SJI Newsletter

December 2019 | Volume 30, No. 3

Child Welfare Leaders Share

Their Stories on New Podcast

Be sure to listen to court leaders share their stories about the Court Improvement Program

(CIP), in a series of podcasts, moderated by Bill DeLisio, Colorado’s Family Law Program

manager.

CIP provides federal money to help families at risk or in crisis. DeLisio conducted the 10

interviews at the National Judicial Leadership Summit on Child Welfare in Minneapolis in

September. The first podcast episode – a fireside chat – was posted in late November,

and future episodes will be released every other week through March. The most recently

released podcast features Alicia Davis, a Denver-based principal court management

consultant with the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).
NAWJ Builds on #WeToo

In the Legal Workplace

Underscored by recent research from the ABA’s Commission of Women, which highlighted

the need to address workplace-related sexual harassment, the National Association of

Women Judges (NAWJ) received a grant from SJI in develop and deliver educational

programming for the legal community.

NAWJ’s #WeToo in the Legal Workplace program provides content specifically for judges

and other legal professionals on sexual harassment and misconduct in the workplace.

Among NAWJ’s education strategies, the program convenes state legislators and

legislative women’s caucus leaders with lawyers who have expertise in employment law

and the workplace. Legislators shared and updated participants on ‘landmark’ legislation,

as well as the status of any recent efforts to curb sexual harassment in the legislature and

in the courts. 

Earlier this year, NAWJ released a report, on these activities, and future programming is

planned. Additionally, the ABA Commission’s Women in the Profession has adapted the

research that informed the #WeToo in the Legal Workplace program to include Zero

Tolerance: Best Practices for Combating Sex- Based Harassment in the Legal Profession,

which builds on work and introduces new information to the next generation. The Zero

Tolerance Program educates women lawyers and firms alike on the signs and symptoms

of an unhealthy work environment, and the best practices to correct it. Download the toolkit

for offline use here.
NJOTF Bench Cards and Bulletins

Available in NCSC Library eCollection

Last month, SJI featured the culmination of a two-year project by the National Judicial

Opioid Task Force (NJOTF). The report provided state courts nationwide with further

information regarding the treatment of opioid-addicted defendants.

Housed withing the National Center for State Court Library’s eCollection is the final report

and several special-subject bench cards or bulletins, which draw attention to general areas

of the law and processes related to defendants in populations that may require special

services.

Understanding the Basics of Addiction

The Fundamentals of Screening and Assessment

Sample Court Transfer Agreement - State and Tribal Courts

Parent Partner Programs - Promising Practice to Keep Families Struggling with

Substance Use Disorder Together

Prenatal Substance Exposure: Improving Outcomes for Women and Infants

Tribal State Court Forums

The NJOTF received grant support from SJI for this content, and other elements of the

project.
Fulton County Georgia Addresses

High Volume Civil Dockets

With grant support from SJI, the Fulton County Magistrate Court (FCMC), located in Atlanta, 

Georgia, received funding in 2017 through the National Center for State Courts’

(NCSC) Civil Justice Initiative for a demonstration pilot project to implement and test reforms on 

high-volume civil dockets. The FCMC caseload consists primarily of small claims (up to 

$15,000), dispossessory (landlord/tenant evictions), and garnishment cases. 

The reforms were originally promulgated as recommendations endorsed by the Conference of 

Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators to secure the fair, speedy and 

inexpensive resolution of civil cases in state courts. Specific improvements implemented by the 

FCMC as part of the pilot project included the development and promulgation of informational 

resources, including brochures and web-based materials, for FCMC litigants; adjustments to 

court calendars to relieve case backlogs in dispossessory cases; and the development of 

checklists and training for judges and court staff to ensure consistent and accurate case 

processing. The reforms were implemented over an 18-month period beginning in March 2017 

through October 2018. 

At the end of the pilot project, the NCSC conducted a process evaluation to assess the

immediate impact of the reforms and to glean lessons about effective implementation. The

evaluation found that the reforms led to significantly reduced backlogs in dispossessory cases 

and reduced the time from filing to disposition for both small claims and garnishments; it did not 

find a significant reduction in time to disposition for dispossessory cases, likely because the 

timeframe was already so short that meaningful reductions would be very difficult to achieve. 

The evaluation also reported positive assessments of the informational resources developed for 

FCMC litigants, who found them very useful. 

Conclusions about the pilot project highlighted challenges related to implementing reforms on 

high-volume dockets, especially the importance of stakeholder engagement and communication 

about how stakeholder input is integrated in program design; the need to allocate time, staff, and 

attention as key resources to ensure the success of pilot projects; and the value of soliciting 

litigant feedback both in the design and the assessment of pilot projects. The report closed with 

recommendations for ongoing reform efforts.
Register for Upcoming

NCJFCJ 2020 Courses

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) is pleased to

announce two courses to support juvenile and family court judges in 2020. The courses to

be held in Reno, Nevada are:

The Institute for New Juvenile and Family Court Judges, April 21-24

Evidentiary Problems in the Juvenile and Family Court, August 17-21

The NCJFCJ has scholarship opportunities available for these courses and both are

eligible for the SJI Education Support Program (ESP). The SJI’s ESP covers the cost of

tuition up to a maximum of $1,000 per award.

The NCJFCJ will also host two national conferences in 2020 and other scholarship

opportunities are available for these programs:

The National Conference on Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 22-25

The 83rd Annual Conference in Reno, Nevada, July 19-22

To seek an ESP or other NCJFCJ scholarships to attend these NCJFCJ programs, contact

Amy Saathoff, Curriculum and Education Programming Manager, at contactus@ncjfcj.org

to access eligibility and application information.

For NCJFCJ’s upcoming training events, please visit the NCJFCJ’s 2020 training calendar

at http://www.ncjfcj.org/conference-training/calendar.
SJI Board of Directors

Chair

John D. Minton, Jr.

Chief Justice

Supreme Court of Kentucky

Frankfort, KY

Vice Chair

Daniel J. Becker

State Court Administrator 

(ret.) Utah AOC

Salt Lake City, UT

Secretary

Gayle A. Nachtigal

Senior Circuit Court Judge

Washington County Circuit 

Court Hillsboro, OR

Treasurer

David V. Brewer

Justice

Oregon Supreme Court

Salem, OR

Jonathan Lippman

Chief Judge of New York (ret.)

of Counsel

Latham & Watkins, LLP

New York, NY

Chase T. Rogers

Chief Justice (ret.)

Supreme Court of Connecticut

Partner

Pitney Day, LLP

Hartford, CT

Wilfredo Martinez

Senior Judge

State of Florida

Orlando, FL

Marsha J. Rabiteau

Executive Director

Center for Human Trafficking Court 

Solutions Bloomfield, CT

Hernan D. Vera

Principal

Bird Marella P.C.

Los Angeles, CA

Isabel Framer

President

Language Access Consultants, LLC

Copley, OH

Jonathan D. Mattiello

Executive Director

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

federal law in 1984 to improve the quality of justice in the state courts.

Products and Resources

Since 2011, SJI has designated the library at the National Center for State Courts as

the official repository of published work related to SJI-supported grant projects. You

can search the ecollection online by using the term, State Justice Institute.

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