Benefits of the Guide

 

An indispensable ingredient of effective practice is valid, reliable, and useful information on the nature, scope, and volume of work before the court.  This information is relevant to the request for public resources; the distribution of available judges, staff, and technology; and the assessment of how well courts are doing in fulfilling their functions.  Use of the Guide should increase the court’s understanding of its caseload, answer questions about a court’s workload more quickly and easily, and permit more fruitful communication with other courts.  For example, courts able to distinguish active versus inactive pending cases are in a better position to measure the age of their pending caseload accurately, to determine meaningful case-processing times, and to manage court resources.  Similarly, courts that report their reopened cases can more reliably discuss their actual workload, can more easily track filing trends, and can more readily justify the need for additional resources.

 

Trial and appellate courts vary in size, structure, and procedures, and in social, economic, and legal contexts.  Taking these complex realities into account, the Guide tries to provide a general framework that is adaptable by every court.  Courts are encouraged to use the Guide as a sounding board for improving their current recordkeeping systems.  After courts have had experience in applying the framework, a natural consensus will develop regarding exactly how cases should be defined, recorded, counted, and reported.  Using the State Court Guide to Statistical Reporting is a step in that desired direction.