Caseflow Management

Fundamentals

Curriculum Guideline Two

Fundamentals include the relationship between the purposes of courts and effective caseflow and trial management, leadership, time standards, alternative case scheduling and assignment systems, and case management techniques, including differentiated case management (DCM) and alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Ability to link the broad purposes of courts to the goals of accessible, equal, fair, prompt, and economical resolution of disputes and effective caseflow and trial management;

• Knowledge of how the organization, jurisdiction, and funding of courts impact day-to-day caseflow management;

• Knowledge of how core management functions impact caseflow management including human resources, budget and finance, information technology, records, and facilities;

• Knowledge of case processing time standards and other caseflow management performance indicators;

• Skill in tying time standards to the number and types of cases that must be processed to meet time to disposition goals for all case types -- by year, month, week, day, and judicial division, team and judge;

• Knowledge of basic caseflow axioms and principles such as early and continuous judicial control and how they produce timely and fair dispositions through staff and lawyer preparation and meaningful events;

• Knowledge of all case processing steps, sequences, and dynamics for all case types, including how lawyers, their clients, and pro se litigants make decisions concerning filing, case processing, and settlement; and the economics of the practice of law for criminal, civil, domestic relations, juvenile, traffic, administrative, and appellate cases;

• Knowledge of alternative case assignment and scheduling systems and how to set up and manage daily court calendars by judge, type of case and hearing, day of the week, and time of the day;

• Knowledge of differentiated case management (DCM) and its application to all case types;

• Knowledge of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and how to integrate ADR into the court’s case management system(s);

• Knowledge of psychological factors that impact case processing and scheduling, and active judicial management of pre-trial conferences, trials, and post-dispositional activity;

• Ability to learn from others CFM successes and failures, to keep current with research findings about effective CFM and the causes and cures for delay, and to leverage available external resources to improve caseflow management.

View the Summary of Caseflow Management Curriculum Guidelines or click on each of the other five Curriculum Guidelines to see the associated Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

Curriculum Guidelines

Court Purposes and Vision

Fundamentals

Leadership Teams and System-wide Effectiveness

Change and Project Management

Technology

Personal Intervention

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