 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. Coming up on Court to Court... That was the biggest help of all, was having somebody actually come on site that could be here when the slowdowns happened. Millennials as a group differ from baby boomers and generation exers. But they often are compared to the GI generation. You get all kinds of groups, you get grade schoolers, high schoolers, senior citizens, they're all interesting. They have different questions they're going to ask. This is Court to Court, your connection to what's happening in the federal courts around the country, providing information and ideas that will enhance your job and how the courts function. Filling in for Michael Burney today, Robin Rowland. Welcome to the Federal Judicial Center's Educational Magazine program for all court employees. Court to Court's host Michael Burney was involved in a bicycle accident that kept him out of the studio today, but he'll return next time. On today's program, we'll learn how unexpected problems with CMECF can be solved. We'll hear new uses for old words, and we'll see how a district court involves other courthouse agencies in community outreach. The transition to case management electronic case files is a huge change for the judiciary overall, and it's built on successful implementation by each court. Despite careful and thorough preparation, sometimes problems can appear. That's what happened at the bankruptcy court for the District of Nevada in Las Vegas. The District of Nevada's bankruptcy court left bank cap for good on January 2, 2002, and went live with the case management part of CMECF. The clerk's office had been imaging documents for several years, and at first, all seemed well. But after about two weeks, case administrators began experiencing an astounding slowdown in the system's response time. There were instances where it would take ten minutes to save a document into the ECF system, and normally it's instantaneous. I think the worst part of the slowdown when we went live is sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting. The slowdown was intermittent and unpredictable. System staff tried to isolate time of day or a specific workstation to find the cause. Somebody would say the system's slow, and we would all run around trying to find out where, why, what's going on, and we had no clue where it was coming from. Unix administrator Barbara Westcott asked case administrators to call her as soon as they experienced any system slowdown. It usually resulted in a rash of phone calls, but that was okay. At least I knew that it wasn't one particular case administrator. It was all of them. A lot of people were very frustrated because this system was supposedly a better system for us, and it was slower. It was much slower. We had problems with morale. Docket deputies who had been experienced docket deputies were finding themselves unable to accomplish their normal job duties. When things didn't go right, somehow I felt responsible. When case administrators couldn't find an event that they wanted to use to dock it, or it didn't work the way it should work, we thought it should work. And they did not get the summary from the group? Right. This is the only email she got, and she has no links to any of the documents. Adding to the problem was a 20% increase in case filings at the end of 2001, an increase that kept getting larger as 2002 began. By late January, we're about 10,000 documents behind in our docketing. It worried us. There was probably a two-week and then a 30-day delay that really concerned us. And we did have some complaints from attorneys who could not find their motions docketed in a timely fashion. The next big hurdle that's a ways down the road is motions and adversary proceedings. I assume we're just barely scratching the surface on that. I had to hire four to five additional people and get them trained. As case administrators to do the docketing, we train brand new people off the street, who in most cases didn't know a lot about bankruptcy at all. But if anybody had any kind of experience, we needed to move them into case administration to docket to try to keep that up to date. The clerk's office had to postpone opening online filing to trustees and attorneys who had volunteered to start e-filing immediately. The bankruptcy court was also in the midst of planning for moving from the old courthouse, which was being renovated, into temporary space in the new district courthouse. It was a very big job that we also had to deal with it at the same time as dealing with our CMECF slowdown issues. The slowdown wasn't the only problem. Other performance issues plagued the system, including scanned documents that were several megabytes in size and much larger than the system was prepared to handle. The court looked to others for answers to the CMECF problems, and the mentor court was the Southern District of New York, which in the months following the September 11th attacks had a great number of problems to deal with itself. We also started calling around to other ECF courts to try to see if they had these problems. Some of the issues they did, and some of them they had never heard of. We got on the phone quickly to the administrative office. We were in contact with those in San Antonio, and then they were pretty quick in responding to our needs. We tried to remotely diagnose the problem working with their on-site system staff. The administrative office's Howard Grandiers says the slowdown problem was atypical but urgent. The court had been live with CMECF for two weeks before