As a part of the Institute for Court Management curricula for Caseflow Management and Court Performance Standards / CourTools courses, the segments addressing organizational change include discussion of a court’s “culture,” as an important indicator as to how receptive a court may be to the introduction of new programs. The centerpiece of this discussion is Brian Ostrom’s book entitled Trial Courts as Organizations.

This topic is not without some controversy, as the widely accepted centerpiece of change management until now (at least in terms of Caseflow Management) was a concept known as “local legal culture.” Highly respected court management guru Geoff Gallas opines that local legal culture considers how cases are treated by a wide audience of stakeholders, while court culture only considers how the presiding judge and court management deal with matters involving change.

With a respectful nod to this argument, let’s look at how court culture does indeed make implementation of change easy or difficult  …

First, Ostrom provides a short questionnaire to ascertain which of four different “cultures” a particular court favors. The survey is administered in a two-part format asking what the current environment is, and what the desired environment would be. The subject is then asked to plot these outcomes on a kite chart. Personally, I find this latter activity frustrating, difficult to accomplish and of limited benefit, but the parsing of the four culture types is worth closer examination. Here they are:

HIERARCHICAL

This is a rule oriented court that relies heavily on clear lines of command, is highly structured and slow to change. However, the introduction of technology and metrics to measure performance and improve efficiency is valued.

NETWORKED

This is a consensus court in which judicial collegiality is valued. Innovation is possible as long as stakeholders are willing and teamwork is the means to achieve it. Staff development and diversity are also promoted in this environment.

AUTONOMOUS

This court allows individual freedom among the judges, and thereby promotes silos of isolation. Courtwide rules and uniformity are resisted, while independence and individual innovation are praised. Change is slow in this court due to the difficulty in achieving consensus.

COMMUNAL

This is a flexible court that values creativity. A central control by a presiding judge or court administrator is less important than individual innovation and continuous improvement. While these can be exciting courts to work in, there is also a tendency to go off half cocked on initiatives without advance due diligence, along with a tendency to not see projects through to completion.

My personal take on all this is that a successful court leader should conduct a reality check any time major change is on tap. This assessment should include a recognition of how receptive a court may be to change in general, as well as a hard look at the organizational capacity of a court. Alex Aikman’s latest court management book entitled The Art and Practice of Court Management covers this nicely in his adroit comparison of court organizations with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

As the noted pragmatist Niccolò Machiavelli observed in The Prince ….

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it. Thus it arises that on every opportunity for attacking the reformer, his opponents do so with the zeal of partisans, the others only defend him half-heartedly, so that between them he runs great danger.

How sadly true !!

Photo credit = Microsoft clipart

My friend and colleague, Alex Aikman, published a book last year entitled the Art and Practice of Court Administration in which he draws correlations between court organizations (more accurately, court organizational readiness) to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow opined that humans strive to achieve higher purposes in life in direct relation to how their other basic needs are met.

Those of us who serve as consultants in court (including court administrative office staff acting as operational review auditors) perform a similar assessment when we work with individual courts … high performing courts are given lofty recommendations, while lower performing courts are given recommendations that best suit their ability to actually implement the suggestions.

I am fortunate to serve as senior faculty for the Institute for Court Management, and perform a fair amount of teaching on my own with judges and court managers on a variety of topics, including caseflow management. In these courses, I often get the participants engaged in developing project plans to implement various calendar changes in their courts. While the curriculum often includes tips on managing change, it is refreshing to see added attention to the issue of organizational readiness and culture.

In several of my projects, I have been doubly fortunate to engage the participants in an exercise to review several prospective projects and perform an assessment of two variables … how beneficial this change would be to the court and how difficult it would be to actually implement the change. The resulting rank is a risk/benefit analysis, and participants are then advised to develop implementation plans on those projects that have the highest potential for benefit and the lowest risk.

While some may label this quick wins, or even picking low hanging fruit, I think it is closer to the Clint Eastwood admonition as Dirty Harry in Magnum Force, that a man’s got to know his limitations.

Photo credit = Wikipedia

When Justice Served began rating the annual, worldwide Top 10 Court Websites in 1999, we looked at less than 300 total sites. Today that number is over 4,000. So aside from the proliferation of the number of court websites, has the quality of Web delivery of court services reached the point where a substantial proportion of customers rely on E-court services for access to justice?

Without a similar mandate and clear guidelines to courts across the country (and indeed, across the globe), progress will be much slower. When we slog through 4,000 court websites to cull the top 10 each year, the first cut is relatively easy. At least 3/4 have no interactive content whatsoever; since this is our primary evaluation criteria, these are dropped quickly from consideration.

Photo credit = Microsoft clipart

All this Web 2.0 hype started a feeding frenzy that resulted in several new Internet-based applications coming on the scene. Of course, this means that unless you have a Facebook or MySpace account, you’re somehow sadly behind the times. The latest must-have phenom is Twitter, which is a sort of cross between a blog and an instant message.

