Applying the Case Management CourTools: Finding from an Urban Trial Court

Abstract

The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) recently promulgated 10 trial court performance measures, referred to as CourTools. Measures 2, 3, 4, and 5 provide a methodology by which court managers can examine their management and processing of cases. The measures include clearance rate (measure 2), time to disposition (measure 3), age of active pending caseload (measure 4), and trial date certainty (measure 5). The objective of this research was threefold. The first aim was to assess the viability of using the case management measures to examine case processing trends in a New Jersey (NJ) urban trial court. Each measure was reviewed to determine the tool’s applicability to the criminal division of the court. The second objective (pursued as a parallel to the first) was to present the findings in the same context as the CourTools’ framework to determine its practicality. The final goal was to serve as a platform for other courts on the national and international level that do not yet use performance measures. These courts, diverse as they are, may use the methodologies and findings of this case study as a reference and guide to develop their own program to measure the court’s productivity and efficiency. To that end, this case study sought to answer the following questions in determining the applicability of the CourTools to the selected court and by extension, its potential for more universal application to other court systems. First, what is the relevance of measurements to the courts and why is it important, if at all? Second, what are the CourTools? Third, can the measurement model be applied to an actual court and if so, how is it executed and illustrated in practice? Finally, what are the implications of the findings for the court in question, as well as, other courts that seek to incorporate the CourTools to measure performance?