Best Practices Committee

November 17, 2005

Board for Judicial Administration
Best Practices Committee
November 17, 2005

Meeting Minutes

Members Present:	Judge Evan Sperline, Chair
	Ms. Pat Austin (by phone)
	Judge Steve Brown
	Ms. Pam Daniels
	Judge Janet Garrow
	Ms. Andra Motyka
	Ms. Yvonne Pettus
	Judge Ann Schindler
	Judge Jeff Tolman
	Ms. Yolande Williams
Members Absent:	Judge Suzanne Barnett
	Ms. Linda Bell
	Ms. Kim Eaton
	Mr. John Gray
	Justice Susan Owens
	Mr. Dave Ponzoha
	Judge Julie Spector
	Mr. Warren Swanson
Guests Present:	Mr. Charles Benedict
Staff Present:	Ms. Colleen Clark
	Mr. Jeff Hall
	Ms. Deana Piazza

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

Judge Sperline called the meeting to order and asked that committee members introduce themselves to the group. Mr. Charles Benedict attended as an interested party; he's a member of the Public Trust & Confidence committee.

The September 22, 2005 minutes were approved as written.

Due to the upcoming legislative session the next meeting date will not be until March 18, 2006 (not March 22 as noted on the agenda). That will begin our regular every other month meeting, with May 18 scheduled for the next meeting. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings will be at the AOC SeaTac facility.

ATTORNEY SURVEYS

Mr. Hall directed the committee to the draft of the Superior Court Attorney Survey in the meeting materials.

Ms. Piazza (AOC Research) said that she and Mr. Jeff Patnode have administered and discussed the survey with six attorneys. A Test Summary was provided to the committee (see attached) along with a table of Recommendations for Changes to Attorney Questionnaire. Ms. Piazza and Mr. Patnode felt it would be worthwhile replicating this process with the appellate survey.

Ms. Piazza then went through the table of recommendations, concentrating on the starred items (see attached).

Judge Sperline suggested designating the name of the facility on the questionnaire. Ms. Williams suggested there be a blank space for them to fill in the "courthouse you're most frequently in." It depends on how the test is administered, mailed to attorneys or in the hallways of the courthouse. If by mail, there could be a screening question asking which courthouse they practice in most often. A decision will be made when it is decided how the surveys will be administered.

Question 1: It was decided to change all of the survey's response options to Always; Usually (or Often); Sometimes; Rarely; Never. (The Not Applicable option will remain.)

Insert the word ‘adequate' after ‘There are.'

Question 2: There are varying levels of ADA compliance; facilities are required by law to have minimum standards. Attorneys may not be fully aware of what it means to be ADA compliant. The committee decided to remove this question.

Since Question 2 is being deleted, drop the "Security" category and move questions 3-5 under the "Facilities" category.

Question 14: It was noted that this question may be tainted by a recent ruling if it is conducted at the courthouse. The question won't change, but this may need to be taken in to consideration.

Questions 15 and 16: Break these out into two separate categories: Gender and Race/ Ethnicity.

Questions 18 - 23: Questions should be added to address victims in criminal cases and defendants.

Question 24: Change ‘orders' to ‘rulings.'

Question 25: Delete this question.

Question 26: Change to "The court adheres to established laws and the court rules."

It is important to have a court policies and court procedures question.

Add: "The court follows established policies and procedures."

Question 27: Change ‘quickly' to ‘promptly.'

Question 29: This is a very broad question; it is more a measure of the law than a court operation. It should be taken out of the Superior Court Survey, but rewritten and remain in the CLJ survey.

Question 30: Change to "The court efficiently uses court time."

Question 32: Delete "its."

Ms. Daniels expressed concerns regarding Questions 10 and 13 and whether it was appropriate for the judiciary to evaluate an office of the executive branch of government. A letter expressing this concern was given to Judge Sperline with a copy to the Chief Justice as Chair of the BJA. Following discussion it was determined that this issue should be forwarded to the BJA for further discussion.

SUGGESTIONS

• Give consideration to eliminating the question categories (e.g. Facilities, Equality and Fairness). Prepare a version of the questionnaire with and without the headings and distribute to the committee for feedback.
• Clarify clerk in the courtroom as opposed to clerk in the office.
• Security process - might be overly burdensome on people.
• Tailor surveys to each court/counties.
• Mode of administering survey:
  • If in courthouse, try not to intercept when leaving courtrooms - many attorneys are have other appointments.
  • Mail out with a pre-posted return envelope.
  • Advance promotion by Bar associations in their newsletters.
  • Obtain lists of attorneys of record from SCOMIS.

