March 21, 2024
Several recent Institute for Court Management (ICM) Fellows papers have focused on legal and structural impediments to the efficient functioning of the judicial branch.
Two 2023 research projects by ICM Fellows collected and examined data using survey methods and proposed recommendations to improve and promote court users’ confidence in the courts.
Improving Access to Justice and the Customer Experience in the Traffic Courts of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles was developed following a 2017 Report to the Chief Justice by the Commission on the Future of California’s Court System. Following the pandemic, the project shifted focus to addressing increased and improved assistance for self-represented litigants and the expansion of technology use in the courts to increase efficiency and improve access to justice. Through the administration of a four-question survey to traffic court users at 3 of 16 traffic court locations in the County of Los Angeles, researchers analyzed data and highlighted areas and methods for improvement. Though greater than 53% of traffic court users expressed that their experience was “Good” or “Best,” a significant number of comments on the survey indicated displeasure with negative employee encounters, time spent waiting for paperwork, and confusion in navigating the court process. As part of the study’s recommendations, courts should consider essential aspects of court users’ negative experiences and use feedback to promote improvement.
How Court Users Can Improve the Court Experience use NCSC’s CourTools to survey court employees and court users to evaluate the interactions between court users and court staff from domestic relations courts in Ohio. Survey questions addressed training processes, delivery of service, and court user satisfaction. Its findings indicated that though most court and clerk staff employees felt that they were properly trained, there were still several court users who felt that there was room for improvement. Open-ended responses from staff indicated a desire to improve training processes, with many respondents requesting annual training and the inclusion of additional topics, such as professionalism, empathy, and de-escalation. Moreover, survey results indicated the need for properly structured training for all court employees to further increase court users’ confidence and trust in the court system.
These two Fellows papers were published as part of the Institute for Court Management’s Fellows Program. Additional research papers are located in NCSC’s eCollection.
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