Organizational Design for Courts (From Courts and Judges, P 19-58, 1981, James A Cramer, ed. - See NCJ-87695)

• NCJ Number: 87696
• Author(s): T A Henderson; R Guynes; C Baar
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 40 pages
• Grant Number(s): 79-NI-AX-0075; 80-IJ-CX-0095
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

No single court organizational design is appropriate for all circumstances, and it is unnecessary for all parts of a complex court organization to conform to the same structural principles so long as the organization reduces uncertainty while reinforcing the court's purposes.

Abstract

From the perspective of organization theory, two technologies appear in the core operation of the court: (1) mediating, which is the basis for the adjudication process in criminal and civil proceedings; and intensive, which is characteristic of sentencing decisions, juvenile courts, and many family courts. Since mediating technologies do not lend themselves to task differentiation or specialization, they are unlikely to require an extensive management structure except on a multimember court which is too large to permit coordination through mutual adjustment among the judges. The intensive aspects of the core, on the other hand, have much greater needs for specialized support services such as counselors in juvenile courts and presentence investigations units in criminal courts. Such specialized skills raise significant problems of coordination. Consequently, the relevance of a separate management structure in the court is more directly dependent upon the degree to which intensive technologies are included within its boundaries than it is on the presence of adjudicative responsibilities. While the mediating core may not produce the demand for internal management, the complexity of the environment has a direct effect on the need for a separate managerial structure. A high level of heterogeneity and instability among suppliers, clients, competitors, and markets of the court will require fulltime managerial units which can establish and maintain the necessary exchanges. Although the environment is beyond the court's control, the organizational design can define the character of the task domain and thus affect the level of uncertainty which must be managed. Four notes and 42 references are provided.