The Marion County judges, with the help of key administrative and technology staff, have undertaken a process to measure court performance in order to ensure the effective and efficient use of court resources. Glenn Lawrence, Marion County Court Administrator, says the new performance evaluation system will allow judges to assess their court’s status and make improvements. “It will allow a judge to pinpoint where there is back-log for example, and hopefully we can avoid a problem. Judges will be able to share their processes with one another and become more effective managers.”
Marion County has 36 civil and criminal courts and about 75 judicial officers. There are countless judicial management styles, which present some real challenges. With a grant from the Indiana Supreme Court through the Division of State Court Administration, the courts decided to implement CourTools, a court performance evaluation system developed by the National Center for State Courts, and used nationally for courts.
CourTools includes ten performance measures aimed at helping courts improve effectiveness and efficiency though better management. Initially, Marion County courts plan to focus on three of the key measurements.
- Clearance Rate, which is the number of outgoing cases as a percentage of the number of incoming cases
- Time to Disposition, which is the percentage of cases disposed or otherwise resolved within established time frames
- Age of Active Pending Caseload, which is age of the active cases that are pending before the court, measured as the number of days from filing until the time of measurement
Marion County courts used a simplified version of these measures a year ago to determine how helpful it would be to track the data. Lawrence says court leaders applied for and were awarded a grant from the Division of State Court Administration to implement a pilot project using CourTools. With the funds, the IT staff wrote a program which is able to extract all necessary data from the current case management system, JUSTIS, and at any given point in time provide the appropriate calculations to any court for any case type. The program can be used with Odyssey, the Supreme Court’s statewide case management system, and can be made available to other courts interested in implementing these three CourTools.
Most importantly, the system produces data in a user-friendly format, which includes charts and detail grids that are very easy to understand. Lawrence says the court intends to make the system accessible to the public. This will be is one way for judges, and the citizens they serve, to see the challenges facing the judicial system, and the progress being made to ensure the fair administration of justice.
If anyone is interested in learning more about this, or in applying for a Supreme Court grant, please contact Jim Walker, Director of Trial Court Management, at 317-232-2542, or by email at [email protected].
