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Bar News - October 8, 2004 Court Planning Task Force Emphasizes Service, Use of Technology By: Dan Wise THE TERM "CUSTOMER SERVICE" is footnoted the first time it appears in the report issued last month by the NH Supreme Court's Task Force on Justice System Needs and Priorities. It's a telling indicator of both the current culture of the court system and the emphasis court leaders are placing on its future direction. Chief Justice John T. Broderick, Jr., unveiling the report in a briefing with reporters in his chambers on Sept. 22, said he believes "significant operational changes" will be needed to make the court system as efficient, accessible and affordable as it should be. The report makes many recommendations but does not lay out an implementation plan or guess at the costs. Broderick said at a Sept. 22 news conference that the report should be the foundation for discussion of the courts' future by a broader-based group.  Speaking from his chambers, Justice John T. Broderick introduced the Task Force on Justice Systemes Needs & Priorities to a group of reporters. The 37-page report, "A Vision of Justice: The Future of the New Hampshire Courts," was prepared in less than eight months by a task force comprised of judges, court staff and attorneys and chaired by Manchester lawyer and former NHBA president Bruce W. Felmly. The report is the first long-range plan developed for the court system since 1990 and it bristles with recommendations, large and small, covering all areas of interactions between citizens, lawyers and the courts. It calls for modest, tangible steps such as providing name-plates for all court personnel so that citizens always know who they are dealing with, consistency in hours of operation, expansion in the use of "bench books" of protocols to encourage consistency in court practices, and more training of court staff to "ensure that all personnel accord respect, courtesy and dignity" to all court users. Both the chief justice and Felmly took pains to note that, by and large, court system employees are well trained, hard working and dedicated to providing courteous service to the public. But, as Felmly noted in the report's introduction: "We are immersed in a universe which has set increasingly high expectations for immediate, top-quality service. This is a good thing - but it raises the bar for all our government agencies and our courts to provide excellent "customer service." Some changes recommended by the task force are structural and will require substantial time and money or the participation of other parts of government or the Bar. Technology must be employed to, among other things, permit electronic filing by litigants, e-noticing that will spare court personnel the time-consuming task of preparing mailings, and to install public-access computer terminals that can provide guidance and forms to pro se litigants and others using the court system. Greater reliance on technology, however, will require significant "re-engineering" of how many administrative tasks are performed by staff and greater uniformity in procedures and forms used by the courts, the report said. Recommendations resulting in more visible changes include the eventual elimination of part-time judges, more services for pro se litigants through technology and court staff dedicated to helping them, more opportunities for alternative dispute resolution, and enhanced access to legal services for those who cannot afford lawyers.
The report also calls for consideration of "alternative models of delivery of legal services, including panels of specially trained lawyers to handle particular types of cases (analogous to the public defender system in criminal cases for family cases including child protection, child custody and domestic violence)" and relaxing ethics rules to facilitate "unbundled" legal services. The task force also calls for judges and clerks to be held more accountable through the adoption and monitoring of specific time standards for case processing. Broderick said the court system must realize that it is in competition for its "customers" with private-sector dispute-resolution services and, for the good of the common law and for the good of the society, it must remain a viable alternative for dispute resolution. In general, Broderick said, the courts must conceive of new ways to help citizens resolve their disputes. "We need to find ways to construct off-ramps to the litigation process," said Broderick. "Most people don't want full-blown trials. They want to get in and get out and not go bankrupt in the process." The task force, composed of judges, court personnel and attorneys, did not examine the feasibility of various initiatives. "Our purpose is not to ask someone to write a large check," Broderick said. "And to say that these recommendations will require a big expenditure is not a fair reading." The report's introduction states: "While these ideas and proposals are presented without funding in place, they now deserve to be examined for implementation in the light of those budget realities." "We expect people to support their court system, and they ought to have a court system they want to support because it is doing an outstanding job," Broderick added. Broderick, in the report and in interviews following its release, indicated that he intends to convene a broader-based group to go beyond the "first step" represented by this task force's efforts. "I would be saying to this [citizen's task force], 'You tell us what it is you expect from the justice system. What, in your mind, would help us develop a mechanism for a quality justice system?'" Broderick told the Union Leader. A key task force member, Hon. Edwin Kelly, Administrative Judge of the District Courts and the Family Division Administrative Judge, added in an interview with the newspaper: "This is not a question that has been asked of the broader spectrum [of society] in my memory." Members of the Bar were given an early opportunity to weigh in on the work of the task force, and many took advantage of it. Early in the work of the task force, Felmly circulated a survey via email to Bar members asking open-ended questions about what they felt could be done to improve New Hampshire's courts. Felmly said many of the Bar members called for the courts to adopt new technology, such as electronic filing and noticing, and they made many suggestions regarding scheduling improvements. A chief concern raised by many respondents was the challenge of handling the ever-rising tide of pro se litigants in the courts. Felmly was asked what the task force's vision of the New Hampshire courts, if realized, might look like to lawyers. Felmly, responding by email, wrote: "Lawyers will be doing the same things -faster, more efficiently, with fewer headaches from self-represented people." Bar News , over the next few issues, will look more closely at the report, which was based on the work of several working groups, chaired by the following individuals: Quality Assurance, Judge Edwin W. Kelly,chair; Public Service and Responsiveness, Judge Susan B. Carbon, chair; Court Facilities, Services, and Personnel, Jane D.W. Bradstreet, chair; and Technology, Fred L. Potter, chair.
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