This measure addresses the court’s performance in enforcing its own rules and orders. For this measure, one area of court activity—caseflow management—has been selected because some policy on caseflow are predictably found in most trial courts. More specifically, the measure focuses on rules governing continuance of trial settings.

Planning/Preparation. The authority (e.g., rule, order, or administrative memorandum) and substance of the court’s policies should be documented.

Data Collection. Data collection forms will vary depending on specific court policies. For example, some policies will require that a motion for continuance be made in writing and filed no later than a specified number of days prior to the scheduled trial. A data collection method for this kind of rule should involve an examination of sampled case files to determine: (1) whether such a document is found, and (2) whether it was filed in a timely manner. Other rules may simply state that each party may be granted one continuance upon request and that other continuances will be granted only for "good cause shown." In such cases, data collection would involve sampling summary records or case files and counting the number of continuances associated with each.

Data Analysis and Report Preparation. The structure for data analysis will be determined by the type of court policy in effect and the data collection methods used for evaluating whether the policy is followed. For the first example described above, tables could be generated to show the total number of continuances that occurred for the cases sampled and the percentage of cases in which motions were filed as per the policy. For the second example, in which the court policy calls for simple counts of the number of continuances associated with each case, tables could be generated to show the percentage of all cases that had specific numbers of continuances.