 Federal Judicial Center Orientation Series for District Judges Court Officers and Support Personnel Resources for the District Judge with the Honorable Barbara B. Crabb Judge Crabb served as the United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Wisconsin from 1971 to 1979 She was appointed as the United States District Judge in 1979 and became Chief Judge in 1980 She is a member of the Judicial Conference and the Executive Committee of the Judicial Council of the 7th Circuit She is a former member of the Judicial Conference Criminal Justice Act Committee the Committee to Study the Judicial Conference and the Committee on Defender Services Let's start with the premise that you want to be an effective administrator of your caseload You don't want litigants to wait for years to have their disputes resolved You don't want to be a problem judge for your court You do want a modest amount of leisure time for yourself and your family Okay, how do you get there? My presentation will focus on resources that can help you achieve these goals We'll look first at some basic management abilities that you can cultivate in yourself Then we'll move on to other people in your court Who are they? How do you take advantage of the full range of their abilities? We'll explore some new technological resources that can make a difference in the efficiency of your courtroom and chambers I'll try to allow for variations in approaches and talk about practices in courts where I've sat as a visiting judge as well as in my own court Within the system, there are hundreds of different ways of operating So some of what I suggest may not be wholly workable for your court However, you shouldn't think that the way your court operates now is the only way a court can operate It's an easy trap to fall into because courts are so isolated and judges are so busy Outmoded practices tend to persist simply because no one questions them One of our primary goals in this orientation seminar is to alert you to new and better procedures for running your court Obviously, this brief discussion can't introduce you to more than a few new ideas You'll pick up many more as you talk with other judges at conferences and seminars Better yet, you'll have a chance to sit in other courts to help out in judicial emergencies If you have such an opportunity, seize it There's no better way to improve the running of your own court than to see another one from the inside Especially in today's world of expanding technologies you have options that weren't available just a short time ago I don't want you to leave the seminar remaining sensitive to your own court's traditions and current practices but open to new ideas and receptive to suggestions for improvements Let's look at abilities that make judges effective managers I've found three basic strengths that make a difference in any court First, it helps if you can make decisions promptly and without undue agonizing I'm not talking here about decisions on major constitutional issues but about those on more mundane matters discovery disputes, motions for continuances, bail requests Second, it helps if you can settle for less than perfection in your work If you're impelled to recreate the Sistine Chapel in every case even when a stick figure drawing might do you'll find it difficult to keep up with your case load Third, it's crucial to keep a good sense of priorities so that you can separate the really urgent matters from the only fairly urgent If you can't do these things none of my suggestions may be very useful to you but don't despair These abilities come more naturally to some people than to others but they can be developed with practice Learning to work with those around you is important in any job but it's particularly so in ours That's because the job of judge is an unusual one On the one hand, the judge is like the producer or director of the show On the other, like the indispensable star of the show In other words, judges do the backstage work and the performing as well We can't delegate the performing, at least not the main events We can't delegate all of the backstage work either but since we can't do everything ourselves we need to delegate as much as possible of what we're permitted to delegate and since there aren't all that many people backstage we have to utilize what few people there are in the most effective way possible I have a personal philosophy that judges should delegate everything they can consistent with the Constitution, federal law and their court's operating procedures Everything that is except those jobs that give them the most personal satisfaction Almost every judge has more work than he or she can possibly do no matter how productive and dedicated the judge You can help to keep your work under control by being constantly alert to the potential of those around you and how their roles can be expanded I believe that courts should try to utilize each person on the court staff to the maximum level of that person's ability and experience whatever his or her job title might be We'll talk about some specifics a little later A corollary of my delegation principle is the idea that we should never stop re-evaluating the way we work We should analyze each of the separate tasks we do and ask whether they can be done more effectively or in less time whether they could be done just as well by someone else or whether they're worth doing at all An important aspect of effective delegation is making sure the people around you aren't wasting their time with unimportant matters If something isn't worth doing, it shouldn't be done even if it can be delegated Now, on to some specific members of your new court team I'll start with the clerk of court Chances are you've already met with the clerk as part of your orientation process and you have some idea of the clerk's job You may have come to realize that the clerk and the clerk's office are the nerve center of the entire court The better the clerk's office works and the better you work with it the better your own work will be The clerk's office doesn't just accept and back at filings and create files It's your biggest ally in the management of your case load The clerk's office is the source of the crucial information you need for maintaining some sense of control