Court Clerks Research Articles

The fragile middle class: Americans in debt

In 1989, these authors published As We Forgive OurDebtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America,a study of bankruptcy filers in 1981. That project becameknown as the Consumer Bankruptcy Project. This book,informally known as Consumer Bankruptcy Project II,reports on research conducted in 1991. For this study, theauthors added a questionnaire to collect demographicdata as well as information about why the respondentsfiled for bankruptcy. Adding the questionnaire enabledthe researchers to compare the debtors with the generalpopulation. The book consists of eight chapters and twoappendices. The first appendix describes the studydesign, data collection, and data analysis. The secondappendix provides informati on about other recent studiesof bankruptcy. In addition, there are extensive referencesnotes for each chapter.In Phase II, the authors expanded the study to cases filedin 1991 in sixteen districts across five states: all of thedistricts in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Californiaand two of the three districts in Tennessee. Thus, theystudied the same ten districts profiled in Phase I andadded six districts in two states. With the permission ofbankruptcy judges, court clerks or trustees distributedquestionnaires to debtors who filed for bankruptcy duringthe first two quarters of calendar year 1991. Thequestionnaire was provided in both English and Spanish.The authors received about 59,000 questionnaires. Basedon an estimated 118,040 nonbusiness filings in thesedistricts, their overall response rate was about 49.9%.The five states in the study accounted for 31% of allbankruptcies in the United States in 1991. To have areasonable number of cases for analysis, the authorsrandomly selected 150 cases fro m each district to analyzein their final sample. With 150 case in each district, theyhad a sample of about 2,400 cases.Questions in the survey were similar to questions used bythe Census Bureau. They included: gender, age, maritalstatus, change in marital status, education, citizenship,disruption in work history, and ethnicity. A final questionwas open-ended and asked debtors to explain why theyhad filed for bankruptcy. The responses ranged fromterse replies such as much debt, too little tocomplex stories. Although each chapter in the book is anin-depth discussion of a type of problem faced by filers,the authors believe that overall the bankruptcy filers were(1) in desperate financial shape, and (2) repeatedlyidentified similar problems to explain theircircumstances. The problems were related to one or moreof these topics: job and income loss, sickness and injury,divorce, homeownership, and too much credit. As one can assume from the title, the authors have abasic tenet: that the American middle class is in troubleand that the increase in consumer debt is a prominentcause. Chapter Four on Credit Cards and Chapter 8 onThe Middle Class in Debt are must chapters for allfinancial educators and counselors. Is the proposedbankruptcy legislation a solution? The authors don't thinkso pointing out that bankruptcy is the treatment, not thedisease. The authors conclude by saying that there is noeasy fix, but I believe their book is an importantcontribution to understanding the problem. I highlyrecommend the book to educators, counselors,researchers, and policy makers. If you have already read

Citation Wars

Summary During the 1990s a sometimes bitter controversy in legal circles has raged concerning what has become known as “citation reform.” Major proponents of reform include small legal publishers, the American Bar Association, and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). Major opponents include the West Group and a number of federal judges and court clerks. Proponents argue for a universal, public domain, vendor neutral, medium neutral citation system (short title: universal citation) based on two premises: (1) a change is necessary to break the West Group's virtual monopoly on its own citation system, which the courts have up to now declared worthy of copyright protection; and (2) the proposed system is objectively superior to West's version. Because West's citation system is used extensively by the courts, its monopoly status keeps the cost of legal research artificially high at a time when inexpensive technologies like the Internet and CD-ROMs are increasingly making it possible to lower the cost of access to case law. In addition, compared to the West system, a public domain, vendor neutral system is simpler, is permanent when the case is first issued, is uniform for all jurisdictions, covers all formats, print and electronic, and is easier to understand. This article explores the issues surrounding the controversy, discusses the pros and cons of both systems, and analyzes current copyright cases that are likely to determine the outcome of the argument.

