Each year
(beginning in 1994) the National
Center for State Courts publishes a report now entitled
"Future Trends in
State Courts." The purpose of this
report is to support the strategic planning efforts in
the court community. Each publication contains several articles
written by NCSC staff and court experts from around the
country. Individual Future
Trends articles published since 2001 that
relate to this topic are listed to below.
| Trends
2011 |
William
C. Vickrey, Nicole Claro-Quinn and Martha
Wright. Courts
and Universities Partner to Improve Access to
Justice for All Californians. The
California Justice Corps Program is a unique
partnership between trial courts and academic
institutions that leverages national service
initiatives, such as Americorps, to expand court
resources, improve service to self-represented
litigants, and provide a unique learning
opportunity for future legal professionals.
|
| Trends
2010 |
Richard
Zorza.
Public
Libraries and Access to Justice. Courts
are working with public libraries to provide
court-related information to self-represented
litigants. The Internet is a key component
of this effort.
|
| Trends
2009 |
Richard
Zorza. Access
to Justice: Economic Crisis Challenges, Impacts,
and Responses. This
article addresses questions posed on how the
economic crisis is impacting the need for access
to justice, the self-represented, the courts,
and programs that respond to the need and what
courts can do to ensure that self-represented
litigants get the help they need.
|
| Trends
2008 |
Katherine
Bladow and Claudia Johnson. Online
Document Assembly. Courts
must serve an increasing number of
self-represented litigants—and deal with the
problems such inexperienced litigants present.
Online document assembly is one way that courts
can make life easier for not only
self-represented litigants, but also court
staff.
Richard
Zorza. New
Curriculum Helps Improve Access for the
Self-Represented. A
judicial curriculum developed by the
Self-Represented Litigation Network is changing
the way judges around the country communicate
with the self-represented. A similar leadership
package provides state and local court leaders
with 15 different solution modules for improving
access for self-represented litigants.
|
| Trends
2007 |
Barbara
L. Fritschel. Trends
in Library Collaboration to Provide Access to
Legal Information. With the
increasing costs of providing legal reference
resources and often limited library budgets,
libraries are collaborating to provide services
to pro se litigants. This article
highlights some collaboration projects across
the country, with noted emphasis on a program in
Minnesota.
Madelynn
Herman. Increasing
Access to Justice for the Self-Represented
Through Web Technologies. Courts'
use of Web technologies to aid self-represented
litigants is evolving and includes
second-generation Web sites geared toward their
specific needs, interactive Web sites, online
document-assembly programs, e-filing and
e-delivery mechanisms, and live-chat
features. In the future, the use of both
RSS feeds to bring up-to-date content and news
to court customers and Wikis to allow justice
organizations to collaborate on
access-to-justice projects will become more
commonplace.
Richard Zorza.
Spreading
and Adopting Best Practices for Court-Based
Programs for the Self-Represented.
This
document briefly outlines the best practices an
individual can take in all phases of court
proceedings. It summarizes these from the
article, “Best Practices in Court-Based
Programs for the Self-Represented: Concepts,
Attributes and Issues for Exploration.”
There is a Web link to the referenced article in
Zorza's article.
|
| Trends
2006 |
Richard
Zorza. Trends
in Self-Represented Litigation Innovation.
This article discusses how
courts are responding to the increasing demands
placed on them by self-represented litigants
with an ever widening variety of services and
innovations. These services are now more
grounded in a detailed understanding of the
demographics and needs of the self-represented.
It is becoming clear that these changes benefit
judges, court staff, attorneys, and both
represented and self-represented litigants and
improve public trust and confidence in the
courts.
Top Ten Trends.
Access
to Justice: The Self-Represented Litigant.
This article discusses how courts are looking
more closely at the number of self-represented
litigants that are appearing in the court
systems and considering systematic changes to
make access more user-friendly for this growing
population.
|
| Trends
2005 |
Tisha
Zelner. Digitization
of Library Collections: The Future Is Now. This
article discusses the trend to digitizing
library documents. It explains the
benefits of digitization, such as less handling
of the original hard copy and 24/7 access to the
materials via the internet. The article
ends with information on the overall frequency
of library digitization at the county, judicial,
and state levels.
|
| Trends
2004 |
Bonnie
Hough. Self-Represented
Litigants in California: Court Programs Helping
Litigants Help Themselves. November 18,
2004. This article describes California's efforts to
meet the needs of self-represented litigants.
William
Downs. Where
We've Been: Pro
Se Information Trends. March 2003.
This article analyzes pro se information requests
received by NCSC from 1995-2003.
Gail Warren.
Reaching
Out to Self-Represented Litigants Through
Virtual Reference and Education. November
15, 2004. This article describes the changing face and
role of the modern public law library, including
its increasing use of online resources and
critical importance to self-represented
litigants in enjoying meaningful access to
justice.
Don Hardenbergh.
Trends
in Courthouse Design. November 16, 2004.
This article focuses on the future of courthouse
design and includes such topics as child care,
public access and accommodation, natural
lighting, and planning for future growth and
expansion.
|
| Trends
2003 |
Madelynn
M. Herman. Limited
Scope Legal Assistance: An Emerging Option for
Pro Se Litigants. December 22, 2003.
This document describes the growth of limited
scope or "unbundled" legal services as
an option for meeting the legal needs of the
community. Such services are presented as an
option between the all or nothing alternatives
that litigants of limited means have faced.
|
| Trends
2001 |
Madelynn
M. Herman. Pro
Se: Customer Service Trends in the Courts.
This article addresses how courts are
becoming more "customer friendly,"
such as providing day care, one-on-one advice,
court-sponsored legal assistance, and access to
the internet.
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| Date
Last Modified: December 15, 2011
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