those who will
be affected by such changes, will fail. Instead, judge leaders
and court managers must
work successfully with court staff who must deal with myriad
case-processing details
27
each day, with public and private lawyers, with funding
authorities, and with others in the
court process to achieve success. Advocates of caseflow
management improvement must
be able to help them understand their respective roles in the
larger justice system and to
tie caseflow management to system-wide benefits, costs and
consequences.32
5. From the Beginning, Build Support for Change. Like other
significant
changes, the introduction of caseflow management

improvements will require a broad
base of support. Planning groups and partnerships should be
created to involve judges,
court staff, lawyers and other key persons in the development of
the improvement
program. The creation of such mechanisms to promote broad
involvement will be time
consuming, but their results in terms of ideas, refinements and
commitment will more
than justify the effort involved.
It is important to show that the improvement effort has high
enough priority to
have the court system’s organizational support. Judges, court
staff and other participants
in the judicial process may be reluctant to commit themselves to
a caseflow management
improvement effort that does not have organizational support.
A critically important
reflection of this has to do with the allocation and availability
of resources. Resource
elements may include the addition or reallocation of court
support staff members;
improvements in the court’s case management information
system; enlistment of attorney

volunteers to serve as temporary settlement masters, arbitrators
or case evaluators for
backlog cases; or the temporary assignment of additional judges
to settle or try backlog
cases. To ensure the availability of such organizational support,
judge leaders and court
managers may need to enlist the aid of the state court
administrator’s office. They may
also have to work with local funding authorities, explaining the
need for improvement
and demonstrating that positive results will justify any
additional costs to be incurred.
32 See the discussion of “Leadership Teams and System-wide
Effectiveness” in the NACM core
competency curriculum guidelines for caseflow management,
either in Court Manager (Vol. 18, No. 2,
2003) at 19, or on the NACM web site at
ml.
ml.
28
B. Current Situation and Feasible Alternatives
To gain information on which to base a caseflow management

improvement plan,
it is helpful to gather information that describes the current
operation of the court. A
general caseflow management review can be particularly helpful
in this regard. Since the
need for developing a caseflow management improvement
program is likely to be based
on the fact that the court is perceived to be backlogged and
delayed, it is important to
analyze the size, age and status of the court’s current inventory
of pending cases.
1. Conduct a Caseflow Management Review. It is important
for the judges and
the court manager to test their own perceptions of what are the
caseflow management
problems that the court faces, by having case data gathered
about the movement of cases
through the court and by talking to court staff, trial
practitioners and others involved in
the court process. Such objective information will provide a
different perspective from
which to view the problems and "bottlenecks" in the court's
current operation.
Working with a committee of participants in the trial court

process, and perhaps
with the help of an independent court management expert, the
court may want to
undertake a more formal "caseflow management review,"
assessing the court's structure,
resources, operations and environment, and focusing on the way
these factors affect the
court's capacity to manage its caseload.33 As now conducted
by consultants from the
National Center for State Courts as part of their study of trial-
and appellate-court
caseflow management across the country, such a review would
typically include the
following elements: documentation of court structure, resources
and operations; the
gathering of statistical information on workloads and case-
processing times;
administration of a self-assessment questionnaire; interviews
with practitioners; and
onsite observation of court proceedings and other activities.34
While the court's review of
its situation may not be so formal or detailed, such a procedure
as this would help assure
a firm information base for the development of a caseflow-

management improvement
plan.
2. Analyze the Pending Inventory. A court’s “backlog”
consists of the cases in
its pending inventory that are older than what is considered
acceptable. If a court or court
33 See Barry Mahoney, et al., How to Conduct a Caseflow
Management Review: A Guide for Practitioners
(Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts, 1994).
29
system adopts a time standard for civil cases like that of the
American Bar Association,
then all the pending civil cases that are more than two years old
are “backlog” cases. To
provide information about the scope and dimensions of a court’s
backlog, the court
should undertake a review of the cases in its inventory – either
all cases or just those that
can quickly be identified as the oldest.
There are different ways by which a court can undertake such an
analysis. One
common way is for judges simply to review case files or the

