Tale of Two Courts

"IT IS THE best of times, it is the worst of times." That familiar literary phrase might well apply to the state courts operating under the new biennial budget.

The New Hampshire District Court, its spending levels protected by specific language in the state budget, is gearing up to hire more than a dozen support personnel to fill long-vacant positions in busy courts. Lawmakers, believing that the local trial courts had been disproportionately hit by cost-cutting in prior years, insulated the district court from budget cuts imposed on the rest of the judicial branch, and authorized it to restore a number of positions based on its budget request submitted last spring.

The district court is currently recruiting (internally posting and advertising) for 14 court clerk positions, including a newly created position for Franklin District Court. "It is certainly a bittersweet time for us to be filling these positions," said District Court Administrative Judge Edwin W. Kelly. "We understand the difficult position the other courts are operating under." He said the jobs to be filled have been open at least a year and often longer than that. Kelly and clerks throughout the district court system are making plans to mobilize their added resources to tackle backlogs in their civil dockets and to focus on neglected fine collection efforts.

The NH Superior Court, meanwhile, is hobbled by more than two dozen vacancies, with certain courts hit particularly hard. The major consequence of the unfilled jobs in the superior court is that clerk's office personnel in most locations are falling further and further behind in paperwork. At least seven of the 11 superior court clerk's offices are closing their doors and not answering phones for up to half of each weekday in order to stem the ceaseless tide of inquiries and public contact that impedes the staff's progress on processing court orders, scheduling tasks, and other business.

The other courts-the supreme, probate and family divisions, are suffering from the personnel shortages to a lesser degree.

The situation represents no improvement over last year, but it is not as bad as it appeared to be a few months ago. Following a summer of uncertainty with the dozens of layoffs in the court system looming, the governor and legislature agreed on a state budget compromise that included language hammered out in several meetings of lawmakers and Supreme Court justices Joseph P. Nadeau and James E. Duggan in August. The new budget language, while not authorizing additional funding, provided greater flexibility for court administrators to shuffle funds from various court accounts in order to preserve front-line positions slated for layoff. However, the overall funding level failed to restore currently unfilled positions, and allowed the layoff of 12 probationary employees, leaving the courts no better off than last year, according to court budget officials. However, the publicity over the accord between legislative leaders and the two justices that averted the 28 layoffs threatened in August, has led some court users and members of the public to believe that the court's situation has improved.

"Before the budget crisis, many courts had to restrict their hours because of vacancies that pre-dated this budget," said Justice Nadeau. "If we had not come to an agreement with the legislature, the court's hours would have been even more severely restricted. We are happy that those severe restrictions and the layoffs did not occur, and we have gone back to having more jury sessions. Now we are in the process of making decisions about how to allocate resources in a very tight budget. Our goal is to provide the most efficient services we can with the resources that we have." The administrative judges of the various courts are now working on how to identify areas where cuts will be made to meet the current budget goals, he said. "We will certainly be communicating with the legislature about how those decisions are being made," Nadeau added.

In addition to clerk's office service hours, the budget situation also has put on hold several initiatives:

• Discretionary appeals. Representatives of the Supreme Court say that it has not decided whether or when to go ahead with a new appellate acceptance policy that will give almost all litigants the right to a decision by the Supreme Court on the merits of their cases.
• Expanded mediation. A program, mandated by legislation passed in 2002, that would have allowed mediation in child-custody issues, was indefinitely postponed because the court lacks the staffing to arrange mediations.

In the district courts, however, as the new hires get on board, Kelly is planning to tackle long-neglected areas of their dockets, especially in Manchester where the court has not scheduled any small-claims hearings in a year. Kelly said the new hires will not make these towering lists of cases disappear overnight, but will provide the district courts with greater flexibility to deploy staff in different places and draw on other resources. For example, the small-claims backlog in Manchester will not only require clerical staff to handle paperwork, but also additional judge time to hear cases. Additional funding for per diem judges to sit in Manchester on these cases also was made possible by the new budget. Kelly said the goal is to eliminate the backlog of cases by the end of the calendar year and enable the Manchester court to hear small-claims cases promptly. Kelly said the district court would also be enlisting the aid of Bar members to participate as mediators in small-claims matters.

Other hires will be occurring in Concord, Plymouth, Franklin, Exeter, Dover and Lebanon.

Hours for public access to clerk's office counter hours or telephone access as of Sept.. 22. All courthouses are open all day; limited hours refer to public or telephone access to clerk's office. For updates, contact the desired clerk's office at the phone number below.

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