United States: So Many States, So Many Reforms

There are fifty-one civil justice systems in the United States: There is one system con ducted by the federal government and one conducted by each of the fifty states. As a result, it is misleading to talk about a single civil system in the United States because of the different substantive laws, legal doctrines, and court procedures extant among the fifty states and the federal government. For almost all individuals in the United States, their experience with civil justice is likely to be in the state courts. The number of cases filed in the state courts far exceeds the number filed in the federal system. For example, each of the general jurisdiction trial courts in California, Florida, New Jersey, and New York resolve more tort, contract, and real property cases than the number of civil cases resolved in the entire federal trial court system. Hence, the states are where the action is. The most successful civil justice court reform during the past two decades has been the introduction of case management. State trial courts, and to a lesser degree, appellate courts, have implemented procedures that provide information on and control over the processing of cases. At the trial court level, the monitoring of cases is supported by auto mated case-tracking systems that are under the supervision of court administrators and clerks of court. For this reasons, Jeremy Bentham's notion of judge and company refers not only to the trial court judge, his or her bailiff, law clerk, and secretary but also to one or more administrators, depending on the size of the bench. At the appellate level, the major organizational development in the past twenty years has been procedural differentiation. To achieve greater efficiency, and to allow judges to spend more time on complex cases, state appellate courts have modified steps in the traditional appellate process (e.g., limited the length of briefs, placed limitations on oral argument, or decided cases with summary dispositions rather than full-written, signed opinions). Civil justice in the United States will never be perfect. Why? Despite the benefits of case management and procedural differentiation, civil cases are generally private dis putes involving conflicting economic interests. Thus, the best that courts can hope to achieve is the resolution of disputes in a manner that meets their standards of timeliness and quality.

Judicial Management and Judicial Disinterest: The Achievements and Perils of Chief Justice William Howard Taft

Judicial Management and Judicial Disinterest: The Achievements and Perils of Chief Justice William Howard Taft Robert Post William Howard Taft holds the significant distinction ofbeing the only person in the his­ tory ofthe nation to preside over two branches of the federal government. He was President from 1909 to 1913, and he was ChiefJustice of the United States from 1921 to 1930.’ This achievement ought to have secured Taft a prominent position within the history of the Court. YetTaft has drifted into almost com­ plete professional eclipse. Although familiar to specialists in legal history, Taft is no more known to the average lawyer or law student than are ChiefJustices White, Fuller, or Waite. Taft’s contemporary obscurity is remark­ able. When Taft died on March 8, 1930, the nation convulsed in an overpowering and spon­ taneouswave ofmourning. He was widelychar­ acterizedas “the mostbeloved ofAmericans,”2 and hailed by observers like Augustus Hand, then a federal district Judge in New York, as “the greatest figure as ChiefJustice since John Marshall.”3 Even Felix Frankfurter, certainly no admirer ofTaft’s jurisprudence, was moved to observe that “Few public men have evoked such spontaneous and warm affection fromthe pub­ lic as has Taft. ... He is a dear man—a true human.”4 This was a striking tribute to a man who had only eighteen years before been crushingly repudiated. Caught between Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism and Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom, Taft was blasted as a reactionary, and managed to obtain only a hu­ miliating eight electoral votes in his 1912 cam­ paign forreelectionto the presidency. Taft took defeat graciously, however, and he quickly be­ came, in the famous phrase ofjournalistGeorge Harvey, “our worst licked and best loved Presi­ dent.”5 Although Taft had been known as the father ofthe labor injunction since his days as an Ohio state court judge, he mollified orga­ nized labor during World War I by assuming thejoint chairmanship (with Frank P. Walsh) of the National War Labor Board. The Board shocked industrial leaders not only by explic­ itly recognizing the right ofAmerican workers WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 51 to unionize, but also by pledging official sup­ port for the right of employees to receive a “living wage.”6 Taft also transcended parti­ san politics by opposing the leaders of his own party in courageously and publicly championing Woodrow Wilson’s campaign to join the League of Nations. As a result, Harding’s nomination of Taft for the Chief Justiceship in July 1921 was greeted with “almost unanimous approval.”7 It was, as the The New York Times remarked, “a ‘come­ back’ unprecedented in American political annals.”8 We may ask, then, how this man, who, as Walter Lippmann’s New York World observed, retired “as Chief Justice with the enduring af­ fection of his countrymen,” with a “career” that “has no equal in our history,”9 could have slipped so rapidly into such deep professional oblivion. The short answer, I think, may be found in Time magazine’s pithy assessment of The administrative responsibilities of the chiefjusticeship became apparent to William H. Taft quickly after taking the oath of office on July 12. Two weeks after being sworn in, Taft learned that Deputy Clerk Henry McKenney had passed away, leaving no one authorized to issue official papers because the Clerk of Court, James D. Maher (pictured), had died on June 3. Told it was unneccessary to consult with the Associate Justices on summer recess, Taft unilaterally decided to appoint Assistant Clerk William R. Stansbury to fill the position. Taft’s resignation: “Outstanding decisions: none.”10 It is not, ofcourse, that Taft wrote few opin­ ions. Indeed, from October 1921 through July 1929, Taft authored 249 opinions forthe Court. The prodigious nature ofthis accomplishment can be seen by contrasting Taft’s output with that ofthe four other Justices who served con­ tinuously during those eight Terms: Holmes wrote 205 opinions forthe Court, Brandeis 193, McReynolds 172, and Van Devanter only 94.11 It is rather that Taft’s opinions were, as Holmes put it, “rather spongy.”12 Although Taft authored a good many opinions that were, within the context of his time, quite impor­ tant, his writing was...