register of actions for the
pending cases. Another approach with cases that are old and
show little activity is to
write letters or send notices to counsel, calling on them to show
causes why cases should
not be dismissed for want of prosecution. Other approaches are
to have counsel attend a
calendar call or participate in person or by phone with the judge
in a conference to inform
the court about the status of their cases.
This assessment should permit the court to identify the
characteristics of the
current pending inventory:
• What is the age of cases?
• Which cases are active versus inactive?
• Are there civil or divorce cases for which there has been no
activity beyond the
pleadings?
• Which cases have discovery problems?
• Which cases are ready to be scheduled for trial?
• Are there cases that are actually completed, and that need only
a final order?
Such an assessment has an advantage beyond simply giving the
court information about
the status of cases. Courts typically find that a large number of
cases may in fact be ripe

for disposition, either because they have been settled and
satisfied or because the parties
are no longer pursuing them. By the mere process of reviewing
its inventory, the court
may be able to reduce the size of the pending caseload by a
significant amount. For cases
that cannot be disposed promptly, the court is in a position to
see that they progress
toward trial or other disposition in a reasonably prompt manner.
3. Find Out How Successful Courts Do It. By finding out if
there is a gap
between how the court now manages its cases and what the
court and other stakeholders
would like to see happening, the court can focus on practices
and procedures that are
most in need of change, set realistic caseflow management
goals, and decide how much
34 34 Ibid., pp. 9-16.
30
change is needed. An important part of this undertaking is
“benchmarking.” Through

benchmarking, you can develop reference points by which the
court can set ambitious but
achievable performance goals and learn what other courts have
found most effective to
meet their process enhancement objectives.
The benchmarking that you do may be either “internal” or
“external.” Internal
benchmarking can be done, for example, when staff members in
its criminal division are
finding out how to improve case processing by seeing how it is
done in the civil and
family divisions, and why it is being done better in those
divisions. Or in a court with
individual calendars, it might involve efforts by the judge and
his or her staff to see what
other judges and staff with individual calendars do in order to
achieve better results.
External benchmarking involves an effort by one court to see
how other courts that are
similarly situated carry out a business process in a more
effective and efficient way.
As part of the benchmarking process, and as a means to assess
its capacity to
monitor and measure its day-to-day caseflow management

performance, the court may
need to look at the status, capabilities, effectiveness, and
orientation of its case
management information system in relation to the court’s
caseflow management goals.
In determining priorities and the court’s capacity to transform
itself with the support of
technology, the court must determine whether technology can
help to provide better
caseflow management information in a cost-effective and timely
manner.
4. Weigh the Costs and Benefits of Alternative Approaches. In
a time of
limited public resources, policy decisions in the courts and
other public sector
organizations must be based increasingly on a comparison of the
costs and benefits of
alternative approaches to dealing with problems, or “cost-
benefit analysis.” A cost-
benefit analysis of two or more alternatives involves an
assessment of each option’s
monetary costs as well as the monetary value of its benefits,
thereby allowing each
alternative to be examined on its own merits to see if it is

worthwhile. A desirable
alternative is one for which the benefits exceed the costs; and in
a comparison of two or
more alternatives, the one that should be chosen is the one with
the lowest costs in
relation to the benefits that it provides.35
35 See Henry Levin, Cost-Effectiveness: A Primer (Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983), pp. 21-22.
31
It is important for judges and court leaders to carry out a cost
analysis for any
changes in case processing that may be under consideration.
Attention to the “real
money” consequences of any change is an important part of a
court manager’s
responsibilities.36 Trial court performance standards provide
that a trial court should
responsibly seek resources needed to meet its judicial
responsibilities, use those resources
wisely, and account for their use.37 Sound assessment of the
cost dimension of caseflow
management changes is an important way for a court to make

sound decisions and to
demonstrate its concern for prudent use of public resources to
funding authorities.
The costs and benefits associated with such a change as the
introduction of a new
caseflow management program may not all be measurable in
“hard dollar” terms.
Relations with the bar, public confidence in the courts, and
political repercussions may
all be part of the analysis without being quantifiable in dollar
terms. If existing practices
are well established, introduction of dramatic changes may be
difficult. One way to
assess non-financial costs against benefits is through a “force
field analysis:”38
• Identify factors supporting change, such as judicial support for
greater court
control of case progress, members of the civil trial bar who
want reduced
scheduling conflicts, a state supreme court initiative to reduce
delay, or a federal
initiative to expedite adoptions in child protection cases.
• Then identify the factors that might hinder change, such as
opposition from some
members of the bench or the trial bar or an antiquated case
management
information system.

