Volume 24, No. 6 March 2014 

E-SJI NEWS SJI NEWS

In this Issue 

NACM Midyear 

Conference Sessions 

Available Online 

1 

FY 2015 

Budget Request 

1 

New Mexico AOC 

Pilots SRL Forms 

2 

CEC Training 

Resources 

3 

Page 1 

NACM 2014 Midyear Conference Sessions 

Now Available Online 

Find Exclusive 

SJI Content on 

Facebook and 

Twitter

For more content from the recent SJI Board meeting, important national resource announcements, and partner updates, look 

no further than the SJI Facebook

and Twitter pages. 

SJI support has assisted the National Association for 

Court Management (NACM) in providing training 

and educational content at its annual and midyear 

conferences for court managers, administrators, and 

judicial officers. Recently, NACM posted online 

educational sessions from it 2014 midyear conference, held in early February. Video presentations

from more than a dozen sessions are available to the 

court community, regardless of NACM membership 

status. Some of the presenters include NACM President David Slayton, Vice President Stephanie Hess, 

Judge Brian MacKenzie, Professor Jacqueline Middleton, Editor-in-Chief of The Washingtonian, Garret 

Graff, and a host of well-known court consultants, 

leaders, and experts. 

The 2014 NACM Annual Conference will be held 

July 13 – 17, 2014 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Registration will open soon, and information on exhibitors 

and sponsorships is already available online. 

SJI Submits FY 2015 

Budget Request to Congress 

For FY 2015, SJI is requesting $5,121,000 to enhance its 

efforts to improve the quality of justice in the state 

courts. 

The request is equal to the amount included in the FY 

2015 President’s Budget, and $221,000 above the amount 

included for SJI in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 

2014 (H.R. 3547). The funding requested for FY 2015 

will enable SJI to continue identifying issues that impact 

all courts, fostering innovative solutions, and sharing 

information on successful approaches nationwide. 
E-SJI News Volume 24, No. 6 March 2014 

Page 2 

With a Technical Assistance grant from SJI, 

the New Mexico Administrative Office of the 

Courts (AOC) is currently piloting standardized domestic relations automated forms in 

Bernalillo County, seated in the city of Albuquerque (SJI-11-T-163). 

The goal of the New Mexico Automated 

Forms Project is to develop interactive webbased legal forms available to the public, and 

in particular, to self-represented litigants on 

the New Mexico Supreme Court’s website. 

The project will enable the AOC to incorporate interactive forms into the Judiciary’s case 

management and electronic filing systems on a 

permanent basis, and update the interactive 

forms without the need for additional outside 

funding and technical assistance. This includes offering the interactive format in Spanish and other languages. 

As in most courts across the United States, 

over 70 percent of domestic relations cases 

filed in New Mexico involve one or more selfrepresented litigants. State courts, public libraries and legal service organizations across 

the state field many more requests for information and legal assistance from self-represented 

litigants than staff can possibly respond to. 

The lack of consistent self-represented services and forms has been frustrating for staff 

and litigants. 

ongoing. Public user data (collected through 

end-of-interview surveys) so far has been extremely positive. Judges are extremely 

pleased with the resulting uniform and legible 

pleadings. The court staff in Albuquerque 

have been enthusiastic in making the pilots a 

success. The automated forms ultimately will 

appear on the Supreme Court website and be 

available statewide for public use. 

Automated Forms Pilot Project for SelfRepresented Litigants in New Mexico 

The New Mexico Supreme Court approved 

standardized domestic relations forms that 

became effective May 31, 2013. 

Through the SJI grant, the New Mexico AOC 

obtained expert technical assistance and access 

to automated form servers and authored several draft forms. However, several new forms 

automation products recently became available. In particular, Tyler Technologies introduced a new software product in 2013 that 

Non-indigent self-represented litigants will 

pay the usual e-filing fees. 