Court Exceeds Jurisdiction in Updating Decree

In 1902, 27 water rights were decreed in Carlton Creek, Montana, specifying the owners' names, the flow rate, the priority date, and, in some instances, the ditch used to convey the water. The 1902 decree was fragile‐the paper was brittle, the ink was faded, and the pages were tattered. The decree had been folded for 94 years; opening and using it would risk more damage. In January 1989, several judges authorized an updated decree to supersede all prior documents and ordered the court clerk to put the old decree in archives. The updated decree was entered in April 1989. Tim Lien and Katherine Jones, husband and wife, bought their property and water rights in the Carlton tracts in 1986. They were not notified about the order authorizing an updated decree. They sought unsuccessfully to have it set aside. The appellate court noted that the updated decree, although not specifically directing that the 1902 decreed rights be readjudicated, was a de facto adjudication of water rights. The court pointed out that the order decreed the ownership, priority dates, flow rate, place of use, and means of diversion of the owners' rights. Thus, the court said the district court had exceeded its jurisdiction, which in those instances is limited to the Water Court. The district court decree was reversed, and the updated decree was set aside.

Implementation of Office Automation and Its Effects on Job Characteristics and Strain in a District Court

Using a longitudinal case study design, the implementation of office automation was examined at a district court office during a 4-year period. The aims of the study were to examine the effects of the implementation of office automation on perceived job characteristics and on the personnel's short-term mental strain, long-term mental strain, and job satisfaction. All occupational groups at the district court, that is, the office workers, the judges, and the court clerks, participated in the study. After the implementation, the office workers perceived their job as slightly more interesting than before the implementation. After the implementation, their short-term mental strain was slightly lower than before it. However, this effect seemed to diminish in the long run. On the other hand, a slight increase in the office workers' long-term strain was found. Moreover, the judges' job characteristics changed slightly. Using a longitudinal research design, the development of job stress among the personnel at the district court could be followed up, and the changes in job stress could be compared according to the phases of the implementation of office automation.