• Finally, determine whether and how these issues might be
subject to change. Can
factors supporting change be applied to reduce the impact of
barriers to change?
Can the case management information system be improved?
C. Implementation Plan for Best Approach
Having assessed the court’s current caseflow management
situation and
considered different alternatives, the court must make a
decision about how to proceed.
After that decision, the court must then prepare an
implementation plan spelling out the
work to be done, including timeframes, milestones, decision
points, and resource
36 See the NACM core competency curriculum guidelines for
“Resources, Budget and Finance” in Court
Manager (Vol. 18, No. 2) at 41-46. For this guideline on the
NACM web site, see:
http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/cccg_7_corecompetency_resour
ces.html.
37 Trial Court Performance Standards, commentary to Standard
4.2.
38 See R. Dale Lefever, “Effecting Change in the Courts: A
Process of Leadership,” National Institute of
Justice/ Research in Action (1987), p. 2.
http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/cccg_7_corecompetency_resour
ces.html.

32
allocation arrangements. It is important as part of this planning
to address training and
workforce issues. Finally, it is critical to make specific plans
for managing the changes
that the implementation of the new or improved caseflow
management approach will
cause in the court and the court community.
1. Choose the Most Desirable Approach. The court should
select an approach
to caseflow management that is best in terms of accomplishing
the strategic mission and
goals of the court, meeting the needs of internal and external
customers, overcoming
barriers to change, and yielding benefits that will justify court
expenditures. Once the
court has chosen the approach that offers the best balance
between costs and benefits,
with attention to potential barriers and risks, it should articulate
a rationale for the
decision – why the chosen approach outranks other possibilities.
No matter what
decision the court makes, everyone should remember that no

choice will totally satisfy
everyone, and everyone should recognize the tradeoffs that have
made among benefits
and impacts.
2. Pay Attention to Detail. If it is important to see the “big
picture” – to plan
from a strategic perspective and to see systemic
interrelationships in caseflow
management, it is just as important not to overlook the less
obvious details. If a caseflow
management improvement program has unanticipated negative
consequences for a single
clerical support staff member who happens to have primary
responsibility for storing and
retrieving court records, that staff person’s support for the
program may be diminished,
and there may be sudden delays in the availability of case files.
Increased efficiencies in
the scheduling of probable-cause hearings for felony cases may
have the effect of
reducing police officer overtime, thereby evoking officer
resistance. Change from a
master calendar to an individual calendar is likely to have a
significant effect on the work

to be done by a judge’s secretary. A small error in a new case
status report may cause a
judge to withdraw quietly from his commitment to court
management of case progress.
3. Make the Case for the Desired Approach and Prepare a Plan
for
Managing Change. It is critical to consider the human element
in any effort to improve
court practices and procedures, since judges and other
employees of the court and the
clerk’s office carry out most of the activities associated with the
handling of cases.
Changes to improve management of the pace of litigation may
well involve redesigning
33
the way that court staff members do part of their work, or
eliminate steps, and it might
even totally change how they do their jobs. Part of developing
an improved approach to
handling cases is to discover how it would change the work that
people do. For example,
it would be dramatic to take such steps with automation as the

following in furtherance of
caseflow management improvement efforts:
• Converting to electronically-filed documents;
• Creating a universal attorney calendaring system that would
eliminate scheduling
conflicts among appearances before multiple judges in all
federal, state, and local
courts in a large urban county;
• Creating a program to provide assistance to self-represented
litigants and working
out the interrelationships among the court, clerk's office, legal
services, pro bono
attorneys, process servers, state motor vehicle licensing agency,
and state and
local bar associations;
• Reorganizing clerk's office staff from specialized assignments
to teams of
generalist case managers who handle all aspects of a case from
filing to
disposition;
• Creating an integrated justice information sharing process so
that information is
entered only once in the entire criminal justice process and
passed on to each
entity -- from police to prosecutor to court and public defender
to corrections -- as
the information is needed at the next stage of the case.
The chief judge and the members of the steering committee
should thus consider

