MANAGING CIVIL CASES One Success Story

1. MANAGING CIVIL CASESOne Success Story Kent Batty and Maureen Solomon

2. Characteristics of the Court • Jurisdiction • Size • History • Caseload Status

3. Jurisdiction • Civil cases with claims > $10,000 • Felony criminal • Family law: divorce, paternity, separate maintenance, custody, support • Lower court and administrative agency appeals • Juvenile and probate cases in a separate court

4. Size 35 judges, 6–9 referees (family law) Roughly 500 employees, about 300 involved in child support enforcement Wayne County (Detroit) – about 2 m. people in the 80s Judges had combined civil and family law calendars Recorder’s Court 6–8 judges also rotated onto criminal calendars periodically

5. History of delay and backlog problems • Hybrid calendaring system since 1966 • Included in National Center’s Justice Delayed in 1976 • Study of civil and criminal case delay in 18 urban courts • Also in follow-up study of civil case processing in 17 urban courts, produced in 1985 • At or near the bottom in key measures

6. Attempts to improve prior to January 1986 • Tried an individual calendar, but without training or preparation => pre-1966 • Created assignment clerk for managing trials on the day of trial • Went back to master • Then to hybrid with cases individually assigned until scheduled for trial and assignment clerk to “deal” the trials

7. Caseload status – January 1986 • 4-5 years to trial was typical • Little judicial involvement until years after filing => attorney control over the pace of litigation • Lost or misplaced files and documents not uncommon • pleadings not filed for 13+ months at one point • “Trial date certainty was a myth.”

8. Obstacles to Change, Improvement the Bar Spoken issues remembered past experiment with IC felt abused by experiences with judges in neighboring county feared arbitrariness of judges feared lack of uniformity feared loss of income

9. Unspoken issues • many felt, rightfully so, they had control of when cases went to trial • loss of ability to forum shop: use of personal relationships with favorite judges or assignment clerk

10. the Bench • Spoken issues • previous failure at IC • abandoned after 3 years • no standard methodology • included shifting cases from non-productive judges to productive ones • lack of training, preparation

11. More judges’ issues • Concern for knowing how to effectively manage caseloads • Concern for how to manage trial calendars

12. Unspoken issues • loss of ability to hide at trial time, to evade certain cases • inability to pick the cases they’d try • they knew which cases were the knotty, difficult ones • under the MC, they could find ways to avoid them • but not under the IC

13. the Staff • Primary case management responsibility shifted from central staff to individual judges and their staffs • Assignment clerk was opposed, but didn’t fight it openly • Loss of power, prestige, status within the court and with the bar

14. Limited-to-no resistance from judges’ staffs Seemed to accept that improvements needed to be made Administrative staff leadership enthusiastic about change Case management staff also was ready to see improvements

15. Other Problems • Total cases filed annually averaged 49,500 during period of program; about 40% were civil • Heavy backlog of cases awaiting trial: some 1400 were relatively minor – short trials, not complex • Pending caseloads were high: in 1985, over 31,000 civil pending, w/ nearly 7000 older than 2 years

16. Strategies • Initiation • First decide if the court should go to IC • Following a delay reduction conference, the Chief Judge said convert in 30 days • Convinced to take it slow Past failures as example • Need for study, development, training • Need to involve and educate barMany judges opposed • Formal planning process instituted

17. Bar involvement • Not easily agreed on by bench • Determined to solicit input re concepts but not operational details • Important to overcoming resistance, even to the concept of delay reduction

18. Some judicial persuasion was needed • Strong, focused chief judge(s) • Wanted a common process but knew not everything could be achieved by consensus • Judges in early phases would have much to say about how the system would function • Need for uniformity to be given priority

19. Bench/Bar Docket Review Committee • 14 members, equally split among bench and bar • chaired by CJ • staffed by administrative leadership • it was to find means of reducing delay and recommend changes to the CJ • but had specific charge to study the IC

20. Use of goals • ABA standards adopted by court leadership as the aspiration • Initial goal was only to make significant reductions in cases over 2 years • Then target dates for achieving a certain level of pending cases • Later goals addressed individual case types (divorces, e.g.) • Finally a target pending caseload per judge

21. Special effort focused on reducing the backlog • Separated the shorter trial, simpler cases from the rest • 1400 cases said to be awaiting trials of less than 3 days • volunteer judges assisted

22. Pilot project • Original CJ convinced that it should be randomly selected, w/10 judges • Successor CJ said, “No…we need this to succeed…handpick 7 judges (20% of bench).” • Looked to create a standardized approach that allowed for varying skills among judges

23. Changes had to be able to survive the intense scrutiny and skepticism during transition and be sustainable over time • 1st pilot (phase 1) judges shaped the operational details of the IC; gave it credibility

24. Important Concepts Developed • Introduction of DCM • Use of 3 pre-set tracks: all targeted to dispositions w/in ABA guidelines • 4th track: free-form • Experiment with scheduling conference • One before response deadline; one after

25. Concepts… • Day-backward, day-forward • Demarcation point for new system • Different for each group/phase • Day backward = special processing of pending cases • Day forward = the new approach

26. Focus on simple statistics • Line graph • Tables showing judges’ pending cases ranked by compliance with time standards

27. Training • Began with fundamental principles • Then general case management and specific details of managing individual calendars • Emphasis on interactivity • Used consultants in early sessions • As system took hold, used 3CC judges and staff as trainers

28. Documentation