over your case load For example, lists of your pending cases in their status lists of all the cases in which motions are pending and calendaring of all your proceedings Most clerk's offices can now provide this information in computerized printouts on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis as you prefer it In many courts, you can obtain the same information yourself from your computer In our court, for instance, I have direct access to the dockets and calendar on a read-only basis The computer on the bench allows me to consult the docket sheet for a case when I'm holding a conference in the case and to consult the calendar when I do scheduling Courts vary greatly in the level of computerization they've achieved If your court is one that is way behind in that area you might want to get involved in the effort Although the administrative office is responsible for developing many computer applications each court must take responsibility for its own computerization efforts The clerk's office also provides you with the staff you need for calendaring, case management, and courtroom work How it does this will vary from one court to another Some courts have case management teams Each team of a few deputies does all the docketing, calendaring, case management, and courtroom deputy work for one or a few judges This approach has definite advantages It means a number of people are familiar with the judge's case load and can perform all of the deputy clerk functions Any one of them can take over if another deputy is sick or on vacation It also means the more boring or routine jobs of docketing and filing can be shared And it means the people doing the docketing are alert to the judge's schedule in the need for expedited treatment of certain filings More commonly, however, the clerk of court provides each judge with a single courtroom deputy or minute clerk This is the judge's case management specialist and liaison with the clerk's office This may be the most effective arrangement in larger courts where good communication between the clerks and judges is hard to achieve Maintaining communications between the clerk's office and chambers can be easier if the judge works with one individual Usually, the courtroom deputy is a deputy clerk who has worked up through the ranks and had quite a bit of experience in the clerk's office But he or she may not have had training or experience yet in managing a case load It may well be up to you to work extensively with your new courtroom deputy and with his or her supervisor to get the kind of case management work that you want and to acquaint the courtroom deputy with your practices and your expectations In many courts, the courtroom deputies may work out of the judge's chambers or in an office nearby rather than out of the clerk's office I should tell you that this arrangement can cause some problems to which you should be sensitive The clerk has difficulty supervising the deputies and keeping them apprised of information The deputies themselves are physically removed from the files and from docketing You may need to work directly with your clerk of court to ensure that your courtroom deputy gains communication with the clerk's office Wherever your deputy is located keep in mind that although the deputy is working for you the deputy is the employee of the clerk Regardless of the way in which your clerk's office provides courtroom deputies you'll become aware of the trend toward using courtroom deputies primarily for case management and less often for courtroom work especially during trials and lengthy hearings As you become accustomed to your job and familiar with the different kinds of proceedings that you'll be presiding over you'll find situations where you can get by without a courtroom deputy For example, you won't need a deputy for marking exhibits or keeping an exhibit list if you have the lawyers pre-mark their exhibits and provide you with an exhibit list that you can mark yourself And as for swearing witnesses you can do it or you can ask your court reporter or electronic court recorder operator to do it Releasing your courtroom deputy from the courtroom during trials and lengthy motion hearings will make your deputy far more productive Your courtroom deputy whether an individual or a team is your key to case management The deputy should know the status of every case on your calendar and should do all your calendaring to prepare or supervise the preparation of notices of trials and hearings The person should monitor your cases prod lawyers and slow-moving cases with telephone inquiries bring stalled cases to your attention keep track of your motions and their status help you set trial dates In short, your deputy is not just a clerical employee but an administrator of great value to you You should train the person to play a responsible role and treat him or her as a key player on your team If your court has a pro se clerk you have an additional resource That person can handle much of the administrative burden of prisoner cases answering correspondence screening complaints monitoring case status and drafting opinions and orders in prisoner cases Pro se clerks are assigned only to courts that have 300 or more prisoner filings a year If you qualify I'm not sure I can say whether you're lucky or not You're lucky to have a pro se clerk but perhaps you're unlucky to have so many prisoner filings In these days of shrinking judiciary budgets it's important to think about ways to save money without diminishing the quality of justice the federal courts provide Perhaps the single best way to save money and serve the public is to use jurors effectively Meet with your court's jury clerk to talk about ways you can cut down on the number of prospective jurors called but not selected for a jury and how you can cut jury costs in general Obvious ways are pooling jury selections That is, calling in jurors on a given day each week and having all the judges in the court conduct jury selection on that day with staggered times for starting trial For example, one judge could begin jury selection at 8.30 and another at 10 using the jurors not selected for the first trial Doing this requires careful coordination and diplomacy on the part of the jury clerk and the judges but it pays