Frequently Asked Questions - Project

Judicial Needs Assessment

1. What is the purpose of the weighted caseload study?

In general, the purpose of a weighted caseload study is to develop an objective and statistically reliable method for determining the need for additional courts.

S.B. 729 (79th Legislature, Regular Session) calls for a weighted caseload study of the district courts to be undertaken "for the purpose of making recommendations regarding the implementation of a systematic approach for analyzing the need for new district courts."

2. Is the weighted caseload study legislatively mandated?

As noted in number 1, yes. However, the recommendation for conducting a weighted caseload study originated with the Texas Judicial Council ("Council"), which advocated a more objective and accurate methodology to properly evaluate the workload of the courts. In December 2000, the Council recommended the state seek "the assistance of the National Center for State Courts or some other outside entity to conduct a weighted caseload study."

In May 2001, the 77th Legislature attached a rider to SB 1 (the Appropriations Act) that required the Council to "prepare a report on current district court locations, populations served, docket activity, and other appropriate variables that would inform a legislative determination on the need for creating additional district courts." In the report [pdf] prepared by the Judicial Council Committee on District Courts, and adopted by the Council in September 2002, it was recommended that the legislature should appropriate the necessary funding to the Office of Court Administration (OCA) and the Council for the implementation of a weighted caseload study for district courts. It was further recommended that the legislature consider appropriating the necessary funding for a weighted caseload study of Texas' entire court system.

In 2005, the Legislature (79th Regular Session) passed S.B. 729, which directed OCA to contract with a nonprofit organization that specializes in providing consulting services to courts to conduct a weighted caseload study of the district courts.

3. What are the qualifications of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), the nonprofit organization with whom OCA entered into a contract, to conduct weighted caseload studies?

NCSC has conducted numerous weighted caseload studies to assist courts in developing meaningful, easily-understood criteria for determining overall judicial officer and court staff needs. In all, NCSC has conducted more than 50 workload and staffing assessments in the last 10 years. These studies have been performed in a variety of contexts—statewide and local efforts, general and limited jurisdiction courts—and have involved judges, quasi-judicial officers, administrative and clerical staff, and public defenders. The diversity of NCSC’s projects is reflected in the following sample of recently conducted workload assessment studies:

• Florida Delphi-Based Weighted Caseload System, 2000
• California Judicial Workload Assessment, 2001
• California Assessment of the Need for Judicial Support Staff, 2001
• Maryland Judges Workload Assessment, 2001
• Minnesota Judicial Workload Assessment, 2002
• Minnesota Court Staff Workload Assessment, 2004
• Maryland Attorney and Staff Workload Assessment, 2005
• New Hampshire Judicial Workload Assessment, 2005
• New Hampshire Staffing Study, 2005
• Wisconsin Judicial Needs Assessment, 2006
• New Mexico Public Defender Department Attorney and Staff Workload Assessment, 2007
• New Mexico Judicial Workload Assessment, 2007

• BIOGRAPHIES

BRIAN J. OSTROM, Ph.D. is a Principal Research Consultant with the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Virginia. Dr. Ostrom has extensive training and experience in performance evaluation and using a wide range of quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques to understand and overcome problems in the courts. Since coming to the NCSC in 1989, he has been the principal investigator for numerous national-scope research projects within the areas of civil justice, felony sentencing and the methodology of judicial system workload assessment. In recent years, Dr. Ostrom has served as the principal investigator for large-scale judicial system workload studies in the states of Michigan (1997-1998), Florida (1999-2000), California (2000-2003), Minnesota (2002-2003), New Hampshire (2004-2005), and Wisconsin (2005-2006) as well as the Maryland public defender system (2003-2005). In addition, Dr. Ostrom was co-author of Assessing the Need for Judges and Court Support Staff (NCSC, 1996). He also led the development of the CourTools performance measurement system and serves as project director. Dr. Ostrom received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington. He received the NCSC Staff Excellence Award in 1997. In addition, Dr. Ostrom teaches in the economics department at the College of William and Mary and is a faculty member for the Institute for Court Management.

CHARLES W. OSTROM, Ph.D. is a professor of political science at Michigan State University. He is currently serving as co-principal investigator on two NIJ-funded projects: (1) assessing the role of court culture in state trial courts and (2) assessing consistency and fairness in sentencing in three states. In addition, he consults with the Michigan Department of Corrections on forecasting prison and jail population. He served as the research director of the Sentencing Guidelines Project of the Michigan Supreme Court from 1979 through 1988. During the 1986-88 period, he developed (with Dr. Brian Ostrom) the set of sentencing guidelines that were in use in Michigan from 1988-1998. From 1995-1998, he served as a consultant to the Michigan Sentencing Commission and assisted with the development of the current legislatively mandated sentencing guidelines. Dr. Charles Ostrom has participated in judicial workload studies in Michigan, Florida, Minnesota, and California as well as staff workload studies in California and Minnesota. Dr. Ostrom was formerly senior research professor at the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and served as the head of the Institute’s Evaluation and Survey Research Divisions. In addition, Dr. Charles Ostrom is the author of Time Series Analysis: Regression Approaches, 2d ed.

