Opinion ID: 1779981
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Research Methodology:

Text: The Commission began by reviewing its charge, Florida's current certification rule, the national appellate court performance standards, the mission of the district courts of appeal, and the complimentary charge of the Committee on Appellate Court Workload and Jurisdiction. While acknowledging some overlap, the Commission distinguished between those criteria that are relevant to whether the judges on a court are working above optimal capacity and those criteria that would suggest that the need for a jurisdiction change was indicated. The Commission's initial analysis included a review of the existing certification criteria to identify those that directly correlate to judicial workload and those which did not directly correlate. The Commission found that many of the criteria in rule 2.035 are not good measures or predictors of judicial workload. (See the staff analysis prepared by the Office of the State Courts Administrator). The Commission set out to identify the factors and trends that facilitated this apparent increased capacity for judicial work. The Commission examined trends to identify: how change in case mix impacts judicial workload; historical trends that impact the ability to reliably forecast filings; the impact of technological advances in legal research, case processing, and document preparation on judicial productivity; and the impact of central staff support on judicial workload.