 The Federal Judicial Center, the agency for continuing education and research on judicial administration for the courts of the United States. Welcome to the Federal Judicial Center. We're pleased to have this opportunity to tell you about the center's work. All over the world, judges, legislators, public officials, lawyers, court personnel, and students of the law want to know how they can make their courts operate more effectively and more efficiently. What procedures in the courthouse, the courtroom, and in judges' offices will help ensure that lawsuits are disposed of fairly, expeditiously, and at the lowest cost? What should be done to ensure judges' independence and to help judges gain and maintain the knowledge and skills they need to do their jobs? What role can modern technology play in the administration of justice? You've probably heard these questions in your country. Well, it's no different in the United States. To help answer them, Congress created the Federal Judicial Center in 1967 as the federal court agency for continuing education and research on judicial administration. From its headquarters here in Washington, D.C., the center's staff of lawyers, social scientists, and training specialists work with federal judges and support personnel to provide orientation and continuing education and training programs to study the impact of new procedures and technology on court operations and to promote research on the administration and history of the courts. The program you're about to see is about the center. It's organization, it's work, and some of the services it provides. Though a number of countries have judicial training and research institutes, I know of no other organization just like the center anywhere in the world. What we do here may not be suitable for other countries, but you may still find ideas here that will be of interest and perhaps of help. As you've heard, Congress created the Federal Judicial Center in 1967. It's the research and education agency of the federal court system. The center's role and its work are shaped by basic principles of American government, separation of powers, judicial independence, the rule of law, and federalism. A brief review of those principles will help you understand the center and its role. First, separation of powers. As you know, the United States Constitution establishes three branches of government. A legislative branch, an executive branch, and a judicial branch. Because of the separation of powers principle, the center is located in and operated by the judicial branch. The center is not a part of the Department of Justice, the executive branch agency that prosecutes the government's cases in court, investigates federal crimes, and maintains our federal prison system. In the United States, the separation of powers also means that the administration and maintenance of the courts, no less than the actual decision of legal cases, is the responsibility of the courts themselves. For that reason, Congress created the judicial conference of the United States, a group of 27 judges who meet twice a year to determine basic administrative policy for the federal court system. It works through an extensive set of committees. A sister institution to the center is the administrative office of the U.S. courts, another judicial branch agency. Its mission is not research and education, but helping with the day-to-day operations of the federal judicial system. The administrative office prepares the federal court's budget, maintains the personnel system, gathers statistics on the workload of the courts, provides the courts with equipment and supplies, and provides most of the staff support to the committees of the judicial conference. The federal judicial center with its separate mission is not part of the administrative office, although the two work closely together. The idea of separation of powers is related to the concepts of judicial independence and the rule of law. The basic idea is the judges must be free to decide cases based on the law and the application of legal principles and rules and not on the basis of the status of the parties before the court or the dictates of some person within or without the government or by the direction of some governmental or nongovernmental organization. To make federal judges independence real and enable them to uphold the rule of law, the Constitution provides that they may be removed from office only by a very complicated process of legislative impeachment and removal. This has occurred only a few times. Moreover, Congress may not lower judges' salaries. The Constitution tries to ensure that judges will enforce the rule of law free from threats to their livelihood. After separation of powers nor judicial independence means that the judicial branch or the center is isolated from the legislative and executive branches. Congress created the federal judicial center and the funds for the center's operations, like the funds for all court operations, come from legislation passed each year by the Congress and signed into law by the president. Congress decides the basic organizational structure of the courts and basic procedural rules about how citizens and attorneys use the federal courts. The center responds to requests and suggestions from the Congress and to suggestions from the executive branch about the operation of federal courts. While there is interaction, the courts are nevertheless separate and its judges are independent in how they make decisions. For these same reasons, the center is an agency of the courts and its policies are determined by judges and carried out under the direction of people who are responsible to judges. The center's work is shaped by another American constitutional principle, that of federalism. Because of federalism, the center's work involves only a small part of all the courts in the United States, only the courts of the national government or, as we usually say, the federal government. Under the federal principle, each of the 50 states has its own government, including a legislature, an executive branch, and a court system. The states make and enforce laws in areas that are not the constitutional responsibility of the national or federal government. These state responsibilities include things like marriages and divorces, traffic regulations, and to a large extent, public health, education and crime control. The federal government plays a role in some of