Use of Driver and Criminal Records for Judges and Prosecutors

A model court records system designed to meet the needs of judges and prosecutors in adjudicating traffic offenses was compared with existing records systems in state and local jurisdictions throughout the United States. The model system incorporates data requirements at each of four phases (enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and records management) as well as functional descriptions of how the system should operate to provide information in a usable manner to judges and prosecutors. Comparisons of the model system and existing systems were solicited from enforcement agencies, prosecutors’ offices, judges and court clerks, and managers of court and driver history records systems in every state. Results indicate that the majority of the data requirements of judges and prosecutors currently are met through manual systems that fail to provide easy, timely access to information. Further, the results indicate that agencies that generate or store the data have an incomplete understanding of judges’ and prosecutors’ needs. A plan is provided that outlines a sequence of actions that can be taken at the national level to improve court records systems’ ability to meet the information needs of judges and prosecutors adjudicating traffic cases.

Clerking at the Supreme Court of Canada

This article takes an in-depth look at the law clerks and the role they play at the Supreme Court of Canada. Such an examination both informs prospective clerks on the nature of the position and promotes a better general understanding of how the judicial process operates at this level. The authors begin their analysis by looking at the history of the law clerks at the Supreme Court. Although the functions of the clerks have changed little since their introduction in 1968, the clerkship program has evolved with a changing Supreme Court, contributing to the institutions "coming of age." The authors then shift their attention to examining the present clerkship program. The article first reveals the manner in which the clerks are selected by the Court. Using data collected by a questionnaire sent to clerks of the 1991-93 terms, the authors also attempt to convey, in a general way, some sense of the people who have served at the Court in recent years. Next, the major functions performed by the clerks are described. While the clerks do have a great deal of responsibility, the authors dispel much of the criticism directed at United States Supreme Court clerks by stating that the law clerks at the Supreme Court of Canada do not have an improper degree of authority. The authors conclude that the clerking experience benefits both the clerks themselves and the procedures of the Court. As such, the law clerks are an entrenched and indispensable part of the judicial process at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court and Impartial Justice: The View from the 1790s

The Supreme Court and Impartial Justice: The View from the 1790s Robert P. Frankel, Jr.1 The very first case to be placed on the Su­ preme Court docket, Van Staphorstv. Maryland, centered on the disputed terms ofa loan that two Sarah Livingston Jay’s (above) sister Catharine desper­ ately appealed to Chief Justice John Jay to appoint her husband, Matthew Ridley, Supreme Court clerk to ease their financialsituation and allowthemtolive closerto her family. Dutchbankers had madetothe state ofMaryland during the American Revolution. Chief Justice JohnJaywasfamiliarwiththe controversy, to say the least. Five years earlier he had represented the state as an arbitrator inan abortive attempt to bring about a settlement. Just as important, Jay had been a friend of the embattled Baltimore merchant who negotiated the loan with the van Staphorsts, the lateMatthewRidley, and overthe years the two men had discussed the loan. Fur­ thermore,in 1787,whenRidleymarriedCatharine Livingston, sister of Sarah Livingston Jay, he became Jay’s brother-in-law. Just after Jay’s ap­ pointment as Chief Justice and before Ridley’s untimely death, Catharine desperately appealed to Jay to appoint her husband as Supreme Court clerk. Despite ChiefJustice Jay’s intimate associa­ tion with Ridley and the van Staphorst dispute, he presided over the Court on February 8, 1791, the day that Maryland’s colorful attorney gen­ eral, Luther Martin, appeared to respond to the summons. Although the case was settled out of court before the Justices heard any arguments, there is no indication that Jay was planning to recuse himself.2 As Jay’s behavior in Van Staphorst illus­ trates, the conduct of the Justices during the Supreme Court’s first ten years raises questions regardingtheir impartiality, or at least, potential 104 JOURNAL 1994 threats to their impartiality. The issue can be broken down into two broad, but overlapping, categories. First, the Justices engaged in certain extrajudicial activities that posed a possible con­ flict with the Justices’ duties on the bench. Most notably, Chief Justices John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth both sailed to Europe to undertake majordiplomaticmissionswhileremainingmem­ bers ofthe Court. Second, as revealed inthe Van Staphorst example, the Justices often failed to disqualify themselves in cases with which they possessed some personal association. Yet, despite the fashion in which Justices of the Supreme Courtapproachedtheirduties inthe 1790s, it would be a mistake to conclude that no one recognizedthe problem ofbias. By no means did an “anything goes” mentality prevail. Con­ gress legislated ethical guidelines onlyfor lower federal courtjudges,butthere is evidencethatthe Justices were sensitive enough to the issue of impartialitythat—at certain times and in certain instances—they voluntarily checked their own behavior. The most important example of such restraint is that the Justices were generally dili­ gent about recusing themselves when they con­ fronted a case that they had argued, or heard, in another forum. Furthermore, when it appeared that a Justice might be compromising himself, voices were raised in protest. Individual mem­ bers of Congress and newspaper columnists— principally from the Jeffersonian opposition— didmakesomeattemptto scrutinizethemembers ofthe Court. Of course, the conduct of the Justices must also be viewed in the context of the prevailing legal canons ofthe 1790s. Many ofthe practices ofthebar duringthe Court’sfirst decade canraise eyebrows when perceived according to modem ethical standards but were considered perfectly acceptable at the time. For example, it was not unheard offor a lawyercasuallyto switchsidesin a case. When Oswaldv. New Yorkwasbefore the Supreme Courtintheearly 1790s, Jared Ingersoll, one ofthe mostprominent members ofthe Phila­ delphia bar, first represented the plaintiff and then the defendant.3 Furthermore, the attorneys general ofthe United States in the Washington and Adams administrations routinely arguedbe­ fore the Supreme Court not as advocates for the nation but in a purely private capacity. Edmund Randolph of Virginia, the first attorney general, Edmund Randolph served as the first Attorney General and the second Secretary of State in President George Washington’s cabinet. While Attorney General, he argued Chisholm v. Georgia as a private attorney. represented the plaintiff in the decade’s most consequential case, Chisholm v. Georgia.* And not until 1799 were the United States attorneys accorded even the most modest of salaries to supplement the fees and allowances that accrued to them in performing their...

