SJI NEWSLETTER SJI NEWSLETTER

In this Issue 

Page 1 

Volume 25, No. 12 

SJI Awards FY 2015 Fourth Quarter Grants 

SJI Grantees

When Tweeting or posting to 

Facebook about your SJI Grant, 

be sure to use the hashtag 

#SJIGrant - we will share your 

project nationally. 

You can access our latest posts 

via Facebook and Twitter. 

SJI Awards 4th 

Quarter Grants 

1-2 

Minnesota Court 

Security Project 

2 

Missouri Case 

Management Project 

3 

 

The SJI Board of Directors met on September 21, 

2015, at the Supreme Court of Texas in Austin to 

make decisions on quarterly grant applications and 

awarded a total of ten (10) new grants. 

September 2015 

The Board awarded a Strategic Initiatives Grant 

(SIG) to support the National Conservatorship Accounting Project. Through this project, the National 

Center for State Courts (NCSC) will further expand 

conservator monitoring software first developed in 

Minnesota (also with SJI support). The project will: 

1) disseminate, adapt, and pilot conservatorship accounting software developed in Minnesota to three 

additional states; and 2) develop and test tools to 

identify problematic cases and direct critical resources to those cases. As part of these efforts, the 

NCSC will convene a Conservatorship Accountability Project Network to encourage more states to 

use to develop its own customized lesson plans; a series 

of on-demand webinars featuring prominent subject 

matter experts; and a resource toolkit on election law 

available to state court 

judges. 

Six (6) Technical Assistance 

(TA) Grants were approved, 

including: assistance to the 

Cuyahoga County, Ohio, 

Common Pleas Court for an 

operational review; a Family 

Law Unit Reengineering 

project in the Orange 

adopt this software. The Board also awarded a SIG 

to the NCSC to support the State Courts Election 

Law Resources project in preparation for the 2016 

elections. This project will result in an election law 

curriculum that each state can 

County, California, Superior Court; assistance to the 

Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts for a 

statewide juvenile probation officer review; funding 

to the Fulton County, Georgia, Juvenile Court to 

support a project focusing on educational neglect 

cases; training tools for state court judges on Special 

Immigrant Juvenile Status provided by American 

University; and, a court consolidation impact assessment for the 25th District Court of Michigan. 

Two (2) Curriculum Adaptation & Training (CAT) 

Grants were approved: support to the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) for judicial eduContinues on page 2 

The Board of Directors at the Supreme Court of Texas. 
Page 2 

E-SJI News Volume 25, No. 12 September 2015 

With grant assistance from SJI (SJI-14-N-154), the Minnesota Judicial 

Branch recently completed a three phase evaluation of court security 

services. 

The decision to address court security followed statewide upgrades to 

court technology and a focus on enhanced services to self-represented 

litigants. Additional attention to emergency preparedness throughout the 

cation on human trafficking issues, including a new 

focus on developing jurisdictional collaborative 

teams to address human trafficking; and the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts for an 

online pretrial services education program which 

will be made available to all state courts. 

Minnesota Court Security and Emergency 

Preparedness Planning Project 

public sector and a desire for more responsive protocols helped solidify court security as priority over the past 18 months. 

The report, titled, Minnesota Security Training, provides details on the 

success of this project. For example, evaluations were provided upon 

completion of the first part of Phase III – delivering training sessions 

to courts in Anoka, Mankato, Rochester, St. Paul, and Windom, Minnesota, using a customized Court Security Tool Box. Overall, on a 

scale of 1 to 8, the training sessions received a mean of 7, or excellent. 

The report breaks down by court training site which components of 

the court security training curriculum were most salient, as well as 

how the training was delivered, evaluated, and could be improved. 

Using a train-the-trainer method, participants will now be able to deliver additional court security training as needed, or when the Court 

Security Tool Box is updated. 

During Phase I of the project, NCSC experts with backgrounds in 

court facilities planning, emergency planning, and security worked 

with a committee designated by the Minnesota Judicial Branch to 

oversee the project. During this phase, five comprehensive security 

assessments of different court facilities were conducted in high volume, remote, and standard courthouse facility types. Phase II centered 

on NCSC developing material for a Court Security Tool Box to assist 

judges, court staff, and judicial partners, again with collaboration and 

input from the committee overseeing the work. 

A full copy of the final report is available through the NCSC Digital 

Library. 

Continued from page 1 

Left: State Court Administrator David Slayton leads 

a tour of the Supreme Court. Right: The dome of the 

Texas State Capitol features a lone star. 
Page 3 

SJI Board of Directors

Chairman 

James R. Hannah 

Chief Justice (ret.) 

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 

Principal 

Bird Marella P.C. 

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 25, No. 12 September 2015 

SJI assistance (SJI-14-T-245) enabled the Missouri Office of the State Courts Administrator (OSCA) to plan for the development of a new statewide case management 

system. 

The new system will: 

Reduce operational costs; 

Take advantage of new technologies; assist in processing cases more quickly, 

with less effort, and without sacrificing the quality of justice; 

Increase standardization of court operations statewide; 

Improve the electronic exchange of information with other justice system partners; and, 

Increase the lifecycle and lower the cost of the technology that is employed in 

the state. 

The NCSC worked with the Missouri Supreme Court’s Case Management Oversight 

Team to review the current and desired functionality of an integrated case management system, to include the employees who will use the system. The review addressed the governance model, required infrastructure, costs, application development and support, and information technology management required for deploying 

and maintaining the new system. 

The 15 recommendations contained in the final report constitute an action plan that 

will help the Missouri courts succeed with business process management. A full 

copy of the report is available through the NCSC’s Digital Library. 

Missouri Concludes Case Management Planning