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Essential
Components
What
This Core Competency Is and Why It Is Important
 Curriculum
Guidelines
Purpose,
Role, and Vision
Case
Preparation Adjudication
and Enforcement Court
Infrastructure Program
Management
Judges
do not only consider evidence provided by the parties, rule on motions,
and decide cases. Increasingly,
information used to make a judicial decision is provided to the court by
programs and services annexed to the court and the case rather than by
parties to the litigation. Effective
courts must be able to accept and use this information and to manage other
programs and services ranging from the basic, such as court facilities,
clerks and reporters, and court security, to the more specialized, such as
child custody evaluations, legal research staff, and indigent defense.
These services, programs, and infrastructure constitute the
court’s Essential Components.
Without
effective Essential Components, court performance is compromised and
litigants neither feel nor are well served.
When aligned with the court’s role and vision, and well managed,
these activities, programs, and services contribute as much to prompt and
affordable justice, equal access to justice, judicial independence and
accountability, and public trust and confidence as caseflow management,
the budget process, human resources, and information technology.
Essential
Components are of several types and serve several functions.
They are grouped here according to how and when they occur and how
they contribute to the court and the judicial process in: 1) case
preparation, 2) adjudication, 3) enforcement, and 4) court infrastructure.
Case
Preparation:
Better prepared cases and litigants mean cases can be presented
more quickly and succinctly, reducing use of judicial resources and the
cost of litigation and improving the pace of litigation.
Better prepared cases can improve the quality of justice and result
in a stronger perception that justice is being done.
These Essential Components include the gathering and preparation of
information to file a case, social interventions on behalf of parties
prior to and in support of litigation, representation of some parties to
litigation, and assisting parties who cannot afford a lawyer or who choose
to file cases without a lawyer representing them.
Essential
Components also include programs that identify and gather evidence and
information after the case has been filed.
These activities both supplement and replace information gathering
by the parties and its presentation to the court.
This reflects a paradigm shift away from a pure adversarial process
to a process that encourages, if not requires, information gathering by a
third party neutral working for and being supervised by the court rather
than the parties. A faster and less expensive fact gathering process
contributes to public trust and confidence as well as more equal justice,
especially to the extent it counteracts real and perceived resource and
power imbalances between parties.
A related
aspect of Essential Components is education of litigants, particularly
those who may come to court without lawyers, about how to proceed, what
will be expected of them, and what they can reasonably expect from the
judicial process.
While such
services challenge traditional thinking and the court’s managerial
skills, neutral fact gathering can contribute to faster, cheaper and more
equal justice. These services
and programs aim to: 1) reduce litigation costs and time, 2) enhance the
traditional processes, and 3) improve the quality of life of individuals
and communities.
Adjudication:
The judiciary resolves disputes.
This can occur a number of ways.
In most cases, the parties and their lawyers resolve the dispute.
Increasingly, however, others are engaged by the parties and/or are
appointed by the court after cases are filed to help resolve disputes
without formal judicial processes. Alternative
dispute resolution (ADR) such as mediation and arbitration, or use of
masters or hearing officers supplements, enhances and even replaces
traditional adjudicatory processes for civil cases.
New approaches to criminal and other litigation include problem
solving courts such as drug courts, community courts, mental health
courts, and teen courts. These
programs may or may not be part of the court and may be arranged by the
parties and their lawyers with or without court involvement.
If none of
these approaches are used, or they are not successful in resolving the
dispute, parties resolve their dispute through the traditional adversary
process, up to and including trial. The
traditional process also includes functions and activities that support
and facilitate completion of hearings and trials.
In many cases, the parties are entitled to a jury trial, so there
must be a program that provides qualified trial jurors to courts.
Parties or witnesses may not understand English sufficiently to
allow them to understand, much less to participate meaningfully in the
judicial process, so interpreters must be provided.
The traditional
process includes reporters and clerk staff who facilitate the process and
“make the record” of the court proceedings -- what the court heard and
decided. This includes the
documents and exhibits that form the court’s file and which contain the
court’s decision, and the verbatim record, electronic or paper, of what
was said in court. The record
not only provides the record of what happened, it is the basis for appeals
and allows the public, often through the media, to exercise their right to
open public proceedings, and to hold courts and judges accountable.
Enforcement:
When, as it is often true, court orders and judgments are not
self-executing, courts and their surrogates must take action to ensure
compliance. Probation, fine
collection, and child support enforcement are the obvious examples of
these types of Essential Components.
These mechanisms recognize that often one or more parties do not
understand or have no incentive to implement the court’s decision. Absent court intervention, some parties decide not to comply
with court ordered remedies, whether equitable or monetary.
This undermines the rule of law and erodes public trust and
confidence in the judiciary.
Court
Infrastructure.
Essential Components also encompass the court’s facilities,
equipment, communications, court security, and the movement of prisoners
to and from and in the courthouse. The
existence, location, arrangement, efficiency, and usability of court
facilities significantly impact the level and quality of court services as
well as the efficiency and effectiveness of court and clerk of court
staff. These concerns must be
addressed when designing or remodeling court facilities.
Another important aspect of facilities is physical access, as
required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and related state
and local laws and regulations.
Program Management and Evaluation: Many Essential Components operate as a distinct unit or
organization. In order to
complement and enhance the judicial process, it is important that all of
these programs are aligned with and supportive of the role and mission of
the judiciary and its many functions and workflows. They must be well
managed regardless of who has formal authority.
Continuous oversight and evaluation ensure that needed services are
present, effective, and coordinated with judiciary and justice system
operations and workflows.
View
the Summary of
Essential Components Curriculum Guidelines or click on each of the five Curriculum Guidelines to see the
associated Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Purpose,
Role, and Vision
Case
Preparation Adjudication
and Enforcement Court
Infrastructure Program
Management
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