Investigating persuasive processes in legal discourse in real time: Cognitive biases and rhetorical strategy in appeal court briefs

This article reports findings from an exploratory think‐aloud protocol study of reading, writing, and persuasive processes in legal discourse during an actual state appellate court case. A special goal of the study is to examine the methodological feasibility of “matching” advocates’ think‐aloud protocol segments while composing their briefs with the precisely corresponding think‐aloud protocol segments of court readers during their subsequent process of evaluation and decision. Drawing upon these matched writer‐reader protocols as well as textual data, the study discusses three aspects of advocates’ use of persuasive techniques in written appeal briefs: (1) how cognitive biases may develop in appellate brief writers, (2) how these biases may affect their generation and strategic assessment of persuasive techniques, and (3) how court experts (appellate court clerks) may react to these techniques upon initial and subsequent encounters. The persuasive techniques focused on are (1) explicit refutations combi...

Management Note: Cutback Management Revisited: A Statistical Approach to Determining Workload Measures in Clerks’ Offices

This note introduces a research design that may serve as both a management and a political tool for agencies to justify resources by quantifiable means and to enhance departmental performance. The Maryland judiciary, faced with the financial constraints inflicted by the economic recession, examined a statistical approach to certify clerical staffing levels. The methodology uses inclusive data collection, weighted caseloads, linear projections, and full-time equivalent measures for employees. With this design, the Maryland judiciary can justify and maximize the allocation of its clerical resources by valid and reliable analytical means. Furthermore, this methodology diagnoses areas of inefficiency, which can be addressed specifically with procedural alterations and staffing adjust ments. Maryland, like most other states, remains in the throes of an economic recession that has resulted in Draconian restraints on government spending. The permanent down-sizing of government has become a new concept in public policy, and the Maryland judiciary has not been spared from the effects of this budgetary storm. To cope with these economic pressures, a quantitative means to distribute shrinking resources equitably among multioperational circuit court clerks' offices statewide has been developed.