NEXT STEP

After the corrections and changes are made to the questionnaires, they will be sent out to the committee for a final look. Then they will be run in pilot courts just as if we were doing a real audit.

When the pilot project is completed; responses can be examined to determine if some questions should be removed or modified. Will the information acquired benefit a court?

Staff would like the pilot courts to be represented on the Best Practices committee. Judge Sperline said Grant County will participate; Ms. Motyka requested a final questionnaire to take to her judges to see if Pierce County would participate; Ms. Williams said Seattle Municipal would participate; and Ms. Austin indicated Benton/Franklin would be willing to participate.

After discussing, it was determined that Judge Sperline will try to recruit a small, medium and a large court to participate.

COURT OF APPEALS SURVEY

Judge Schindler, Judge Tolman and Ms. Daniels volunteered at the last meeting to come up with questions to measure policies and procedures in effect for pro se litigants. They offered the following (draft) questions:

• Have the clerk's office and the court adopted policies and procedures to assist pro se litigants in using the court system?

• Does the clerk's office and court have policies and procedures in place to assist pro se litigants in being able to obtain domestic violence protection orders?

• Does the clerk's office and the court have policies and procedures for other civil and criminal matters to explain the legal process and refer pro se litigants to legal resources for assistance?

Note that the second question would not be applicable to the Court of Appeals' survey.

It was noted that pro se numbers are expanding and a pro se survey should be a stand alone survey; the survey should go to service providers (courthouse facilitators, pro bono bar associations, etc). Also, pro ses could be asked how they feel about the court experience.

Ms. Daniels suggested a pro se questionnaire might be a good fit for presiding judges.

NEXT MEETING DATE

March 16, 2006
1:30 - 4:00
AOC SeaTac facility

Respectively submitted,
Colleen Clark

Superior Court Attorney Survey

Test Summary

Process: We briefed each participant on the purpose of the survey and how it links to the BPC and the BJA. Each attorney then completed the survey with the majority taking approximately 6 to 7 minutes. After completing the survey, AOC staff reviewed the document in detail with each participant and received a variety of feedback which is summarized in the following sections.

Participants: AOC representatives, one BPC staff and a research analyst, met with 6 Thurston County Attorneys. BPC member John Gray provided the list of attorney testers.

Four of the six attorneys were male and two were female. Five of the six are in private practice and each handle a variety of cases in the Thurston County Superior Court to include family law, personal injury, probate, and criminal defense. Five of the six also practice in a court of limited jurisdiction on a regular basis.

When/Where: AOC staff met with each attorney at their respective offices. The interviews lasted between 30 and 60 minutes.

Attorney Participant Feedback

Survey Format/Presentation

All of the attorneys reported that the survey is organized in an easy to understand format with simple language. Five of the six stated that if they were approached in a court house setting and asked to take the survey that they would likely be willing. Several also suggested their willingness would vary significantly depending on their schedule at the time. Several also stated that the survey took less time to complete than they had expected based on an initial examination of the document.

Response Categories

Several of the attorney's thought the response categories could illicit more accurate responses if they varied for certain questions.

Question Categories

Each participant agreed that the categories made sense and seemed to be comprehensive.

Specific Questions

Several attorneys had feedback regarding the specific information that we are trying to elicit with certain questions. They also made reference to the non-specific nature of some terms and provided alternative language which may be more effective in getting the information that we want.

Staff Recommendations

The specific recommended changes to the survey are detailed on the following pages and incorporate the feedback that was consistent across the participants and with design principals for effective surveys. If approved by the BPC, the revised survey will be sent out for review by the BPC members and discussed at our next meeting. We also recommend that we generalize the results of the superior court survey pre-tests to the survey for CLJs.

We believe it will be advantageous to complete additional attorney survey testing for the users of the appellate courts.