MATTHEW KLEIMAN, Ph.D. is a Senior Court Research Associate with the National Center for State Courts. He has worked extensively on projects relating to the development of statewide resource assessment models for judicial officers, court staff, and public defender attorneys and staff. Specifically, served as project director for the development of staffing standards, based on a weighted caseload model, for the allocation and projection of future resource needs in Alabama (judicial officer study) and Ontario, Canada (justices of the peace study) and as project manager of statewide studies in New Hampshire and Wisconsin (judicial officer studies), Minnesota (court staff study), and Maryland and New Mexico (public defender attorney and staff study). Additional project work focuses on: the use of alternative sanctions at the time of sentencing; an evaluation of a risk assessment instrument for the diversion of non-violent offenders in Virginia; the development of a new framework to help understand court culture; and the development and implementation of a set of court specific performance measures (CourTools). He received a Ph.D. and M.A. from Michigan State University and a B.A. degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton, all in political science.

4. What is the role of the Judicial Needs Assessment Committee in the weighted caseload study?

The Judicial Needs Assessment Committee is providing oversight and guidance to the study in the development of the general study plan, identification of the general case types to be used in the study, design of the time study, and development of the approach to reconcile and finalize the case weights.

The Committee consists of 12 district judges, 2 county court at law judges, 1 child protection associate judge, 2 district court administrators, and 1 county court administrator.

5. What is weighted caseload?

Weighted caseload is a technique for determining how much time is required to process a court’s caseload from filing through post-judgment activity.

A case weight is the average number of minutes required to process a particular case type from filing through post-judgment activity.

By taking into account the complexity of cases and documenting the different amounts of time and attention from judges and support staff required by different case types, case weights developed through this technique can be applied to court caseload statistics to obtain a much more accurate reflection of court workload. For example, while capital murder cases may constitute 1 percent of a court’s cases, these cases may actually consume 20 percent of the court’s time.

6. How will the case weights be developed?

A statistically valid sample of district judges will be asked to report the amount of time they spend on case-related and non-case-related activities during a one-month period. In addition, any associate judges, masters, magistrates, and referees who handle work for the participating judges will also be asked to report their time.

Case weights will be developed for the case types approved by the Judicial Needs Assessment Committee. A case weight is the average number of minutes necessary to process a case from filing through disposition plus any post-judgment activity.

The aim of the process is to develop statewide case weights, not weights for certain courts, counties, or regions.

7. How detailed is the information that will be reported during the one-month time study?

Selecting the number of case types and case events to be used in a weighted caseload study involves a tradeoff between having enough information to ensure the accuracy of the workload standards and minimizing the data collection burden on the participating judicial officers. The more case types and events that are included in a weighted caseload study, the larger the data samples need to be to guarantee statistical accuracy.

In addition, the case weights must eventually be attached to case data readily available from every county in the state. For these reasons, it is recommended that approximately 20 case types be used in the time study. It is also recommended that each case type have 4 case event categories – preliminary matters, non-trial dispositions, trial activity, and post judgment matters. The approximately 20 case types, in combination with the 4 case event categories, will allow all time spent by judges on all cases to be captured.

8. How will the time spent on case-related and non-case-related activities be reported?

Judges are encouraged to enter their time into an online reporting system. However, for those judges without internet access, paper forms will be available.

For online reporting, the judge will go to a secure website and log into the reporting form to enter data. The reporting form is on one screen. The data that will be entered is comprised of 3 to 4 pieces of information, dependent on whether case-related or non-case-related data are being entered. The data entry is almost exclusively “point and click” from pre-populated selection boxes offering date of reporting, case types, case events, non-case related activities, and duration of work on specified items.

9. What training will be offered on how to complete the time reporting form?

To ensure that the time study goes smoothly, training will be offered to judges and their staff (if a judge would like his/her staff to assist him/her). The training will be available in a variety of formats.

Live training sessions will last approximately one hour and will be taught by NCSC staff. In addition, the NCSC will host a webinar training on its website. The webinar training will be recorded and available on the NCSC website for future viewing.

The locations, dates and times of the training sessions have yet to be determined. As this information becomes available, we will post it on our website.

10. Will the time study data reported by individual courts be anonymous?

The weighted caseload study is based on aggregate data, not data specific to an individual court. Any identifying data codes will be deleted, eliminating any possibility that data could be linked to an individual court. If you would like more detailed information about this issue, please call Mary Cowherd, OCA's deputy director for research and court services, at (512) 463-1625.

11. Will judges be given the opportunity to assess the results of the time study to ensure their reasonableness and overall validity?

The Judicial Needs Assessment Committee will assess the application of the case weights to ensure they accurately measure and “fit” how work is accomplished across the state. That is, they will assess whether the established case weights and a single judge-year value can be applied to the entire state or should vary based on factors such as court size or location. In other words, can the same case weights and judge-year value be used for both urban and rural courts?

12. Will county courts at law be included in the study?

In counties selected for participation in the time study, county courts at law with civil and/or family law jurisdiction concurrent with district courts will also be asked to participate. However, case weights specific to county courts at law will be created only if adequate filings information for the participating courts is available.