case flow analysis juror management

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Caseflow and Workflow

Caseflow Management  is the process by which courts carry out their primary function of moving cases from filing to disposition. The management of caseflow is critical because it helps guarantee every litigant receives procedural due process and equal protection.  Caseflow Management  involves the organization and coordination of personnel and other resources to promote the fair and timely resolution of all cases filed.  Properly understood, caseflow management is the heart of court management.

Workflow Management  involves the coordination and support of all tasks, procedures, resources (human and other) necessary to guarantee the work of the court is conducted efficiently and consistent with the court’s purposes and responsibilities. While  Workflow Management  includes  Caseflow Management , it also includes all tasks and functions necessary for the court to operate as an organization.

To manage effective court caseflow and workflow systems, court leaders require a range of management functions and skills, discussed below. The framework within which court leaders perform these functions relies on:

• Coordination with justice system partners — the prosecutor, public defender, social service agencies, the private bar and legislative and executive branches.
• Common understanding of applicable policies and procedures.
• Adherence to performance standards.

[ref]  See Model Time Standards for State Trial Courts at  http://https://nacmnet.org/wp-content/uploads/core-vision-icon.png.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ctadmin/id/1836  [/ref]

System monitoring and reporting. Use of relevant and evolving technologies.

Application

Most court management staff are involved, to varying degrees, in the court’s caseflow and workflow systems. While specific function(s) and responsibilities may vary, court leaders should have a number of key analytic and communication skills.  In particular, court leaders should be able to:

• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with judges, court staff and personnel in other organizational entities involved in court processes, including funding authorities, to enable the court to accomplish effective case management.
• Identify variations in caseload type and complexity (e.g., the application of differentiated case management techniques) and assess implications for the court’s caseflow and workflow processes and implement new protocols as needed.
• Use automated management information systems to generate information about operations that allows for the monitoring of case processing.
• Develop performance standards, protocols for monitoring performance and methods to identify emerging issues and potential resources needed to address them. [ref] See also Competency: Measuring Performance and Ensuring Accountability[/ref]
• Contribute to the preparation of information about the court’s caseload and caseflow for judges, court staff and other justice system stakeholder.
• Based on the analysis of caseflow, identify situations where backlogs or other inefficiencies exist along with recommendations for improvement.

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Caseflow Management Practices—Opportunities for Application

Caseflow management is a court responsibility, which benefits from ongoing attentiveness. Caseflow management practices involve efforts for monitoring and overseeing case progress while managing any case backlogs. Monitoring steps occur (optimally) from case initiation through trial, adjudicatory actions, and final disposition. Caseflow-monitoring activities can even extend to any post-disposition case events and oversight by a court. This article illustrates the case stages.

Court reform developments led the way to consideration of caseflow management as a primary court leadership responsibility. Among the stimuli and motivations for reform were:

• attention to and avoidance of court delays contributing to perceptions of court inefficiencies;
• development and rise of court management as a profession responsible for day-to-day oversight of court operations;
• emergence of caseflow principles, techniques, and procedures to support practices;
• focus on accessibility to courts, including guidelines, policies, and schedules; and
• consideration of order enforcement and the reliability of court functions 1

Conditions for success with caseflow management include planning, ongoing commitment, a system-wide approach, review of current processes and case inventory, and institutionalization of program elements. 2 Caseflow management best practices have been published for over 40 years. Among the known and proven techniques are:

• leadership direction, goals, and a clear vision of what is desired;
• case assignments, calendaring and scheduling, meaningful and firm events;
• early, continuous, and regular oversight and control of case progress;
• dispute resolution and early case resolution steps;
• collaboration, outreach, communication, education and training (internally and externally); and
• performance data and information 3

There are no shortage of reasons why practicing caseflow management is challenging. As noted by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), difficulties faced by courts include influences, which are not inconsequential. They include fiscal, budget, and funding issues; litigation costs and influences on litigant access to the court; changes in caseload filing volumes; large numbers of self-represented litigants; and technology changes and influences. 4

To overcome such challenges and develop the conditions for successful caseflow management, a court manager should foster attentiveness to caseflow techniques. Such attentiveness begins by developing familiarity with the order and specific actions that can be anticipated for all phases of case handling at one’s court. All courts have a predictable sequence for events taking place during the life of a case. These phases of activity and their sequence are typically:

• Case opening, filing, or the first action initiating the case. This phase may involve a civil complaint or petition or a criminal-charging document or indictment.
• The early, first, or initial court event. A possible event in this phase might be the opening conference, hearing, arraignment, or initial appearance.
• Case preparedness or case progress events. This phase may include a case management conference, omnibus hearing, discovery or disclosure conference, trial readiness event, status conference, arbitration/mediation/settlement event, or motions consideration.
• Pretrial or final trial readiness event. A trial readiness discussion, pre-case management conference, final settlement event, or trial management discussion are common events of this phase.
• Trial. Activity in this phase may be a bench or jury trial or some other event adjudicating and providing a final ruling on the case to move it to final disposition.
• Post-adjudication or post-disposition.

This phase is associated with any activity after entry of judgment, post-adjudication, or final disposition events, including actions such as case review, compliance monitoring, or other reporting.