the problem manifested itself. That made it particularly high priority because they had turned off their old system and the court staff was using this and we had to solve it immediately. The difficulty also was the fact that the problem was caused by such a variety of factors that we were having a hard time pinpointing what the issue was and how to solve it. That's why we immediately sent people on site. The administrative office sent two specialists from the Systems Deployment and Support Division in San Antonio and a network specialist from the Infrastructure Management Division. They were at the court about three days working with both systems and operations staff. They sat with some of our intake people and case administrators to try and get a first-hand look at what the deputy clerks were experiencing. That was the biggest help of all, was having somebody actually come on site that could be here when the slowdowns happened and it was kind of nice to see them go through the same things we did. Running around from desktop to desktop trying to find the problem. Is it here? Is it there? The problem that Nevada experienced was quite unique for us. In taking a look at those problems we found it was a combination of any number of variables in the court including some settings on their local area network, the wide area network, some software problems in CMECF that were subsequently fixed and also some workstation issues. I think we had a really good working relationship. Most of the people that came on site were people that we had either talked to on the phone or a couple of them were on our implementation team. They really did help us solve the problems. They gave us suggestions while they were here of things they immediately saw. See and then that's dependent upon whether or not they remember to do the transfer at all. That's correct. The more automated we have it the better. Approximately I think a week after they got back or maybe a little bit less than that they sent a report saying these were some of the items that we saw while we were there and these are some of our suggestions. I have to give credit for timely response by the administrative office. I'm very grateful for that. The administrative office makes available to all courts the lessons learned from situations such as occurred in Nevada. We have a new best practices document for them to tune their local area network to avoid the communications problems. We've instituted stress testing before court goes live which gives us a better idea of how the server and the network and their workstations are going to handle CMECF when they're live. The Nevada experience prompted the AO to also add an additional site visit for courts. We have a go live site visit which is basically the week the court goes live turns on CMECF and begins to use it. We send several members of the implementation team to be there. Each court gets a readiness kit which sets out the 10 month implementation process. Also included is a checklist of all the things a court should do before going live to ensure that the process goes smoothly. If however you do have a problem we are there. The court is not alone. Know that there is help out there. Other courts, CMECF courts who have been there before the administrative office and the SDSD people are very helpful and don't hesitate to ask. The court community likes to hear how another court actually dealt with these problems. We're AO employees and we know the technical side of it but we're not running a court. The court mentor can say oh I understand that issue. You're changing things. Your docket clerks are concerned. Let me tell you how we actually dealt with that. Another problem solving mechanism is the judge's list that a lot of systems people around the country are signed up with. There's a lot of information sharing going on. CMECF administrator Marianne Street frequently trades information with colleagues in two other clerk's offices that have implemented the new system. There's nothing more valuable than that to me. If they're a step ahead of me why would I want to recreate the wheel? What helped I think is just everybody talking about it. I think talking about it getting your frustrations off your mind helps a lot. Then we did finally get through it. It was a tough year and it's not a year we want to repeat again but I think everybody's pretty happy I think with where we are. Still ahead on Court to Court, we'll hear words to know and make a difference when dealing with people in the workplace and we'll see how courthouse tours are an effective means of community outreach. Back at the turn of the century, that's this century, the word millennium was bandied about a lot while it's heard less these days a version of it got attached to an entire generation and while IQ has been around for a long time a new wrinkle on intelligence is described by the letters EI. Both EI and millennials can affect how managers and staff deal with each other. My colleague Bob Fagan explains in words to know. The term millennials is sometimes used as a name for the generation born between the years 1979 and 1995 although depending upon who's counting the years can vary from 1982 to 2002. Regardless of which end of the age spectrum millennials are on rising third graders or recent college grads computers have played a fundamental part in their education and socialization and that's an aspect of this generation that managers have to take into consideration when dealing with them. Being so computer savvy the millennials also call the net generation and also nexters