Utah Bar Journal

Many other states have judicial councils. Some are advisory; others, like ours, are directly responsible for operations. In Utah, the chief justice is the presiding officer of the Judicial Council, but the Council as a group, through its rulemaking responsibility, heads the Judicial Department and is responsible for its administration. The National Center for State Courts reports that we are unique in that regard. In all other states, the court of last resort or the chief justice individually heads the judiciary.1

Our system has evolved over the years, but we did not arrive at our current position by accident. In 1972, the Legislature, with participation from the courts and the Bar, studied court management to arrive at recommendations that would serve as an action plan for the next 30 years, perhaps beyond.2 Working within the constraints of the original Judicial Article of the Utah Constitution, the report envisioned a Judicial Council, an administrative office, uniform rules of administration and procedure, a revised Judicial Article, a revised judicial code, uniform funding, and a court structure even more highly unified than the one that eventually developed. Despite being supported by many prominent lawyers and legislators at the time, those initial efforts at systemic court management failed.3 But perseverance has paid off; we now enjoy a system that bears a striking resemblance to the 1972 recommendations. We hope that today we have the same foresight demonstrated by those upon whose work we build.

Public Trust
Article VIII of the Utah Constitution creates the Judicial Department, or branch, of government. After only modest amendments since statehood, the Legislature re-wrote the entire article in 1985. In doing so the Legislature and the public reposed in the judiciary an extraordinary degree of trust to govern itself. All of us in the Judicial Department - judges, clerks, probation officers, administrators, and others - must repeatedly earn that trust by exercising sound judgment.

Article VIII, Section 12 creates the Judicial Council and vests in it the final authority to make rules administering the courts. Whereas the revised Judicial Article reserves to the Legislature the authority to amend rules of evidence and procedure adopted by the Supreme Court, there is no comparable authority to amend the Judicial Council's rules of administration. The traditional balance of powers between the three branches of government remains, and the Judicial Council governs the judiciary within that framework.

Office of the Guardian ad Litem
Over the years the Legislature has endorsed that earlier vote of confidence by entrusting to the Judicial Department the responsibility to manage programs that might have been supervised by others.

The Office of the Guardian ad Litem represents children caught up in the physical and emotional trauma of child abuse and neglect. The GAL lawyer is the child's representative, advisor, counselor, and voice in the courtroom. In 1996, the Legislature assigned to the Judicial Council responsibility to oversee that office.

The Council sees its role as fiduciary representative of the GAL rather than as supervisor. Just as the GAL is not aligned with the Division of Child and Family Services or the parents, neither is the GAL aligned with the court. The guardian ad litem independently represents the best interests of the child. The Administrative Office of the Courts supports the GAL with human resource services, information technology services, facilities, and other direct administrative services that an office as small as the GAL cannot provide on its own. But the Council maintains significant separation from policy and litigation operations. We have put in place a standing committee of community representatives, selected from public and private nonprofit organizations, to develop policies that ensure compliance with the law and the independent representation of children. The GAL has its own budget, separate from that of the Judicial Department, so that the Legislature, not the court, determines the amount of funding. We ensure physical separation of the local GAL attorneys from judges and court staff. If children are indeed our most important resource, then they deserve the best possible representatives when their safety is being balanced with the integrity of their family.

Public Evaluation of Judges
The revised Judicial Article provides for the unopposed retention election of judges, largely removing from judicial elections the taint of campaign contributions. During a period when hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars are being spent on judicial campaigns in other states, Utah's former Chief Justice Richard C. Howe was able to report to the Conference of Chief Justices several years ago that he had to spend only $50 for his re-election - the amount of the filing fee.

One of the first programs delegated to the Judicial Council after passage of the revised Judicial Article concerned shared responsibility for the public evaluation of judges, so that voters could responsibly decide whether to retain a judge. The Legislature designed the overarching policies for judicial performance evaluation and charged the Council with responsibility for the details.

In addition to measures for timeliness, continuing education and compliance with the Code of Judicial Conduct, the judicial performance evaluation program relies heavily on the opinions of lawyers - and in the district court, jurors - who appear in court. Lawyers and jurors are the public's eyes and ears in the courtroom. If lawyers collectively are of the opinion that a judge does not properly apply the rules of evidence, the public should know that. If jurors believe that a judge is not fair to both parties, again, the public should know that. Lawyers and jurors answer these and many other questions on behalf of the public.