The Uprooted or 'Worlds in Motion': East Anglian founders of New England 1629-1640

The Uprooted or *Worlds in Motion': East Anglian founders of New England 1629-1640 During the seventeenth century somewhere between a third and a half of a million people left Britain and settled overseas. The bulk of these emigrants went to Ireland, the West Indies and North America. In the long run, this amazing diaspora of English-speaking people must rank alongside the domestic political, social and economic developments within the realm as a crucial, though often neglected, event in early-modern English history.1 This essay is concerned with the contribution of one English region, the Greater East Anglian counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire (the heartland of the Parliamentary Eastern Association of the 1640s) to one aspect of the British diaspora, the justly named 'Great Migration' to N e w England during the 1630s. This decade saw a rising surge of up to 20,000 men, women and children pouring across the North Atlantic and settling towns in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, N e w Hampshire and Maine. N o other colonial plantation could match such a powerful initial current of emigration. In 1640 the tide stopped abrupUy, never to regain its previous flood. This was in marked contrast to the steady flow of British emigration throughout the century to such colonies as Virginia. Yet such was the social cohesion of most of these N e w England settlements, that their 1700 population, largely replenished by later immigrants, equalled or even outstripped that of Virginia, founded a generation earlier.2 1 M y interest in this topic arose from research in the court records of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, for the latter half of the seventeenth century. The clerk and later magistrate of the county court from 1649 to 1699 was Thomas Danforth of Cambridge, M A . H e had emigrated from Framlingham in eastern Suffolk in 1635 with his father Nicholas Danforth and five siblings, as a devoted follower of Rev. Thomas Shepard, a sufferer from the Laudian persecution of puritan ministers. Investigation of the Danforth family in England revealed that the family home, N e w Street Farm, still survives and that from its chamber windows can be seen the village of Saxtead where Thomas's mother (who died in 1629) had been born and raised. The Danforth family, on the evidence of 1 H. A. Gemery, 'Emigration from the British Isles to the New World', Research in Economic History 5 (1980), 179-231. 2 R . Archer, 'New England Mosaic', William and Mary Quarterly (WMQ) 47 (1990), 477-502. P A R E R G O N ns 11.2, December 1993 2 R. Thompson probate and local records had been resident in the Framlingham neighbourhood since before 1512, and they left behind in the area a tangled web of kinsfolk. This evidence of ancestral longevity in one neighbourhood and of persistent local intermarriage conflicted with the picture of English society that American colonial historians were painting. The opening chapter of Bernard Bailyn's Peopling of British North America, entitled 'Worlds in Motion', typified this portrait. It described early modern Englishmen as restlessly mobile from place to place and suggested that the move across the Atlantic was 'nothing extraordinary' given emigrants' prior rootlessness. Recently Jack Greene depicted the average English parish as a place through which people flowed. This view of N e w Englanders' antecedents has been widely accepted.4 In trying to check on the typicality or atypicality of the Danforth family history, I quickly discovered that little large-scale, systematic research had been done on the English backgrounds and roots of emigrants to N e w England.5 I therefore decided to undertake an inquiry into the personal and ancestral histories of as many members of the Great Migration contingent from the eastern counties as I could find. I set myself three questions: (i) H o w geographically mobile or stable were the prior personal experiences of the emigrants? (ii) H o w long or short a time had their families been settled before emigration in their neighbourhoods (defined as an area ten miles in radius, a small cluster of parishes)? (iii) How, once transported across the Atlantic, did these new arrivals...

Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness among Working-Class Americans.