these areas, but the states do more. The center's mission is to serve the federal court system, the court system of the national government. The federal court system includes about 1,500 judges and 22,000 supporting personnel. Its criminal jurisdiction is limited to prosecutions brought by the United States, charging offenses that Congress has declared to be federal crimes. Federal civil jurisdiction has three major components. Cases in which the United States is a party. Second, cases involving the federal constitution or laws or treaties. And third, cases between citizens of different states, generally even if those cases involve state law. Each of the states has its own separate court system as well. In all, there are many more state judges, about 30,000. The state courts mainly decide lawsuits involving state laws and disputes involving state residents. Each state court system has its own administrative agency, which performs some of the same functions that the center and the administrative office perform for the federal system. There are also several private organizations, such as the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, which serve the state courts. Although the federal judicial center cooperates with state court organizations, its mission is to serve the federal court system, or in other words, the courts of the United States government. What about the federal judicial system? It consists of three levels of courts, the district courts, the courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court. At the entry level are the district courts. They conduct trials of civil and criminal cases within the federal jurisdiction. There are 94 district courts across the country. The average size is from 6 to 7 district judges, but some have as few as 2, and one has 28 district judges. In each district, there are also United States magistrate judges who assist the district judges, especially in the preliminary stages of a lawsuit, and federal bankruptcy judges who exercise the district court's bankruptcy jurisdiction for the district judges. In the middle are the courts of appeals. There are 13 courts of appeals in the federal system, each sitting in a different circuit. 12 of these circuits serve specific regions of the United States, and one serves the entire nation in cases involving patent disputes, international trade disputes, and other special types of cases. These courts hear appeals from the district courts and from some administrative agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Social Security Administration. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the land, hearing appeals from both the federal courts of appeals, and in state cases involving federal law questions from state Supreme Courts. The center has little direct contact with the Supreme Court because traditionally that court takes care of its own administrative needs. The center, however, is not totally removed from the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice serves as chairman of the center's board, and other justices occasionally ask the center for assistance. Compared to other agencies of the federal government, the center is a tiny organization, one of the smallest. Its staff number is about 150 people, and its budget is a little less than 1% of the total budget of the federal courts. The center's basic policies are set by an eight-member board. By statute, the chairman of the center's board is the Chief Justice of the United States. The board of the center also includes two judges of the appellate courts, three judges of the district courts, and one bankruptcy judge. They are elected by the Judicial Conference of the United States, which sets overall policy for the federal courts. In addition, the director of the administrative office of the United States courts serves on the board. The board selects a director and a deputy director. The director sees to the implementation of board policies and provides the center with general managerial guidance. Here are some specific things the center does. The statute creating the center directs it to develop and conduct educational programs for judges and other court employees. Education and training programs are the center's best known activities. The center provides these programs for all federal judges and their support staff. Support staff refers to clerks and deputy clerks who handle all the papers filed in the courts and the various administrative tasks that keeps the courts operating, to probation and pretrial services officers who assist the judges in criminal cases and sentencing, and to other court personnel, such as staff attorneys and legal assistants. Educational programs for both judges and supporting personnel are totally voluntary. No law or regulation forces anyone, including judges, to attend center programs. Yet, almost all new judges elect to attend center orientation programs, and the great majority of judges and other personnel attend other programs for which they're eligible. Education of judges gives life to the concept of the rule of law. Helping judges to understand the proper application of legal principles and the methods by which to apply the law. Orientation for new judges is probably the center's most important task. Federal district judges are appointed to office by the President of the United States with a consent of the U.S. Senate. Before their appointment, most judges were private attorneys, but some were judges in state courts or U.S. attorneys, and a few were law professors. Although new judges in the United States bring a wealth of experience to the bench, they must learn new skills, particular to being a judge rather than a lawyer. Federal judges need orientation about their new duties. Even state court judges who become federal court judges need some orientation because federal court procedures and federal laws are different from those in state courts. The center invites new judicial appointees to regional seminars where they see video programs, like this one, in which experienced federal judges explain how they do their jobs. Later, they attend another center orientation here in Washington. The center also provides them with numerous publications designed to familiarize the new judges with their responsibilities. The orientation process explains how to keep control of the many cases before them, so there is not excessive delay. We call this case management. The new appointees