Typical case phases can be mapped or charted, indicating high-level stages within the life of a case. The chart below illustrates summary or simplified phases, without regard to a particular type of case.

Using the phasing concept, if we combine the illustration of caseflow management best practices and techniques and arrange them for each stage in the life of the case, we can develop a chart of what can be done to practice effective caseflow. Each caseflow action or technique represents something tangible, actionable, and capable of being institutionalized in a court. When courts use these techniques, they will be practicing effectual caseflow management. 

In addition to best practices specific for each case phase, there are best practices which span all phases. These practices include leadership; collaboration, consultation, and coordination with justice constituents and system partners; training and education for those internal and in-partnership with the court; and the use of information and data. The chart below illustrates the generic case phases within the life of a case and provides possible caseflow actions appropriate to each phase. Actions transcending all phases are noted at the bottom of the chart.

As a means toward improving attentiveness, illustration of these case stages and sample caseflow practices provide guidance for events throughout a case’s life. Courts can use this chart as a checklist of considerations and actions for each stage of case handling, supporting the performance of fundamental caseflow management responsibility. Courts can also evaluate existing caseflow practices at each case stage and determine how and where any additional practices need to be implemented. Therefore, the chart can be used to prompt utilization of caseflow actions.

To fully apply these ideas, a court will need to exercise leadership. This leadership will be best exemplified by creating a caseflow governance structure; establishing caseflow objectives and direction; performing case evaluation and case supervision; collaborating with and training stakeholders and court personnel on goals; and measuring outcomes. 5

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Janet G. Cornell is a past president of NACM, and a retired court administrator, having served over 35 years in the Arizona courts. She is currently a court consultant, presenter, and author. She may be reached at [email protected] .

• David C. Steelman, John A. Goerdt, and James E. McMillan, Caseflow Management: The Heart of Court Management in the New Millennium (Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts, 2004), pp. xi-xvi.
• Id. , pp.127-34.
• Janet G. Cornell, “Aligning Caseflow Management Practices with Generational Preferences,” Court Manager 35, no. 1 (2020).
• Brittany K.T. Kauffman and Natalie Anne Knowlton, “Redefining Case Management,” Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, IAALS, University of Denver, April 2018, pp. 7-10.
• The author thanks caseflow author and expert David C. Steelman for sharing email correspondence and references on emerging caseflow topics. The author also offers appreciation to Kenneth G. Pankey, Jr., senior planner with the Supreme Court of Virginia, for editorial review of this article.
• Vol. 38 #1 – Winter 2024
• Vol. 37 #4 – Fall 2023
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• Vol. 37 #1 – Winter 2023

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© 2024 NACM – Court Manager; printed in the United States. Court Manager is published quarterly by the National Association for Court Management. Opinions expressed and procedures explained in the articles are not necessarily those of NACM or of the National Center for State Courts. Publication of advertising in the Court Manager does not imply NACM or NCSC endorsement or approval of the product or service. The association encourages submission of material that will interest or benefi t its members. Address correspondence to either the editor or the managing editor; inquiries about advertising should be directed to the managing editor. All rights are reserved to reject, condense, or edit any article or advertisement submitted for publication.

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Conducting a Felony Caseflow Management Review: A Practical Guide

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Effective Criminal Case Management Project

The Effective Criminal Case Management project (ECCM) is a national initiative designed to discover and document effective practices that drive high performance in handling felony and misdemeanor cases in the state courts. ECCM created and implemented a rigorous national data collection effort to assemble the largest case-level data set of felony and misdemeanor cases ever created—1.2 million cases from 136 state courts in 21 states. The results of the extensive data collection, analysis, and policy recommendations that flow from that analysis are published in several reports. These reports, along with tools for court management, a cost-of-delay calculator, and an interactive data dashboard, are accessible here.

Effective Criminal Case Management: Project Overview describes the purpose, design, and products of the project.

Delivering Timely Justice in Criminal Cases: A National Picture provides a visual summary of the study and its findings.

Success in Criminal Caseflow Management: Lessons from the Field describes the elements of effective caseflow management based on close interaction with seven courts that share success in managing problems of delay.

Timely Justice in Criminal Cases: What the Data Tells Us documents the data collection and provides a detailed analysis of the factors most directly shaping criminal case-processing time.

Criminal Case Management Basics: Data Elements, Performance Measures, and Data Presentation Strategies supply a step-by-step guide to collecting, analyzing, and presenting data on key indicators for effective management of criminal cases.

ECCM Site Summaries display visual summaries of the criminal caseload data provided by each site in a set of infographics on felony and misdemeanor case processing useful for cross-court comparison.

ECCM Interactive Dashboard

The Caseflow Management Maturity Model framework describes the critical hallmarks of caseflow management and is a self-assessment instrument for determining the level of adoption and institutionalization of caseflow management principles and practices by a court.

ECCM Cost of Delay Calculator introduction (Word document.)

ECCM Cost of Delay Calculator invites users to compute a simple estimate revealing how quickly and significantly the costs of delay accumulate across the court and its criminal justice partners.

For more information, consult the  Frequently Asked Questions or contact Tracey Johnson .