the ways that new or improved practices and procedures may
affect the way that judges
and other key participants and stakeholders in the day-to-day
operations of the court may
be affected by the planned implementation. Some of these
people may always oppose
any change, and you will have to find ways to deal
appropriately with them. The
majority of them are likely to be either enthusiastic about or
open to considering the
proposed changes, and you should take steps to address their
concerns and ensure that
they perceive the enhancement effort as proceeding in a
reasonable fashion. Those who
are clear and active supporters can serve to assure that there is a
solid base of support for
the enhancement effort as it goes forward.
4. Publish a Written Caseflow Management Improvement Plan.
When a
court has decided on the course it will take to improve caseflow
management, it should
articulate its program in a caseflow management plan that is
published, perhaps by

administrative order of the court. The plan should give details
about the caseflow
management techniques that will be employed, include any
forms (such as case
34
information sheets to be filed with cases to facilitate DCM track
assignments), provide
ultimate time standards, and present a transition plan for
achieving the time standards if
the court has a pre-existing backlog problem.39 Having a
published plan shows the
court’s commitment to caseflow management, and it serves as a
reference for the court
and other case participants during the implementation effort.
The process of preparing and reviewing drafts of the plan can
serve as a means to
identify detailed problems and to think through what will be the
main tasks, the key
individual persons and their specific roles and responsibilities,
and the target dates for
accomplishment of implementation steps. Once completed, the
plan can be a key

reference for those who seek to understand what the court seeks
to accomplish, when and
how. Finally, it can serve as a reference in the evaluation of the
implementation effort, as
the document in which the goals and expectations for the
caseflow-management
improvement program are set forth.
If caseloads are to be managed effectively in the court, it must
be clear who is
responsible for their management. The plan for caseflow
management and its operational
implementation should set forth unambiguous lines of
accountability. Time standards
and goals provide one measure of accountability; specific
assignment of responsibility to
persons in particular positions is another effective mechanism.
If one of the court's
problems is a large backlog of pending cases that cannot be
addressed within an
acceptable period of time, then the improvement plan should
include steps for backlog
reduction. Once the backlog in the court's prior pending
inventory is reduced to more
manageable proportions, it should be an ongoing objective of

the court to keep its
pending inventory at a manageable level.40
5. Plan Before It Starts for the Program to be Evaluated.
Evaluation of the
improvement program provides an important source of objective
feedback about whether
its implementation has met expectations, and about the areas in
which adjustments may
be needed. Contemplation of an evaluation 6-12 months after
the commencement of
program implementation provides a reason for program leaders
to make program goals
and objectives explicit. They can also engage in discussions
with a prospective evaluator
39 See American Bar Association, Standards Relating to Trial
Courts, 1992 Edition, Section 2.54A.
40 Mahoney, et al., Changing Times in Trial Courts, pp. 203-
204.
35
about the kind of information that will be necessary and feasible
to have available for the
evaluation. This will typically include information about delay
and the state of the

court’s dockets before the program has begun.
Planning for evaluation need not be a difficult task. Instead, it
should be a natural
“spin-off” of an important part of management under the
improvement program –
monitoring the age and status of individual cases in relation to
time expectations, and
monitoring the size, age and status of the court’s inventory of
pending cases.
D. Implementation and Further Refinements
The final set of steps involves the court’s effort to implement
its new caseflow
management improvement program. This may involve dealing
with the reduction of the
age of cases already pending before the court, as well as
avoidance of delay in newly
filed cases. During the implementation effort, the court will
need to deal with resistance
to change, appraise the success of the new program, and make
any refinements that may
be necessary.
1. Deal with Backlog in the Pre-Program Pending Inventory. If
a court is

currently experiencing unacceptable delay in cases that are
currently pending, it may be
necessary to have a transition stage, during which the court
seeks to reduce the size and
age of its pending inventory. For purposes of this effort, the
court might have interim
time standards for a period of time, after which the court would
process cases in keeping
with its ultimate time standards.41
Having analyzed its pending inventory, the court would know
during the
preparation of its plan what steps must be taken to dispose of
cases in the pre-program
pending inventory. To manage these cases, the court might
want to differentiate them,
either by current status, by relative complexity, or by the action
that is needed to close
them.
The court should have specific strategies for disposing of these
cases. Judicial
intervention by holding status or settlement conferences, ruling
on motions and entering
orders to promote case progress might be appropriate for many