great dividends in cost savings You can use magistrate judges to select juries in civil cases with the consent of the parties after the district judges have drawn all the criminal juries This allows the district judges to begin their criminal trials immediately You can cut down on the number of people you call in for jury selection Careful thought about the number of strikes for cause will enable you to make fairly accurate predictions of the size of the panel you will need In long trials, you can ask the jury clerk to send out advance notice of the length of trial and ask prospective jurors to write back if they cannot serve for that length of time If you're used to having two alternate jurors in most cases, think about whether you need two rather than one Then there are court reporters The growing trend is toward establishing a pool of court reporters for the entire court who share equally in all the court reporting work rather than having one court reporter assigned to one particular judge Pooling may not strike you as advantageous at first Think about it With pooling, you won't have to worry about a court reporter being sick or being on vacation or being overworked or underworked at some particular time With pooling, the reporters spell each other for long trials or for lengthy hearings They take care of all scheduling and arranging for substitutes or for extra reporters when necessary The judge's ever has to give a thought to the situation If you prefer, you may have your proceedings electronically recorded rather than taken down by a court reporter Many district judges use electronic court recorder operators as a less expensive yet equally effective alternative to a court reporter Your clerk can help you with information on electronic recording if you're interested in it Then there's a librarian You can't really appreciate all that a librarian can do for your court In less like me, you spent ten years or so without a librarian Your librarian will help you with unusual research requests Lexis and Westlaw searches ordering books and will train your clerks and you too on Lexis and Westlaw if you want it If your court doesn't have a librarian the Court of Appeals Librarian is available to help you On to some other offices The Probation Office has essentially two major functions The preparation of pre-sentence investigation reports designed to help you with sentencing and the supervision of probationers and those on supervised release These officers are thoroughly trained to work with the sentencing guidelines and perform the other, often complex duties of their jobs They're thorough and well documented reports and their insights and experience in sentencing can be of great assistance to you in performing the job that you'll probably find the single most difficult job you perform and one of the jobs you cannot delegate As helpful as the Probation Officer is you alone are responsible for making the sentencing decision in each case Pre-trial services officers do pre-trial bail studies some of the guesswork out of bail decisions and they provide supervision for some persons on bail In some smaller courts this pre-trial service is performed by the Probation Office rather than by a separate pre-trial services agency The Marshals Office is an agency not of the court but of the Department of Justice yet it spends much of its time working directly with the courts The Marshall provides court security including supervising criminal juries without a trial and supervising all deliberating juries whether in civil or criminal trials The Marshall also transports and guards parties and witnesses in federal custody The Chief Justice and the Attorney General have worked out an agreement detailing the level of service that the Marshall service is to provide to courts If you have questions about the help available ask your Chief Judge or your clerk for a copy of your court's security plan which spells out the service that you're entitled to for each type of trial or proceeding that you're handling A good source of additional information about any of these offices that I have mentioned is the Desk Book for Chief Judges You can borrow a copy of this from the Chief Judge or from the clerk of your court Finally, your chamber staff your secretary and two law clerks These are the people you'll be most dependent upon and closest to These are also the only people in the system whom you are able to hire You'll have your own ideas about how you want to hire and whom you want to hire I just want to add a few points you might not have thought of One is that your secretary will have a much bigger role in running your office than you might have imagined Remember, you're going to be gone much of the time in court room hearing motions and trying cases It's immensely helpful if your secretary is a skilled manager comfortable in working with these bright, young, transient law clerks you'll be hiring and with the level of automation your chambers requires Another point to keep in mind is that your secretary will project the image of your office to the rest of the court To the extent your secretary is viewed as courteous, reliable and cooperative your whole operation will be viewed in that way and you'll receive more help Consider what you delegate to your secretary just as you analyze what can be delegated to other court personnel Most secretaries have talents that haven't begun to be tapped They can help you with case control organizing your calendar answering routine mail helping you get organized If you have trouble being organized for heaven's sakes look for a secretary who excels in organization Have your secretary work with the librarian to develop an opinion retrieval file for the unpublished opinions in your chambers A secretary who likes to write can help you with speeches and special letters And what about putting together a notebook of standard orders, letters and forms for the law clerk's reference and setting up a system for handling and acknowledging applications for clerkships Encourage your secretary to ask questions and seek help from the secretaries of other judges whether in your court or elsewhere Ask for help in identifying areas where you might be able to be more productive In other words make your secretary an important member