My favorite tech news source, TechRepublic.com extolled the virtues of Twitter, but I’m more skeptical. Government Technology magazine recently covered Twitter applications in government, and its potential role in continuity of operations in the event of emergency  …  I’m still not convinced.

When new instant messaging first came out as an Internet application, I used it sparingly. I was working in Hong Kong at the time and my project team was scattered in three separate apartments in two adjacent high rise buildings on Lantau Island. We all used AOL in our work and play, so it was convenient to see who was online when you were and to pass IM notes back and forth about project work or where to go for dinner. However, when I returned home it soon turned into a distraction and I came to resent people intruding into my desktop while I was working on something important. I turned it off and never went back.

I use text messaging, but only sparingly. Since I travel a lot and often have to meet with colleagues or clients who are in transit themselves, it’s easy to drop a text message about airplane delays or other logistics to keep others informed. I don’t use it much beyond this, and I find it amusing to watch others hunch over their cellphones thumb-typing long messages.

Obviously, I’m a blogger, but readers may choose to read a posting or ignore it. They may subscribe, or not. Blogs are not intrusive by nature, while Twitters are barging into your attention to let you know every mind-numbing thought or reference that they wish to pass along.

I choose not to Twit, but I’ll reserve judgment as to whether I ever will. Someone has yet to demonstrate a compelling business case to learn and apply this technology.

Photo credit = Twitter

Some states, such as California, have standards because they were mandated by the legislature when the public perceived that there was too much delay in the courts. Other states adopted standards after careful consideration of their usefulness and after necessary adjustments were made in the time frames to recognize operational circumstances.

So why have dispositional time standards? For starters, setting expectations that cases should be resolved within a pre-determined period of time can and does have a profound affect on court organizations, and the results are usually vast improvements in times to disposition across the board. More important, how can a court manage what it cannot measure? Even if a court measures times to disposition, clearance rates and the age of pending caseload, how would a court know what the backlog is unless there is a cutoff by which “current” cases are separated from “old” cases?

3) Make them goals - What is the difference between a court setting goals for timely disposition of cases versus time standards? For one, if goals are not quite attained, it is still a noble effort. Failing to meet standards gives the perception that a court is under-performing. I would also argue that goals show disposition of 98% of all cases within a given category within a desired period of time, versus 100%. Few courts ever attain 100% compliance, so why set the organization up for failure? If a court is the moving party developing these initiatives, it is in a better position to frame them as dispositional time goals as opposed to dispositions time standards, and to determine the percentage target of cases to be disposed.

The Cheshire Cat told Alice if you don’t know where you’re going, any path will take you there. Judges complain to me that they have a hard time controlling continuances, but how can they if they don’t have a clean indicator of what is an old case? I used to ask judges and court clerks a question when I was a court manager - what do you consider an old case? The answers varied, but the point was to determine when there was a sense of urgency or even outrage at why the case was still lingering on the docket.

When I served as a court administrator, we printed red stickers and affixed them to the front of case files showing the desired date of disposition in order to create an atmosphere of expectation on everyone’s part as to when to adopt a sense of urgency.

I agree that there was no compelling reason to launch Vista in the first place, and Microsoft’s plans to introduce Windows 7 in 2010 means that many will hunker down and skip Vista altogether in hopes that Microsoft learned its lesson and will apologize with a worthwhile upgrade.

In my circumstance, switching to Vista was a forced marriage caused by a hardware crash. Unfortunately, it coincided with an ill advised ”upgrade” to Office 2007, which had a learning curve as daunting as Mount Everest. I’ll save my Office 2007 rants and raves for another posting.

As long as upgraded operating systems and office productivity software suites are backward compatible and reasonably intuitive to use, I’ve no quarrel with progress into new versions. The upgrade to Vista, however, rendered my brand new color laser printer unusable for 5 months, and left several of my favorite software tools incompatible. These are not things I get over lightly.

I started out as an avid Apple user in my early computer days and only begrudgingly switched to Windows when it appeared that I had to for business reasons. Whenever I complained of problems such as Vista and Office 2007, my Mac and Linux friends would laugh and taunt me as a sellout to the evil empire.

I forgive the evil empire, but I am keeping a wary eye on the future.

Photo Credit = Microsoft

Everyone who is anyone these days seems to have a Blackberry or smartphone strapped to their belt, purse, ear or thumbs. So what’s the big deal? Are these gadgets worth it? Do they promote compulsive behavior that justifies the slur Crackberry because they compel people to be connected to the web, email and phone 24/7/365?

My favorite tech publication, TechRepublic, had a blog entry recently comparing the best Blackberry’s and smartphones for business. Not surprisingly, they picked the Blackberry Curve, which set off a series of he said/she said comments criticizing the choice and touting Apple’s iPhone or one of the Treo models.

