SCO dates to the founding of the National Center for State Courts over fifty years ago and has long been used as a framework for analyses comparing state court statistics. As NCSC celebrated its 50-year anniversary in 2021, the COSCA Court Statistics Committee reviewed the purpose, content, and future of SCO. The new design and platform of the state court organization data will advance the user experience and comparability across states through filters, selections, and portals to contextual information (e.g., caseloads, population).
The redesign considered:
- Historical reasons for including information
- Emerging needs
- Demand for information by requestors
- Alternative and reliable sources of data
- Political reasons for inclusion of data elements
- Burden on court’s administrative offices for collecting information
What’s new in SCO?
- Retained SCO Core Tables: Judicial Branch Governance, Trial Courts, and Appellate Courts
- Streamlined data collection process
- Trimmed down information requested