of your team and treat him or her accordingly You are allowed two law clerks You can hire them as permanent employees or for one or two year terms You can stagger their terms by hiring one new law clerk each year or you can hire both law clerks for one year terms If you stagger the terms you have greater continuity and greater experience among your clerks and you cut down on your interviewing time If you hire both clerks for one year terms you'll have to do more training yourself You'll also experience an initial lag each year as the clerks learn the job although you can stagger their starting times by a month or so But you will have fresh perspectives every year and you will provide a clerkship opportunity for more people In using your law clerks again, think carefully about what you are using them for and whether you are using them as effectively as possible I happen to believe that law clerks should take care of motions and that their time should be used for research and writing and assisting me directly I don't allow them to answer the phone and talk to lawyers I think that cuts into their time and I think it's a dangerous precedent to set I view law clerks as an extension of the judge It's not proper for me to talk to a lawyer directly ex-party and I don't think it's any more proper for a law clerk to talk to a lawyer ex-party I send those inquiries to my courtroom deputy I try not to have the law clerks do routine or essentially trivial tasks They sit in on court proceedings but only when they want to They rarely act as a courtroom deputy or sit in merely for the purpose of making findings a fact later on except again if it's a case in which they're particularly interested and want to know more about The Federal Judicial Center publishes a handbook for law clerks and secretaries You may want to take a look at this book and review it with your chamber staff I should tell you that you can obtain temporary emergency secretaries and law clerks if one of yours should become ill or be out of work for any other reason within budgetary limits set by the Judicial Conference Check with your clerk of court or circuit executive Many judges have law student help particularly if they're located in university towns and quite a few judges have found that these externs can provide useful assistance to the law clerks on a purely cost-effective basis such help may not amount to much once you allow for the supervision that requires from the judge and from the law clerks It is, however, a much sought-after opportunity for students and you may consider it worth doing for that reason alone As much as you want to get going at full speed on your new job as fast as possible I urge you to take time at the outset for assembling basic information about your court and the way it operates and for establishing lines of communication between your chambers and each of the other offices in the court The best way to do this is to sit down with the head of each office find out from them about their jobs and what help they can provide you and what you can do to help them perform more effectively They can tell you a lot more about their responsibilities than I can and, of course, they can tell you much more about the specific operations of their jobs in your particular court You'll probably want to start with the clerk of court I should add that in a few very large courts many court administrative functions are carried out by a district court executive in which case you want to start with that officer When you have a question about personnel or technology or a court practice of some kind remember the clerk has probably been around longer than many of the judges knows the idiosyncrasies of the court and the ins and outs of the administrative office and is more accessible than most judges can be No one else is likely to be as much help in answering your questions locating personnel or other resources and generally helping you avoid major blunders Ask the clerk about what technology is available to you For example, if you would like to be able to conduct pretrial conferences and motion hearings by telephone see about getting a speakerphone installed in your office Undoubtedly, you'll want a computer network for your chambers so that you, your law clerks and secretary have access to each other's drafts for review and editing If the entire court is not yet networked you'll want to consult with the clerk to coordinate your plans with the court's long range automation planning As I mentioned you may want electronic recording equipment in your court room Finally, it's well worth the time to get whatever computer training you need No other training offers such a sure return in increased productivity Something else you'll want to do early is meet with your new chamber staff as a group to set the tone for the upcoming teamwork It's a good time to make sure everyone is reasonably comfortable with their new computers to talk about case management about work assignments about your expectations of your staff Some judges find it valuable to continue chamber staff meetings on a regular basis This will provide you with timely information on who's doing what For example, you can get a status report on each law clerk's work In turn, the clerks learn what you're working on what cases are going to trial what motion hearings are scheduled It will promote communication among the members of your staff It's also helpful for chamber staff to meet weekly for 15 to 20 minutes with the court room deputy and the magistrate judge to review the district judges and magistrate judges calendars and coordinate planning for upcoming trials In summary, as you start out on this job of being a federal judge keep in mind that there are many sources of help available to you Set up meetings with the officers of your court Ask questions of them Ask questions of your fellow judges Ask the people in the administrative office and at the federal judicial center People find it flattering to be asked questions They like to be teachers and they often find that in the process of providing explanations they learn something themselves You're joining a system that includes many talented and resourceful people They're available to help you and to teach you and we hope to learn from you as well