Shared Solutions Summit Toolkit

Shared Solutions Summit

The first Shared Solutions Summit was convened on January 8-10, 2012. This was a collaborative project started by Chief Justice Jefferson of the Supreme Court of Texas and the Texas Judicial Council, working in partnership with the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, with support (financial or in-kind) from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Supreme Court Children's Commission, Texas Indigent Defense Commission, Judicial Committee on Information Technology, Texas Municipal Courts Education Center, Texas Center for the Judiciary, Texas Association of Counties, Texas Access to Justice Commission, National Center for State Courts, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and State Justice Institute.

The idea was to convene local teams of judges, district attorneys, private lawyers, clerks, and other actors in five key program areas that the local courts operate: criminal courts, mental health courts, child protection courts, civil courts handling self-represented litigants, and limited jurisdiction courts handling juvenile Class C cases.

While the summit itself provided an opportunity for the participants to collaborate and share promising practices in these topic areas, the summit's "product" is the justice system improvement toolkit, which will enable the information and ideas shared at the summit to be used by other courts. The toolkit captures the leadership, collaboration, and data analysis techniques discussed at the summit, along with examples of how they can be applied to specific areas in need of improvement.

This project was developed under Grant Number SJI-11-N-178 from the State Justice Institute. The points of view expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the State Justice Institute.