Overview of Standards. The intent of the first two standards is to bring the administration of justice into the open and to make it accessible. Standard 1.1 requires the trial court to conduct its business openly. To ensure that all persons with legitimate business before the court have access to its proceedings, Standard 1.2 requires the trial court to make its facilities safe, accessible, and convenient to use. Accessibility is required not only for those who are guided by an attorney but also for all litigants, jurors, victims, witnesses, and relatives of litigants. Access to trial courts is also required for many other individuals—for example, beneficiaries of decedents in probate matters, parents and guardians in juvenile cases, persons seeking information from public records held by the court, employees of agencies that regularly do business with the courts (e.g., investigators, mental health professionals, sheriff’s deputies, and marshals), and the public.

Because a trial court may be accessible to most and still hinder access to some, Standard 1.3 requires the court to provide opportunities for the effective participation of all who appear before the court, including persons with linguistic difficulties and handicaps. To promote access to justice and to enhance citizen confidence and trust in the court, Standard 1.4 urges that all court personnel accord respect, courtesy, and dignity to all with whom they come into contact.

Standard 1.5 recognizes that there are financial and procedural barriers to access to justice. It requires that the fees imposed and procedures established by the court be fair and reasonable. Recognizing the importance of the relationship between public records and access to justice, the standard also requires that public records be preserved and made available at a reasonable cost.

Overview of Measures. Twenty-one measures are associated with the five Access to Justice standards. Taken together these measures provide both breadth and depth of measurement of a court’s performance in offering the public access to justice. Data obtained from the measure of one standard are often relevant to assessment of performance for another standard. This is especially true of Standards 1.3 and 1.5. Standard 1.3 requires that all who appear before the court be able to participate effectively, and Standard 1.5 calls for affordable costs of access to court proceedings. Effective representation by counsel is an important implicit factor for effective participation in court proceedings. Unfortunately, the cost of legal services makes access to justice impossible for many people. Thus, measurement for Standard 1.5 requires the collection of data that are relevant for this implicit requirement of Standard 1.3.

The measures in this performance area rely on a variety of data collection methods: surveys, observations (in some measures combined with simulation), interviews, and reviews of court records and documents. Three measures call for administering surveys to individuals who are "regular users of the courthouse." The information sought from these people relates to safety and security, ease of doing business, and the courtesy and respect they experience in the courthouse. Although each survey measure is described separately in relation to a particular standard, it may be easier and less time consuming to combine the questions for each measure into one questionnaire and survey regular users once rather than three times.

The method described most often for measuring access to justice is observation (sometimes combined with simulation). Observers systematically record what they see and hear. This structured information can then be examined quantitatively as well as qualitatively. These "see, hear, and record" measures range from concrete and objective (Was an observer able to gain entrance to a courtroom?) to subjective (Did activity taking place in a courtroom detract from the dignity of the proceedings?). There are 12 measures of this type. Although the observations could be carried out by almost anyone, the recommended approach is to use citizen volunteers who are relatively naive to the legal system and who are unfamiliar with the facilities and "customs" of the courthouse. This results in records of experiences that resemble those of ordinary citizens who have infrequent occasion to do business with the court. Furthermore, the observers chosen optimally should be representative of the jurisdictional community of the court. Representativeness is more important for some measures than others. However, because the same individuals could be asked to obtain data for all the observation measures, it may be helpful to recruit one pool of observers who vary on demographic factors. Observers may be recruited by contacting volunteer organizations, universities, senior citizen groups, and so forth.

This "volunteer observer" method has other advantages, notably its relative low cost. The court must invest staff time to recruit volunteers, orient them to their assignments, and evaluate results. Once the recruitment and orientation are completed, however, the observers may be used to collect data for many measures described throughout the measurement process. Because the observers are relatively few in number, they offer the added advantage of being able to provide court staff with additional information during interviews following their structured assignments. A much richer, qualitative analysis results when explanations, descriptions, and suggestions can be elicited from the observers to augment what is provided on written forms, questionnaires, and checklists.

Two other measurement methods rely on data collected through interviews and examination of court records and written policy documents. Some of the measures of this type focus on case data. Measure 1.3.1, regarding effective legal representation of children in child abuse and neglect proceedings, is of this type. In this measure, court case records are examined and those involved in the cases are surveyed and interviewed to document how the guardian ad litem process actually has worked for several selected cases. Other measures focus on administrative documents. For example, Measure 1.5.1 relies on an examination of forms, brochures, and written policies to evaluate court efforts to facilitate affordable access alternatives for individuals with low incomes. Interviews with court staff also are conducted to identify and locate the relevant documents.