cases. Others might have
scheduling orders entered for the completion of discovery.
Referral to ADR, such as
41 ABA, Standards Relating to Trial Courts, 1992 Edition,
Section 2.54C.
36
early neutral evaluation, arbitration or mediation, might be a
very helpful mechanism to
promote early dispositions. There will inevitably be some cases
that must be tried, and
the desirable strategy would be to place these cases on a short
schedule for trial.
Ultimately, the most powerful mechanism for reducing backlog
is to expose cases
to trial. The court should determine the percentage of cases that
make it to trial. If the
number of trials per year is three percent of the total filings, for
example, then the court
should block out enough time to hold trials not only for that
percentage of current filings,
but also for three percent of the total backlog cases. If the court
has 2,000 new filings a

year and a backlog of 1,000 cases, it will try about 60 of its
current cases in a year; and if
it can try 75 cases each year over a two-year period, it will
eliminate its backlog in those
two years while staying current with new filings. While some
cases must be tried, the
fact that the court can actually provide trials for the backlogged
cases will cause the great
majority of them to settle.
It may not be easy for the court to dispose of the older pending
cases without
temporary additional resources. The plan for dealing with the
pending inventory should
address the manner in which clerical support resources might be
reallocated or
temporarily augmented. The court might need the assistance of
the state court
administrator’s office with the temporary assignment of one or
more additional judges to
try cases. Attorney volunteers might serve as additional
resources as settlement masters,
for one or more special “settlement weeks,” or as ADR neutrals.
As another alternative,
or after such temporary additional resources had been employed

to reduce the backlog,
one judge might be assigned to handle only backlog cases until
the court’s inventory
reached a more suitable size and age.
2. Manage New Cases in Keeping with the Caseflow
Management
Improvement Plan. The second part of implementing the
caseflow management
improvement program involve the court’s changed approached
to the management of
cases. The caseflow management improvement plan should
describe the overall and
intermediate time standards to be applied to cases, and the
implementation effort involves
the application to individual cases of the means by which the
court intends to meet those
standards. These might include, for example, the specific ways
that the court will
37
exercise early control of cases, make DCM track assignments,
exercise a firm policy
limiting continuances, and provide firm trial dates.

3. Monitor Implementation and Make Midcourse Corrections.
During the
course of program implementation, judges and managers should
regularly assess the
status of the court’s dockets as part of routine caseflow
management. They may find that
planned approaches did not have the anticipated effects, or that
new problems have arisen
because of the changes made under the program.
Regardless of the care with which program leaders and planning
group
participants have sought to anticipate and deal beforehand with
potential implementation
problems, it is likely that difficulties will emerge during
program implementation that
nobody could foresee. Particularly in the early stages of the
implementation effort, such
problems will present an important test of everyone’s
commitment to caseflow
management.
It is important for judicial leaders and court managers to see
such developments
as a learning opportunity, a chance to show that caseflow

management has the court
system’s organization support, and a means to reinforce the
importance of
communication and coordination among judges, court staff and
other court process
participants in order to achieve the objectives of the program.
If it is predictable that
unforeseen developments and complications will require that
adjustments be made, then
all of the participants in the program can work together to make
further revisions in day-
to-day operations and the caseflow management improvement
plan.
4. Overcome Resistance to Change. Introducing significant
changes in the way
that the pace of litigation is managed can often mean change in
“the local legal culture” –
the “established expectations, practices, and informal rules of
behavior of judges and
attorneys.”42 To accomplish an alteration of the pre-existing
local legal culture, the court
will have to exercise leadership for its caseflow management
policies and programs in
order to overcome resistance to change.43 It is important to

accept and understand such
resistance. It can be based on fear of the unknown, a sense that
change may lead to loss
of status or power, stress from uncertainty about ability to
function effectively in the new
42 See Thomas Church, et al., Justice Delayed: The Pace of
Litigation in Urban Trial Courts
(Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts, 1978), p.
54.
38
environment, changes in the nature of established relationships,
or feelings of having
been left out of the decision-making process.44
To overcome such resistance, the proponents of change must
have information
that shows the existence and dimensions of a problem and
demonstrates the need for
change. In addition, they will have to motivate others to
support the proposed changes by
such means as (1) articulating a vision of how the changes will
improve the system; (2)
showing how individual persons who will be affected by the
changes will benefit from

