Strategic Planning and Court Trends Resource Guide

NCSC > Court Management > Strategic Planning and Court Trends > Resource Guide

Resource Guide

Contact an expert

Robert C. (Neil) LaFountain

Mark your calendar

ICM course - Education Training and Development.

In this course, participants will learn the fundamentals of adult education and instructional design as well as different approaches to developing employees.

ICM course - Fundamental Issues of Caseflow Management.

In this course, participants will assess the effectiveness of their court's caseflow management system.

ICM course - Visioning and Strategic Planning.

This course provides the tools court leaders and managers need to develop a vision and achieve goals using strategic planning and is based on the National Association for Court Management's Core Competencies.

A prerequisite for enhancing court performance and administration includes consideration of future court circumstances, responsibilities, and goals. Seeking ways to adapt management practices in a changing environment is essential for court planning.

Links to related online resources are listed below. Non-digitized publications may be borrowed from the NCSC Library; call numbers are provided.

Articles and Reports

Van Duizend, Richard and Kathy Mays Coleman. Why Not Now? Strategic Planning by Courts in Challenging Financial Times.

Future Trends in State Courts. This article discusses how states, local governments, and trial courts around the nation are using strategic planning as a tool to identify and better manage their core missions during these difficult fiscal times.

Webster, Lawrence. Court IT Strategic Planning.

Future Trends in State Courts. This article discusses how investing in court IT strategic planning not only eliminates management issues for court leaders but also creates a foundation for success with other initiatives to improve the judicial branch.

A Court System of the Future: The Promise of Court Restructuring in New York State. (February 2007). Recognizing the need for reform, this commission reported the recommendations which should be made to the New York State Courts in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness. These are the links to the report's Appendix, The Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts, and the relevant state Senate bill for court reform.

Pankey, Kenneth, and Anne Skove. Charting a Course to Strategic Thought and Action: Developing Strategic Planning Capacities in State Courts. (May 2003). Knowledge and Information Services. This report presents information intended to help state courts improve their capacities for conducting visioning and strategic planning activities. This report attempts to relate its review of the concepts to actual court futures efforts, the intent being to discern some lessons from their experiences.

Ostrom, Brian, Shauna Strickland, and Paula Hannaford-Agor. Examining Trial Trends in State Courts: 1976 - 2002 . (November 2004). Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 1, no. 3 (November 2004): 755-782. This article introduces the State Court Disposition Trends database and analyzes, for the first time, long-term trial trends in the state courts. The present analysis examines 27- year trends of trials and trial rates for criminal, civil, and felony cases, and 11-year trends of trials and trial rates for general civil cases.

Schultz, Wendy L., Clement Bezold, and Beatrice Monahan. Reinventing Courts for the 21st Century: Designing a Vision Process. (1993). NCSC, Institute for Alternative Futures, and Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. A guidebook on futures thinking within state court systems.

Summary of State and Local Justice Initiatives: The Courts, the Bar and the Public Working Together to Improve the Justice System. (2001). Chicago: ABA This one hundred fifty-page study focuses on three issues -- justice improvement activities, the involvement on non-lawyers in justice improvement, and public trust and confidence in the courts.

Ten Trends Impacting State Courts. (2006). Knowledge and Information Services. The ten most important trends that are impacting state courts.

Rottman, David, Trends and Issues in State Courts: Challenges and Achievements. (June 2004). Judiciary These are challenging times for the state judicial branches. Funding has been cut, relations with the other branches of government are frayed, and election campaigns for judicial office can be injudicious. Significant innovation is occurring nonetheless.

General

Future Trends in State Courts. An NCSC publication, produced annually, is intended to support courts in their strategic planning efforts and stimulate thought and discussion about important current issues in the courts. An index of all prior issues is also available.

Ericksen, Charles, Moderator. Court Futures Dialogue. (December 2007).

One of the most pressing issues facing the courts is how to approach "the future." Three prominent futurists join three court professionals in a moderated "blog" about the status of futures studies in the courts.

An Environmental Scan for State Courts. (November 2005). Knowledge and Information Services. An environmental scan, a major tool in strategic planning, is incorporated into each of the Future Trends in State Courts reports. The 2005 scan has one domain - relevance to courts - which is subdivided into four groups: Population Demographics; Political, Social, and Justice Trends; Economic Conditions; and Technology and Science.

Martin, John and Brenda Wagenkrecht - Ivy. Courts 2010. (2000).

Critical trends shaping the courts in the next decade.

Wagenknecht-Ivey, Brenda J. et al. Strategic Planning Mentoring Guidelines: Practical Tips for Court Leaders. (2000). Denver: Center for Public Policy Studies This takes readers to the Florida State Courts Strategic Planning Web site . The Strategic Planning Mentoring Guidelines are divided into six sections -- Introduction, Long-Range Strategic Planning in Florida's Judicial Branch: Overview, Deciding to Do Long-Range Strategic Planning, Getting Started, Facilitating the Strategic Planning Process and Implementing the Strategic Plan, and Conclusions.

Journal of Futures Studies: Epistemology, Methods, Applied and Alternative Futures. The Journal of Futures Studies is a globally-oriented, trans-disciplinary referred journal. Its mission is to develop high-quality, futures-oriented research and thinking based on the evolving knowledge base of Futures Studies. Articles accepted for publication are expected to show an in-depth understanding of the field's dimensions, content, research perspectives and methods.

World Future Society. The World Future Society is a nonprofit, nonpartisan scientific and educational association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. Here you can find a neutral clearinghouse that for ideas about the future.

World Futures Studies Federation. "An organization of some 300 individuals and 20 institutions around the world whose mission is to promote futures education and research. The WFSF is a global network of practicing futurists - researchers, teachers, scholars, policy analysts, activists and others from over 60 countries - established in 1967."