Ordinary Americans often bring family and neighborhood problems to court, seeking justice or revenge. The litigants in these local squabbles encounter law at its boundaries in the corridors of busy city courthouses, in the offices of court clerks, and in the church parlors used by mediation programs. Justice and Getting Even concerns the legal consciousness of working class Americans and their experiences with court and mediation. Following cases into and through the courts, Sally Engle Merry provides an ethnographic study of local law and of the people who use it in a New England city. The litigants, primarily white, native-born, and working class, go to court because as part of mainstream America they feel entitled to use its legal system. Although neither powerful nor highly educated, they expect the law's support when they face intolerable infringements of their rights, privacy, and safety. Yet as personal problems enter the legal system and move through mediation sessions, clerk's hearings, and prosecutor's conferences, the citizen plaintiff rapidly loses control of the process. Court officials and mediators interpret and characterize the meaning of these experiences, reframing and categorizing them in different discourses. Some plaintiffs yield to these interpretations, but others resist, struggling to assert their own version of the problem. Ultimately, Merry exposes the paradox of legal entitlement. While going to court allows an individual to dominate domestic relationships, the litigant must increasingly yield control of the situation to the court that supplies that power.

Making Law at The Doorway: The Clerk, the Court, and The Construction of Community in a New England Town

This paper analyzes the politics of disputing in complaint hearings held by the court clerk in a district criminal court in Massachusetts. By examining struggles over the meaning of local conflicts, it suggests the implications of detailed studies of dispute processing for our understanding of how systems of legal and social meanings are constituted and reproduced. The paper argues that the work of the court, the roles played by court officials, and the meaning of law and of community at particular moments in time are shaped in the interaction of court staff with local citizens. At the same time, it argues that these interactions are constrained by culturally and historically embedded relations of class, ethnicity, and power. Thus the paper suggests how the practice of complaint hearings both reproduces and transforms systemic inequalities and oppositions, and points to the importance of interactive rather than dichotomizing approaches for studying the interconnection and interpenetration of law with society.

Ideas: Making Masks for Role-Playing

To conform to the current emphasis on communication activities, include role-playing situations in your lessons frequently. A good solution for overcoming some students' reluctance to speak is to let them hide behind a mask. The voice is not muffled when the mask is held two or three inches in front of the face, rather than covering the face closely, as most masks do. The materials for making the disguises cost virtually nothing, and take very little time and artistic ability to create. They can be made at home or in school by the students, and since they are flat, take up very little storage space. The teacher might suggest the characters, so that they can be used for specific lessons. They then serve to spark a review of vocabulary and structures learned. Another use is for generating extemporaneous conversation: hand out masks to two or more students and ask them to assume the roles of the characters suggested. This can also be a paired or group activity, once you collect enough masks simple if you have each student make oneso that all get the opportunity to speak. These disguises offer a way of presenting career activities in an interesting fashion. After teaching the necessary vocabulary, outline a scenario that your students can act out, using masks depicting the various characters. Some situations allowing for many roles are: * a hospital emergency room, where patients are arriving with a variety of ailments and being sent for x-rays, electrocardiograms, blood tests, etc. to departments of radiology, orthopedics, cardiology, and gastroenterology. * a hotel with guests registering, asking for sightseeing information, changing travelers' checks, registering various complaints, inquiring about hotel facilities such as swimming pool, restaurant, and shops. * a mock trial of an alleged murder, with judge, jury, prosecuting attorney, defense counsel, court clerk, witnesses and unruly spectators. Below are the basic directions for creating the role-playing masks. 1. Pull an ordinary wire hanger into an oval shape, leaving the hook at the bottom to serve as a handle. For a plump character, round out the lower half of the oval. 2. Stretch a sheer stocking or one leg of a pair of pantyhose over the hanger. Different shades of hose will give you a variety of skin tones. Fasten at the top by tying a knot below the foot of the stocking, cut off most of the foot, and fasten the cut end to the back of the soon-to-be mask, either with glue or a few stitches. Secure the bottom of the stocking at the neck (just above the handle) with a rubber band, and later cover the rubber band with a ribbon, scarf, necklace, bow tie, four in hand tie or just the knot of a tie to suit the character. These may be real or made of crepe paper, aluminum foil, or construction paper. 3. Draw features with felt pens in appropriate colors. 4. Cut out hair, beard, and/or mustache from construction paper, crepe paper or aluminum foil. The Christmas season is a good time to find the latter in gold and red to simulate hair in those colors. Shape, fringe, crush or curl whichever you choose, to simulate the type of hair you want, and then paste it onto the rim of the mask.