them; and (3) by showing their own ongoing commitment to the
effective operation of the
proposed program, by disseminating information on program
progress and rewarding
those who are effective in helping the achievement of its goals.
Finally, the judge
advocating the new program will have to exercise leadership by
building consensus and
organizational support for it among those essential to its
success.45 It is critical that there
be shared recognition among the court, the bar and other
institutional participants in the
court process of the need to change the pace of proceedings,
along with a shared resolve
to bring about that change.46
5. Evaluate Implementation and Refine Caseflow Management
Operations
Based on Evaluation Results. After implementation of the
improvement program has
been underway, it is desirable to have an objective assessment
done of progress toward
program goals and objectives. The evaluator may conduct an
interim assessment of the

success of the backlog reduction part of the program, and then
appraise the manner in
which the court has dealt with newer cases. Judges and court
managers should use the
fact of the evaluation as an opportunity to step back from day-
to-day court operations and
look carefully at the strengths and weaknesses of the
implementation effort. The
evaluator’s conclusions about factors that may have caused the
effort to evolve in ways
that were different from program goals and expectations can
provide information on the
basis of which the court can make further refinements in its
operations.
43 Mahoney, et al., Changing Times in Trial Courts (1988), pp.
198-199.
44 Mahoney, et al., Planning and Conducting a Workshop on
Reducing Delay in Felony Cases (1991), Vol.
I, pp. P8-4 to P8-6.
45 See Thriving on Chaos, Chapter V, “Learning to Love
Change: A New View of Leadership at All
Levels.”
46 Changing Times in Trial Courts (1988), p. 202.
39
6. Institutionalize the Improved Caseflow Management

Operation. The real
test of success for a caseflow management improvement
program is whether it can be
maintained over time. In the minds of judges, court managers,
court support staff,
attorneys and others involved in the court process, caseflow
management must be
understood as the fundamental work of the court. When
caseflow management is no
longer seen as the “pet project” of a single chief judge who has
been its primary
advocate, but rather as a set of activities that benefits
individuals, the court and other
organizations, then it can be said to have been
“institutionalized.”
7. Capitalize on Success and Make Ongoing Further Program
Improvements. If the caseflow management improvement effort
has been successful,
the court should make good use of it. Court leaders should be
sure to recognize all those
whose planning, work, determination, and support contributed
to the positive outcome.
They should be sure to let everyone – judges, court staff,
representatives of court-related

agencies, stakeholders, and members of the public—know what
happened and why. The
gains achieved by the improved approach to caseflow
management can erode unless the
court continually monitors its performance and makes further
refinements. The court
should use performance information as a tool to aid continuous
improvement of work
processes.
40
APPENDIX.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
American Bar Association. Standards Relating to Trial Courts,
1992 Edition. Chicago:
American Bar Association, 1992.
-----. Trial Management Standards. Chicago: American Bar
Association, 1992.
Bureau of Justice Assistance and National Center for State
Courts. Trial Court
Performance Standards with Commentary (Monograph NCJ
161570). Washington,
DC: US Department of Justice, 1997.
Church, Thomas, Alan Carlson, Jo-Lynn. Lee and Teresa Tan.

Justice Delayed: The
Pace of Litigation in Urban Trial Courts. Williamsburg, VA:
National Center for
State Courts, 1978.
Cooper, Caroline, Maureen Solomon and Holly Bakke. Bureau
of Justice Assistance
Differentiated Case Management Implementation Manual.
Washington, DC:
American University, 1993.
Flanders, Stephen. Case Management and Court Management in
United States District
Courts. Washington, DC: Federal Judicial Center, 1977.
Friesen, Ernest, Maurice Geiger, Joseph Jordan and Alfred
Sulmonetti. Justice in Felony
Courts: A Prescription to Control Delay. Los Angeles: Whittier
School of Law,
1979.
Goerdt, John, Chris Lomvardias and Geoff Gallas. Reexamining
the Pace of Litigation in
39 Urban Trial Courts. Williamsburg, VA: National Center for
State Courts, 1991.
-----, Lomvardias, Gallas and Barry Mahoney. Examining Court
Delay: The Pace of
Litigation in 26 Urban Trial Courts. Williamsburg, VA:
Courts, 1989.
Hewitt, William, Geoff Gallas and Barry Mahoney. Courts That
Succeed: Six Profiles of
Successful Courts. Williamsburg, VA: National Center for
State Courts, 1990.

