Best Practices Institute

About the Institute

The Best Practices Institute identifies and promotes practices that enhance the effective administration of justice. The Institute was created at the direction of the Boards of the Conference of Chief Justices, the Conference of State Court Administrators, and the National Center for State Courts following the 1999 National Conference on Public Trust and Confidence in the Justice System.  During the Conference, participants repeatedly voiced the need for a national effort to identify and champion best practices from across the country as part of a broad strategy to improve court performance and better serve the public. 

The Institute was inaugurated in the fall of 2000.  Its work is guided by an Advisory Board of chief justices, state court administrators, a court manager, a presiding judge, and a legal scholar.  The intent of the Institute is to provide a central resource to which the 50 state court systems and 16,000 state trial courts can turn to obtain the field’s best thinking across the spectrum of judicial administration. 

Current Advisory Board Members

Honorable Steve Leben
Johnson County District Court, Division 8, Kansas

Pamela Q. Harris
Court Administrator, Montgomery County Circuit Court
Maryland

Michael J. Saks, Ph.D.
Professor, College of Law, Arizona State University

Howard P. Schwartz
Judicial Administrator
Kansas

The Presidents of the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators serve ex officio 

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What Are Best Practices

Best practices emerge from a process that involves innovation, documentation, evaluation, modification, and reevaluation. The process of identifying best practices is ongoing, and “best” likely will change or be modified as additional information is learned. “Best” depends on the extent of the field’s knowledge and experience in a particular substantive area at any given time. The Institute assumes that there may be several best practices to reach a desired end and does not adhere to a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

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BPI Information Sources

The Institute provides information on best practices from four sources:

• Literature searches. Staff searches several on-line databases using key words such as best practices, promising practices, and model programs to identify best practices references by subject areas. Documents that are available electronically or through the NCSC’s library are reviewed, and only those that discuss specific practices are included in the resulting reference list.

• NCSC summaries. Staff prepares “practice summaries” in areas of judicial administration that have been the subject of research and evaluation. These syntheses of existing information offer a quick overview of the history and implementation of a practice, evaluation information currently available, and key contacts and references for obtaining additional information.

• Expert opinion. In some areas of judicial administration, staff relies on the combined knowledge and experiences of experts to help identify best practices. Generally, these are areas in which there is a growing consensus among practitioners on the best ways to proceed, but conclusive empirical information on the effectiveness of practices is not yet available. The practices are identified through an interactive approach in which an expert panel discusses common themes and reviews drafts of practices based on the panel’s discussion.

• Individual jurisdictions.  In emerging areas of judicial administration and more established areas that have been subject to little or no systematic research, the Institute solicits information from courts across the country about practices they have found effective. These field-solicited practices offer a “snap shot” of practices jurisdictions are using to address a specific area and a starting point for other jurisdictions developing or enhancing their own practices in the area. Unless otherwise noted, the Institute does not endorse these practices but provides them as examples of practices other jurisdictions have found effective and useful.

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