NCJ Number
87697
Date Published
1981
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Much like business organizations, courts are organized bureaucratically with a hierarchy of authority, spheres of competence, and specialization of tasks, and the courts also have many of the problems of businesses, such as the selection and maintenance of competent judicial personnel.
Abstract
A significant simplification of court organization was proposed by Pound (1940), and several modifications of it have been made by the American Bar Association (ABA) in subsequent years. In an effort to achieve the desired characteristics of unification, flexibility, conservation of judicial power, and responsibility, a three-tiered State court system was proposed by Pound, with the supreme court at the top, a trial court of general jurisdiction for all major civil and criminal proceedings at the second level, and the minor trial court at the lowest level. The ABA 1962 model expands Pound's original model to include an intermediate appellate court intended to alleviate the burden of appellate litigation at the highest court. In 1975, the ABA established standards for trial courts and their administration, indicating primary judicial functions to be (1) deciding contentions of law and disputed issues of fact, (2) formulating sanctions and remedial orders, and (3) supervising persons subject to the court's authority. The judges performing these functions are expected to have only the highest personal and professional qualification; however, the same problems which contaminate the performance of business bureaucracies plague judicial organizations, notably the selection of personnel, duplication of functions, and excessive paperwork. Judicial selection can be improved if the public demands that politics be removed from the selection process, and modern information systems can be used to make recordkeeping more efficient and effective in facilitating caseflow management. Forty-six references are listed.