Mahoney, Barr, Alexander Aikman, Pamela Casey, Victor
Flango, Geoff Gallas, Thomas
Henderson, Jeanne Ito, David Steelman and Stephen Weller.
Changing Times in
Trial Courts: Caseflow Management and Delay Reduction in
Urban Trial Courts.
Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts, 1988.
41
-----, Holly Bakke, Antoinett Bonacci-Miller, Nancy Maron and
Maureen Solomon. How
to Conduct a Caseflow Management Review: A Guide for
Practitioners.
-----, Carol Friesen, Ernest Friesen, R. Dale Lefever, Maureen
Solomon and Douglas
Somerlot. Planning and Conducting a Workshop on Reducing
Delay in Felony
Cases, Volume One: Guidebook for Trainers. Williamsburg,
VA: National Center for
State Courts, 1991.
National Association for Court Management, Professional
Development Advisory
Committee. “Caseflow Management,” in “Core Competency
Curriculum Guidelines:
What Court Leaders Need to Know and Be Able to Do,” Court
Manager (Vol. 18,
No. 2, 2003) 16
(http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/cccg_3_corecompetency_cfm.h
tml).

Ostrom, Brian, and Roger Hanson. Efficiency, Timeliness, and
Quality: A New
Perspective from Nine State Trial Courts. Williamsburg, VA:
National Center for
State Courts, 1999.
Sipes, Dale, and Mary Oram. On Trial: The Length of Civil and
Criminal Trials.
Solomon, Maureen. Caseflow Management in the Trial Court.
Chicago: American Bar
Association, 1973.
----- and Douglas Somerlot. Caseflow Management in the Trial
Court: Now and For the
Future. Chicago: American Bar Association, 1987.
Steelman, David. “What Have We Learned About Court Delay,
‘Local Legal Culture,’
and Caseflow Management Since the Late 1970s?” Justice
System Journal (Vol. 19,
No. 2, 1997) 145.
----- and Marco Fabri. “Can an Italian Court Use the American
Approach to Delay
Reduction?” Justice System Journal (Vol. 29, No. 1, 2008) 1.
----- , John Goerdt, and James McMillan. Caseflow
Management: The Heart of Court
Management in the New Millennium. Williamsburg, VA:
Courts, 2000.
----- , Larry Webster, and Erika Friess. “Caseflow Management

with a Human Face:
Thoughts on Absorbing the Problem-Solving Approach into the
Heart of Mainstream
Court Management.” Denver, CO: National Center for State
Courts, draft
manuscript, 2006.
ml).
DOCKET MANAGEMENT PROGRAM (DMP)
The introductory notice of the Docket Management Program
was published in the Connecticut
Law Journal on July 25 and August 1, 2006.
The guidelines established by the Office of the Chief Court
Administrator for the Docket
Management Program are as follows:
I. GOALS
A. To adopt fair case processing time standards that will
provide for the equal treatment of
litigants and the timely resolution of cases through the active
oversight and continuous
management of time and events by the Court.
B. To foster caseflow excellence by ensuring that each case
receives the type and amount of
attention required by the nature of its action and complexity of
its issues.

C. To enhance the quality of justice and facilitate the timely
disposition of all cases.
II. CASE SELECTION
A. The case selection process was conducted during August,
2006.
B. The criteria for selecting cases for the Docket Management
Program include:
WRIT ONLY SIX MONTHS
WRIT AND APPEARANCE ONLY SIX MONTHS
PLEADINGS NOT CLOSED OR PLEADINGS CLOSED
BUT Certificate of Closed Pleadings (JD-CV-11) NOT FILED:
• CONTRACT COLLECTIONS (C40) SIX MONTHS
• SMALL CLAIMS TRANSFERS TO THE
REGULAR DOCKET (M83) SIX MONTHS
• ALL OTHER CASES TWELVE
MONTHS
III. NOTIFICATION
A. Due to the large number of cases that qualified for the
Docket Management Program, a
period of approximately two months is required to process the
calendars.
B. The distribution of the calendars to all counsel and pro se
parties of record will occur during
November 2006.

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