also learn about their responsibilities in sentencing convicted defendants and visit federal prisons. And they receive updates in areas of the law they probably haven't studied much in their legal practice. The center provides continuing education for all judges and holds annual seminars around the country. These seminars cover many topics everything from new legislation to case management techniques to judicial ethics and developments in major areas of federal litigation, environmental, criminal, and civil rights law. The center also produces various manuals and desk books and other publications written especially for federal judges. Some center publications analyze trends in procedural law, as announced by the appellate courts, and other publications tell judges about selected federal court decisions on the federal sentencing law. Audio and video productions are an important part of the center's education and training. Judges frequently make use of the center's extensive collection of audio recordings of prior seminars. The center has its own television production staff that creates educational video programs for the courts. These programs let judges see various procedures rather than simply hear about them. The center often sends video programs to each court, which makes it unnecessary for judges to travel to another city for a seminar. The center arranges educational programs for support personnel such as probation officers who help judges determine the proper sentence for a convicted criminal and supervise them while on probation. The center's video programs are an important source of education and technical training for court personnel. The statute creating the center also directs it to conduct research and study of the operation of the courts of the United States. As this language suggests, the center's research activities don't involve legal research on cases for the judges or on substantive legal issues. The judges and their clerks and other members of their staffs are responsible for that. Instead, the center's research deals with such things as testing proposals and innovations suggested by judges and others as ways of speeding the time and improving the quality of federal court decisions. For example, Congress has directed the center to evaluate techniques judges use to encourage out-of-court settlement of lawsuits. It has studied procedures used in various courts that require parties in some cases to submit their claims to a panel of arbitrators who issue a nonbinding decision. Although the parties may seek a trial before a regular judge and jury after that nonbinding verdict, the center wanted to know whether lawyers and litigants see the arbitrator's decisions as an acceptable outcome. The center has also done extensive research on juries. The United States is one of the few countries to rely heavily on these panels of citizens to determine the facts in both civil and criminal cases. The center has made numerous suggestions about how courts call citizens for jury service and the process by which lawyers choose juries from those called. Another type of center research involves measuring burdens that different kinds of cases impose on judges. For example, a complicated case about a company's alleged monopoly practices will usually require more judicial time and effort than a case about a student who failed to pay back a loan for college tuition. But how much more time? The center has undertaken weighted caseload studies. Judges keep precise records of the time they spend on different cases. The center uses these records to assign relative weights to the various kinds of cases. This information is then used by the center to help the Judicial Conference and the Congress determine the need for additional judgeships for the various courts. Sentencing convicted defendants is by the judge's admission probably their single most difficult task. The center has long studied the sentencing practices of judges and continues to devote considerable effort to helping the courts adapt to the requirements of sentencing under a system of sentencing guidelines required by Congress. The center has also conducted extensive research on bankruptcy courts and procedures, litigation management, sanctioning practices, and litigation flow. In addition to conducting research to aid judges in their case management tasks, the center conducts research to supply information to the Judicial Conference committees. For example, the center has studied case filings to project the impact of proposed changes in the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Education and research are the two largest areas of center activity, but they are not the only areas. For example, much of its work historically has involved computers and other forms of technology that might improve the administration of justice. The center houses a federal judicial history office based on Congress's direction that the center conduct, coordinate, and encourage programs relating to the history of the judicial branch of the United States government. The center's Information Services Office, ISO, is a library that specializes in federal judicial administration. It provides reference and research assistance to federal court personnel, center staff, and the general public. It maintains a specialized collection of books and journals and published and unpublished documents relating to the work of the federal courts. Each year it answers hundreds of requests for information on the courts from not only individual courts and court personnel, but also libraries, government agencies, academic institutions, bar groups, and others. The office distributes the center's publications and maintains a lending library for audio and videotapes. We're pleased to have had this opportunity to tell you something about the work of the federal judicial center. You can learn more about the center and the federal courts in general from the annual report of the federal judicial center, the catalog of publications, and the catalog of audio-visual media programs and from federal courts and what they do. These center publications are available to you as part of your visit, or you may write to us and request copies. We hope this introduction to the federal judicial center and to the federal courts has been enjoyable and informative. For more details, contact Information Services, Federal Judicial Center, 1520 H Street Northwest, Washington D.C., 2005.