OK, I promised myself never to get one of these ball-and-chain contraptions. Some workers have even sued their employers claiming they were forced to carry these devices and thereby promoted compulsive behavior. I used to laugh at these pitiful creatures huddled over their saucer-sized devices thumb-typing email responses while balancing a low-fat Starbuck’s latte in the airport awaiting their boarding call. No more. I am one with my Blackberry Pearl and it is one with me.

Why did I fall asleep next to the pod, like those hapless zombies in The Body Snatchers? I have very plausible reasons:

1. I hate carrying around multiple equipment / devices.

Before I picked up my new Blackberry Pearl, I carried around a cell phone, a Palm Pilot, an MP3 music player and I was just about to buy a GPS automobile navigation device. I was starting to feel like Batman with the need for an extensive utility belt. My most compelling argument for taking the plunge is to consolidate numerous gadgets into one.

2. But wait … there’s more

Much like the TV infomercials that implore you to buy their product because of all the added bonuses, this smartphone also allows you to browse the Internet. One of these is offered to AAA members that enable the user to inquire about the nearest lodging, restaurants and other services. The built-in GPS unit can then guide you to the location. Too cool, especially with my gruelling travel schedule.

3. It’s small

I hate those huge smartphones that are too wide to wear on your belt or conveniently keep in your pocket. This is due to the need to fit a full QWERTY Keyboard that even then was too small to use effectively. This baby is small, light and elegant at 4.2 x 1.97 x 0.57 inches and a scant 3 ounces.

In the 6 months I’ve owned it, I’ve resisted the urge to hook up the email function and, frankly, the ultra-small keyboard would probably preclude my sausage-like thumbs from effectively typing anyway. All the better. The prime reason I didn’t want one of these suckers is to avoid being constantly chained to work.

So hopefully, I can enjoy my Blackberry without having it turn into a Crackberry. I can also go through life without huge muscle-bound thumbs caused by excessive thumb-typing.

Serenity now!!

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = BlackberryPearl.com

Photo credit = FreeFoto.com

The biggest hype of the last few years is the emergence of so-called Web 2.0 tools, networking and collaboration applications that were supposed to change our lives (supposedly for the better). Is this essentially a youth game, or is Web v2 ready for prime time? Does the interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content mean courts will look and act differently, and if so when?

First, let’s look at some of the most visible features of Web 2.0 …

BLOGS

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but few courts have active blogs. The Hillsborough County (FL) clerk of court has one, although it doesn’t have an RSS feed. Many more courts have RSS feeds, but these usually provide newsletter content, rule/form change information and appellate rulings that lawyers and others can subscribe to. The NACM Website Committee is considering a blog, but no decision is likely in the near term.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin are the three biggest online social and business networks, and Linkedin actually added a NACM member contact group to promote social and business interaction among court manager types. I have heard of some government agencies using Facebook to advertise job openings, and only heard it in the context of court IT managers disallowing Internet access to these sites, but having to reverse the decision for business reasons.

GROUPS AND CONTENT SHARING

Yahoo and Google are the standard bearers for groups to gather online for information exchange, sharing of files and development of databases. Sites such as Flickr and Utube promote the sharing of media files such as videos and pictures.

So, has Web 2.0 reached the point where it is changing how courts conduct their business and provide services? I think the answer is no. Will Web 2.0 tools and features gain popularity and eventually have a profound impact? You bet!

Consider, for instance, an interesting article from InternetNews that predicted the demise of the press conference attributable to the advent of blogs  … the crux of the story is that the US State Department’s blog recently made breaking news available directly to the public instead of exclusively to the media. The author asked: On what basis should our government grant exclusive or early information to media organizations while deliberately concealing or delaying information to the citizens to which it’s answerable? In an age where the government can talk directly to the public, shouldn’t it do so (then of course allow the media to ask questions about that information afterwards)?

Consider, too, how slowly courts implemented something as simple as fax machines back in the 1980s. Similarly, how the Internet and websites are still only beginning to pervade court service delivery. Trust me, when we slog through more than 4,000 sites to judge the Top 10 Court Websites Awards, way less than 1/2 have any sort of interactive content.

In my view, there are two phenomena that will drive the increased use of Web 2.0 features in court. First, the workforce is getting younger - like it or not, these Web features have higher acceptance and general use among youth. Second, is fear - in my view, the chief reason that courts have websites (same as they started using fax machines) is that judges and court managers don’t want to get left behind. But just plugging in a fax machine doesn’t mean a court accepts fax filings unless they have the leadership and vision to use the tool to its highest potential. Ditto on court websites, where e-filing and online fine payments are still the exception and not the rule.

I’m sure the Jetson’s will look back at us agonizing over these decisions and laugh.

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = The Jetson’s Unofficial Home