Single Line Item Budget
As important as anything else in our history has been the Legislature's trust in the Judicial Department to handle its budget as a single line item. Line items are important because the Executive and Judicial Departments cannot move money from one to another. While courts in other states have had to attempt to direct legislatures by court order how to appropriate money, the Utah Legislature has been generous to the judiciary, both with the appropriation itself and the flexibility to manage the appropriation. For our part, we limit our budget requests to only the courts' most critical needs through a public process open to representatives of the executive and legislative budget offices. Developing our spending plan is also a very open process, conducted in Council meetings attended by executive and legislative budget officers. We believe that responsible government means revealing to the public and to the rest of government the fiscal state of the Judicial Department. That accountability has served us well.

Unified Court System
The highly coherent system in which we operate should not be taken for granted. The Juvenile Court has long enjoyed the benefits of a structure in which the state, rather than individual local governments, is responsible for funding and administration. The Legislature unified District Court operations in 1988. The Utah judiciary is now able to operate as a single entity, rather than as multiple county-level courts. The Justice Courts remain locally funded and locally operated, but, even here, the Judicial Council's uniform administrative policies govern hiring, performance standards, and other important aspects of court operations.

Statewide policies have many advantages, but one deserves special mention: our efforts with statewide electronic case management systems. Utah is well into its second-generation case management systems for District Court and the Appellate Courts and has just implemented its second-generation system for the Juvenile Court. These systems do much more than just keep statistics. These are the systems by which we manage our cases, from scheduling a court interpreter to tracking case progress to issuing a court order. By pooling the resources that would have otherwise gone to 29 county IT departments charged with serving everything from the county commission to the department of public works, the courts have been able to automate not just record keeping, but many parts of our record processing. We are well positioned for our work with the Bar on electronic filing.

Organization
A surgeon does not enter the operating room without supporting staff; neither does a judge enter the courtroom without extensive support. The Judicial Council, through its boards and committees and the administrative office of the courts, bears ultimate responsibility for the policies Ð and by extension the daily operations - by which the courts deliver timely justice.

Every level of court - district, juvenile, justice and appellate - has a board of judges. Through these boards, the Judicial Department is able to increase participation in its own governance by involving judges in leadership positions. Even before the Judicial Council decides the budget priorities for the Judicial Department, each board considers the budget requests of the local courts, balances the competing needs, and assesses the top priorities for that court level. The boards research and propose policies for their respective level of court. They consider a policy's impact, and are instrumental in implementing policies once they are adopted. With the direct involvement of judges through the boards, the Judicial Council is much better able to consider, decide and implement court policies.

In addition to the boards of judges, the Judicial Council has a variety of standing committees to help with particular aspects of court work. The Guardian ad Litem Oversight Committee has already been mentioned. The Council also has a committee to research the policies and procedures for judicial performance evaluations, and committees on technology, uniform fine and bail schedules, judicial ethics, justice court standards, judicial education, facility standards, family law, judicial outreach, self-represented parties, interpreters, and mediation.

The committees offer judges throughout the state opportunities to be involved in governing the courts. More important, the committees offer the public and other government officials an opportunity to be involved. Thirty-five percent of all committee memberships are held by people outside the judiciary. Some of these are legislators, representatives of the executive branch, or city or county officials; some are lawyers, and many are citizens motivated enough to volunteer their time and experience to help the Judicial Council establish sound policies. The number of non-judicial representatives varies depending on the nature of the committee and its role. The Technology Committee, which primarily affects internal operating decisions, has one lawyer recommended by the Board of Bar Commissioners. In contrast, the Guardian ad Litem Oversight Committee has seven members, all drawn from outside the judiciary.

The Administrative Office of the Courts is the Judicial Council's administrative arm. The AOC staff keeps the courts moving forward and running smoothly. In addition to staffing the boards and committees just mentioned, the AOC staffs many of the Supreme Court's advisory committees, represents the Judicial Council and the courts before the Legislature and with the executive branch, provides research on policies that the Council and its boards and committees consider, and performs the complex, day-to-day work that keeps an organization going: budgeting; accounting, human resources, technology, education, public information, and many other tasks. The support of knowledgeable and competent court administrators is essential to the running of Utah's courts.

Conclusion
Utah is fortunate to have a Judicial Council form of governance for the judicial branch, but the Council itself is only the tip of the iceberg. No group of 14 people could organize and operate an entity as complex as the judicial branch of government without substantial advice and help. The boards of judges, the Council committees - with attorney and citizen members - and the AOC serve this critical role to support the Council's leadership. Through the broad vision and attention to detail of the Council and all of its supporting cast, we in the judiciary work daily to deserve the trust placed in our hands.

1. State Courts Organization 1998. National Center for State Courts. Page 73.

2. Utah Courts Tomorrow: Report and Recommendations of the Unified Court Advisory Committee. Utah Legislative Council, September 1972.
3. A History of the Utah Judicial Council 1973 - 1997, May, Cheryll L., page 6., 1998.