Perceptions of jury duty: Satisfaction and overall impression

A jury service exit questionnaire that was designed to measure satisfaction with and overall impression of jury duty was administered to a saturation sample of 2,947 respondents by court clerks serving District or Circuit courts in nine counties in southeastern Michigan. For those sworn to jury duty, global satisfaction with the jury experience is found to be influenced by perceptions of trial characteristics and by the extent of participation in the jury system. The significant predictors of overall impression with the jury system are respondent age, being elected jury foreman, and deliberating a criminal rather than civil case.

Court clerks, court administrators, and judges: Conflict in managing the courts

This article presents the results of a survey conducted in conjunction with the National Association for Court Administration (NACA), the National Association of Trial Court Administrators (NATCA), and the National Center for State Courts. A questionnaire designed to gauge role perceptions of court managers was sent to 410 NACA members and 321 NATCA members. One of the key elements of the survey is the issue of conflict — specifically, the types and sources of conflict encountered by court managers in the performance of their jobs. Over half (55.7 percent) of those surveyed responded, and most indicated one or more sources of conflict in managing their courts. Much has been written in the court administration literature about conflict, or the potential for conflict, in conducting court business. The results of this survey provide empirical evidence on the conflicts most frequently encountered in court management, including case-flow management problems, personnel matters, financial issues, policy and planning issues, and communication problems.

Subculture of Deputy Court Clerks: Implications for Access and Reform

Subculture of Deputy Court Clerks: Implications for Access and Reform

The involvement of judicial officials other than judges in decision making in involuntary civil commitment.

In nine states, judicial personnel other than judges authorize involuntary hospitalization; the author studied the system in North Carolina by soliciting responses from all magistrates, clerks of court, and clinicians in one state hospital's 16-county catchment area. Magistrates and clerks vary widely in education, experience, knowledge of commitment, and actual practices. Clinicians were dissatisfied with the actions of magistrates; and many magistrates were dissatisfied with clinical input, although most magistrates would prefer such input prior to issuing custody orders. Magistrates would like more information, both clinical and legal, about commitment. The present system calls upon magistrates to make major decisions with insufficient knowledge and experience in mental health; initial hospitalization decisions would better be left with clinicians, as they are in many other states.

Applying Organization and Management Theory to the Selection of Lower Court Personnel

While the management of court systems at the state level is a topic of emerging contemporary interest, management at the local level has been substantially neglected. In particular, only nominal attention has been paid to the process by which those vested with actual management authority are selected: chief judges, trial court administrators, and court clerks. The present undertaking represents an initial attempt to fill the void. After reviewing the classical and human relations approaches on how to manage organizations, the authors juxtapose these models on the selection of lower court managerial personnel. Numerous inadequacies are discovered. The authors conclude that each model, taken alone, is insufficient to guide the selection process. Therefore they distill the strengths of the two approaches and construct eclectic alternatives for selecting each group of personnel. The plans generated contemplate both a degree of centralization and a degree of decentralization in the selection process. The authors envision substantive assistance and guidance by state-level officials, including members of the supreme court and the state court administrator. Simultaneously they advance the importance of colleague and subordinate participation in the process. For example, they suggest that both chief judges and trial court administrators be chosen locally, but with the supervision and approval of the supreme court. The authors also treat the sensitive and highly emotional topic of how court clerks should be selected. Acknowledging a trend toward appointment of these officials, they opt for an electoral plan in the face of political reality. They do, however, admonish that stringent qualifications be established for those seeking the office. Although the three alternatives are somewhat unorthodox relative to those adopted by business and industry, they are designed to maximize the quality of managerial personnel within existing constraints of the judicial system.