Washington Courts: Judicial News Report Detail

Efficiency Via Caseflow Management

In late March, several teams of superior court judges and senior caseflow managers gathered together in Seattle for the Institute for Court Management's advanced caseflow management course.

Taught by George Gish, a former three-decade court administrator/clerk and renowned caseflow expert, the course was created to help participants find innovative solutions to an age-old problem: burgeoning caseloads. The article below is the result of interviews with Gish and seminar attendee Tom Clarke, OAC's manager of research.

Caseloads climb higher, but court funding and judicial staffing levels remain static. Under this scenario, can a court really do more with less?

Absolutely, says former court administrator George Gish.

After serving eighteen years as court administrator of Detroit's Recorder Court--managing 29 judges who regularly disposed of more than 16,000 felony cases each year--he learned a thing or two about caseflow management. Now retired, Gish is taking what he learned to courts throughout the world in an effort to improve court efficiency.

His key points: courts must control continuances, actively supervise cases and caseflow progress, and schedule credible (firm) trial dates. Done well, these actions can turn a floundering court into a well-oiled wheel of justice, Gish says.

Twenty-nine representatives from Asotin, Benton/Franklin, Grant, Island/San Juan, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Thurston, Pierce, Spokane, and Skagit County Superior Courts brought teams to hear Gish's approach, and take home his real-life suggestions for change to their home courts. Spokane County Superior Court Judge Donohue served as co-faculty.

Disposition a day

"When I left (Detroit), our median time to disposition was one day," says Gish. "Eighty percent of our caseload reached disposition by the first event in court."

In a single, two-and-a-half-year period, he said, the court was able to reduce the number of its expired speedy trial cases (those more than 180 days old) by 32%.

Overcoming hurdles

Making changes in the way a court operates is seldom easy.

Asked about the hurdles he faced in his own court and others, Gish said that tradition, coupled with the time-honored, this is the way we've always done it' are two mindsets that need to be set aside.

And while every jurisdiction is unique, hurdles and first-steps are basically the same.

"The fundamentals are the fundamentals," Gish told Judicial News. "It doesn't matter what kind of docket it is, whether it's family, criminal or civil--the issues and the solutions are pretty much the same."

Taming continuances

A single sentence in the 400-plus pages of materials attendees were given at the seminar summed up one of Gish's major points: "No program can succeed if continuances are allowed."

As an example, he told of a super-large jurisdiction in another state which had a low number of case filings per judge, but still seemed to suffer from chronic understaffing and an unbearable workload. It was after the court requested more judges, a new building and more staff, that Gish was able to show it could work efficiently with what it currently had.

"Most of their problem was due to continuances. Even though their caseload had decreased in terms of the workload, it was actually increasing due to poor management practices," said Gish. Continuance problems are systemic, Gish explained, and it's natural for the most hardworking court officials to feel overwhelmed.

"These can be some of the hardest working judges I've ever met, but it gets to the point where they have a trial scheduled, and they can't possibly reach the trial because they are so busy with other matters," he said. "The reason is, they do not achieve any early dispositions, and there are too many cases lingering on the docket. It is just more than the judges can handle."

OAC Research and Information Services Manager Tom Clarke, saw the point clearly. "Since very few cases actually go to trial--somewhere between two to five percent, whether it's criminal or civil--what you're really after is trying to get a disposition for cases at the earliest point you can in the process," Clarke explained.

"Conversely, the longer you keep them scheduled for trial dates that will never happen, or continue the case because people don't have their act together, the more resources you waste," he added.

Knowing your data

For presiding judges and top-level administrators, the key to reducing continuances and speeding up dispositions is to know and understand the court's caseflow figures.

Pulling the data together and getting agreement from all court officials as to exactly what the operation currently looks like, is the first step. The second step is to determine what the court's settlement rate is and at what stage settlements are occurring.

"That sounds very simple, but gathering the data so that everyone agrees on exactly how the operation looks right now can be fairly complicated," Gish explained. "There are some courts that don't even know what their pending caseflow is."

Judges in many courts have their own procedures and their courts are served by a variety of computer programs. "None of the data means the same thing!" Gish exclaimed. "It's awfully hard to plan and manage if you don't have good data."

Clarke said the Seattle group talked at length about data, including that which currently is either hard to get or simply not available. New technology, however, should soon abate this problem in Washington State, Clarke said.

Planned as a priority piece of the state's fully integrated Judicial Information System in 1995, CAPS--the Court Automated Proceeding System--will be piloted in September of this year. CAPS' new technology will take the system beyond traditional court scheduling by supporting automated processes that establish and schedule court time, assign and monitor the duration of each proceeding, produce court calendars and track outcomes.

"(CAPS) will definitely make it easier to manage a court efficiently," said Clarke. But just because the tools are there, efficiency won't happen automatically, he warned. "Courts will have to do a lot of hard work to actually change their processing."

Some courts have already started. To get the most out of the current system, they use BRIO, a query tool now available in the Superior Court Management Information System (SCOMIS), to ask questions of the database. Another system feature--the "Track Assignment Module"--allows courts to create milestone measurements for cases and track their progress.

Commitment, leadership needed

Both Gish and Clarke agreed that, without the cooperation of the presiding or chief judge, it would be unlikely such changes would occur.

"Leadership is one of the key elements, absolutely," said Gish. "If caseflow management is being properly implemented, and the docket is constantly monitored, drastic change will not be required," he said.

Gish advocates a gradual, rather than big bang approach to changes. Constant, small changes aren't as threatening as major ones, and over time it's more effective. "If you keep making these small, continuous improvements and keep working on this, over time that's what helps institutionalize the process-and that's how you make major changes," says Gish.

When computing a timeline for implementing such changes, Gish looks at the court, and where it is at the current time. "I can think of some courts that it would take several years, while other courts improve dramatically just within six months."

Commitment, Gish emphasized, was absolutely critical. "There has to be a shared vision of how we're all going to work together to achieve those goals," he says. "The leaders have to be role models--they have to actually lead, show commitment...I think if you do all of those things the people will follow."

Fundamental Elements of Caseflow Management

• Provide court leadership
• Consult with the local bar
• Supervise case progress
• Set clear standards and goals
• Install monitoring and information systems
• Set credible trial dates
• Control continuances
• Create a shared vision and systems approach
• Pay attention to detail

• Schedule as few cases for trial as possible. (Goal: percentage of cases scheduled for trial should not exceed more than twice the actual trial rate)
• Set firm trial dates. Set the date only after all pretrial matters have been resolved, and the trial is ready. (Goal: 15% or less continuances)
• Schedule trials only once
• Make every court event a "disposition opportunity"