Recommendations for Changes to Attorney Questionnaire

*	Question	Recommendation	Rationale/Comments
	Intro.	add logo, seal, etc.	make survey more official-looking; attorneys may be more inclined to complete the survey
	Intro.	clarify that survey applies to their experience in this county's superior court—or, when there is more than one superior court building, this court facility—only	received feedback that responses would vary by court location
	Intro.	clarify that responses should relate only to their role as an attorney, and not to any other roles they may have in the court	some attorneys may also be commissioners
	ALL	provide larger check-boxes	respondents may be inclined to fill in bubbles, which will take longer; larger boxes provide for ease of completion
*	1	change response options to: Always; Usually (or Often); Sometimes; Rarely; Never	better match to question structure, given feedback during pretest; change may not be necessary if mode of administration allows for targeting of specific courthouses
*	2	consider eliminating the question	asking for a subjective assessment of an objective phenomenon; responses may be mitigated by the extent to which the respondent has knowledge of ADA requirements, especially because a "Don't Know" option is not offered
*	14	clarify what fair treatment means (e.g. "…treated fairly in the court process") or provide examples—i.e. that it's not referring to court decisions, but to issues like having an opportunity to be heard, having the judge explain the ruling, etc.	response could be colored by a recent ruling, especially if the method of administration will be intercepting attorneys as they leave the courtroom
*	15, 16	split up into two questions - one about gender and one about race/ethnicity	compound question - respondents may have different views about gender and race/ethnicity; also allows us to more carefully match respondent demographics to their viewpoints on these issues
*	17	change response options to: Always; Usually (or Often); Sometimes; Rarely; Never	better match to question structure, given feedback during pretest; better reflects degree of variation, especially for different languages
	17	consider moving to "Efficiency and Timeliness" section	received feedback that it seemed like more of an administrative issue than an equality issue
	18-23	may need to more clearly define what "the court" means	an attorney asked whether "the court" included juries
	20, 21	consider breaking civil out into some of the major case types	attorneys involved in pretest suggested that their responses would vary by case type
	heading for 24-28	change second part of heading to "Adherence to Law"	possible lack of familiarity with or varying interpretations of term "fidelity"
*	24	change "Court orders" to "The judge's oral rulings"	most court orders are drafted by attorneys, pursuant to the judge's oral rulings
	24	consider splitting out the clarity and completeness into two separate questions - one reflecting the extent to which the judge's orders are clear enough to draft good written orders, and one reflecting the extent to which the order address all issues relevant to the case	addresses ambiguity of question
*	25	consider eliminating the question	because court orders are generally drafted by attorneys, responses would not likely reflect the quality of work of the courts
*	26	refine the question so that it more clearly taps into the judges' level of comprehension	an attorney mentioned that it is the attorneys' job to make sure the court follows relevant laws, precedents, etc.
*	26	(1) change "policies" to "rules," (2) provide a tighter definition of "policies," or (3) drop "policies" altogether	source of confusion - not clear what "policies" means
*	26	consider splitting up into two questions—one for relevant law and precedent, which address more legal issues, and one for procedures and policies, which reflect more administrative issues	viewed as distinct issues; eliminates a compound question, which is advised against in survey design
	28	consider asking separate questions for different case types	family law orders may be much more difficult to sort out than orders in other civil cases
	28	move to below Q.25	keeps questions with common themes together
	29-32	considering breaking into separate questions for criminal, family, and other civil	responses would tend to vary by case type
*	31, 32	change response options to: Always; Usually (or Often); Sometimes; Rarely; Never	better match to question structure, given feedback during pretest; better reflects degree of variation
	33	split up into two questions, one allowing them to specify all practice areas in which they work, and one allowing them to specify their primary practice area	allows for a more thorough examination of themes by practice area; attorney involved in pretest mentioned that she had a hard time choosing just one because she practices in a range of civil case types
	33, 34	specify a time frame (e.g. currently, within the last five years, etc.)	practice areas can shift over the course of an attorney's career
	33, 34, 36	rearrange response options so they read down, then across (instead of across, then down)	This is standard formatting for a survey, based on visual design/readability principles.
	34	specify the county/court to which the survey applies	may be unclear to respondents who practice in more than one county
	35	add a second part to the question that asks how many of those years they have been practicing in Washington	experience in other states/court systems may impact attorneys' perspectives

Note: Most recommendations are based on the feedback from the pretest. Some are based on basic principles of survey construction.

Suggested additions

• more questions that tap into court clerk performance, as clerks play a major role in how smoothly things run in the courtroom

• include some questions that tap into the security process specifically, not just safety in general

Mode of administration

• Some attorneys may not be inclined to complete the survey if intercepted while leaving the courtroom, as they may need to get to another hearing, draft orders, get back to the office for an appointment, etc. This would tend to bias the survey against busy attorneys, whose perspectives are probably especially valuable. It was suggested that we try to exploit natural "down time" for attorneys by distributing the surveys before the motion calendars, allowing them to complete it on their own time, and having them to hand it in on the way out of the courtroom or courthouse. It was also suggested that if this method were employed, a few words from the judge at the beginning of the calendar may be helpful to encourage participation. (This has been effective with litigant surveys/interviews my colleagues and I have conducted in California.)

It would be helpful to target specific court facilities and calendars for distributing the surveys, in order to provide more context to the findings. We got a lot of feedback that responses would vary by court facility, as well as by case type.