The use of these forms will reduce foot traffic 

in the courts, although some public use computers will remain available within the courthouses. Evaluative surveys are built into the 

form interviews and will provide valuable data 

as the forms are used. 

SJI remains committed to assisting the state 

courts as they address the challenges of serving self-represented litigants. SelfRepresented Litigation is a Priority Investment 

Area for SJI grant funding in FY 2014.

expands the New Mexico Judiciary’s current 

Tyler/Odyssey case management and e-filing 

systems to include automated forms. The goal 

of the new product is to integrate the automated self-represented litigant forms seamlessly with the e-filing and case management 

systems, as well as providing user-friendly, 

informative public access to basic legal forms 

such as divorce. 

The remainder of the grant provided expert 

attorney authoring of form scripts that will be 

incorporated into the Tyler authoring tools. 

The first form (free process) was piloted in the 

Second Judicial District (located in Albuquerque) in Fall 2013, while the divorce pilots are 
Page 3 

SJI Board of Directors

Chairman 

James R. Hannah 

Chief Justice 

Supreme Court of Arkansas 

Little Rock, AR 

Vice Chairman 

Daniel J. Becker 

State Court Administrator 

Utah AOC 

Salt Lake City, UT 

Secretary 

Gayle A. Nachtigal 

Senior Circuit Court Judge 

Washington County Circuit Court 

Hillsboro, OR 

Treasurer 

Hernan D. Vera 

President & CEO 

Public Counsel Law Center 

Los Angeles, CA 

Chase T. Rogers 

Chief Justice 

Supreme Court of Connecticut 

Hartford, CT 

Jonathan Lippman 

Chief Judge of the State of New York 

New York Court of Appeals 

New York, NY 

David V. Brewer 

Justice 

Oregon Supreme Court 

Salem, OR 

Wilfredo Martinez 

County Judge 

9th Judicial Circuit of Florida 

Orlando, FL 

Marsha J. Rabiteau 

Executive Director 

Legal Policy Strategies Group 

Bloomfield, CT 

John B. Nalbandian 

Partner 

Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP 

Cincinnati, OH 

Isabel Framer 

President 

Language Access Consultants, LLC 

Copley, OH

Jonathan D. Mattiello 

Executive Director 

The State Justice Institute is a federallyfunded, non-profit corporation established by 

federal law in 1984 to improve the quality of 

justice in the state courts. 

E-SJI News Volume 24, No. 6 March 2014 

The National Center for State Court's 

(NCSC)/Center for Elders and the Courts 

(CEC), in partnership with the University 

of California at Irvine School of Medicine's Center of Excellence on Elder Abuse 

and Neglect, has developed two training 

resources for judges and court personnel: 

The Elder Abuse Curriculum for Judicial Officers is available for 

download. The curriculum is comprised of three modules that provide 

an overview on the physiology of 

aging, identifying elder abuse and 

neglect, and crafting more effective 

court responses. The curriculum 

includes all course materials, an instruction manual, and supplemental 

Center for Elders and the Courts 

Expands Resources and Training 

videos. The curriculum is also adaptable 

for in-person and educational sessions of 

varying length. 

The new online course, Justice Responses 

to Elder Abuse, will soon be available, free 

of charge, through the CEC website. The 

course is expected to be released in April 

2014. This comprehensive resource expands on the curriculum and features expert medical, judicial, and prosecution 

faculty through the course's four key parts: 

1) Aging in America; 2) Enhancing Elder 

Abuse Awareness; 3) Special Issues and 

Tools for Courts; and, 4) Practical Application via Case Scenarios. 

In FY 2011, SJI began a multi-year grant initiative to assist the NCSC with the needed upgrades to the CEC website, so that hosting of 

complex integrated materials and deployment of 

web-based training would be possible. For 

more information on these CEC products, 

please contact Brenda Uekert 

(buekert@ncsc.org) or Denise Dancy 

(ddancy@ncsc.org ) at the NCSC.