may have an extra edge in being hired and promoted in the workplace as it becomes ever more dependent on managing information electronically. Other attributes for managers to consider are that some sociologists describe millennials as energetic having a need for constant stimulation and possessing a special affinity for teamwork. One educator who studies learning and technology at the University of Southern California says this generation has always used technology in every facet of their lives. She says they multitask and expect 24-7 access to information with zero tolerance for delays. They think non-linearly and learn by experimenting, discovering and experiencing. Obviously such characteristics will affect the training that millennials need and how they function in the workplace. The millennial generation includes between 70 and 80 million people in the United States. This is almost as large as a number of baby boomers but because the overall population is now much larger millennials are a smaller percentage of the population than were the young baby boomers. Millennials as a group differ from baby boomers and generation exers but they often are compared to the GI generation that came of age during the Depression and fought World War II. Concepts such as dedication, sacrifice, hardworking and loyalty to substantive values are often associated with that generation and many think these attributes will apply to the millennials as well. On a different note, you may have heard the acronym AI for artificial intelligence. However, another form of intelligence that's getting a lot of publicity is EI, Emotional Intelligence. It too can have implications for managers and staff. Some psychologists define EI as a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions. This of course assumes we know what social intelligence is. Concepts such as social skills, interpersonal competence, psychological maturity and emotional awareness had been studied and in use long before the term emotional intelligence came into use. One of the gurus on this topic is psychologist Daniel Goleman who defines emotional intelligence simply as the capacity to recognize our own feelings and those of others. Sounds simple but emotional intelligence involves abilities in five categories. Self-awareness, managing emotions, motivating oneself, empathy and handling relationships. Self-awareness means recognizing a feeling in oneself as it happens. Managing emotions means responding to feelings in appropriate ways. Motivating oneself involves emotional self-control and putting emotions in the service of a goal. Empathy is being able to understand something from someone else's perspective and finally handling relationships means competently dealing with the emotions of others. Social scientists are beginning to correlate emotional intelligence with such skills as leadership, managing change and conducting performance evaluations. In fact, some say that emotional intelligence is at the heart of effective leadership. That emotionally intelligent managers have a much easier time realizing the needs of employees and creating a well-balanced work environment. Being well-balanced ourselves, we realize it's time to wrap up this segment and return to Michael in the studio. I'll be back in another Court to Court with more words to know. Obviously, we taped that segment before we knew Michael Burney would not be here today, but we do know that to help you learn more about emotional intelligence, the FJC makes available a packaged program including videotape and workbook. Please contact our media library at 202-502-4156 to get this material. In addition, the Center will carry a live broadcast on November 19 on this topic. Check the FJTN Bulletin online for more information. Our previous broadcast featured an outreach program that focuses on local culture. Today, we visit the western district of Missouri, where for a dozen or so years, the jury administrator has turned tours of the courthouse into a valuable teaching tool. Part of the success is that she made it a joint effort with most of the agencies in the building. Welcome to the courthouse. First of all, my name is Sue. I started giving these tours when I was asked by my supervisor, would I like to have them? And I said, yes, I'd like to do that. So a few people know what goes on in federal court. And I thought they need to know more than what the building looks like to help you understand better how a case comes to federal court and some of the agencies that handle it once it gets here. Any group is welcome. Kenevan has had as few as five and as many as 150 school children at one time. And the age range so far is 95 years to fourth graders. Today, it's a high school business law class. When people receive jury summons, it never comes to them at an opportune time. Kenevan asks the agencies involved in federal court business to speak to each group. It's helping people understand that the people who work for the government in the judicial branch are really people. And we are not the bad guys. We are out here to help them. But he was serving 40 years when he escaped and he's been implicated in killing three people also. It was part of the court family. We're an integral part of the whole process. And we feel it's important that the martial service come in and present what we do and let the students get an idea of how we interact with the other court entities. These are handcuffs that go through the waste chain. And we drop his, put his wrist up in there. We put his wrist up in here. And that's basically the way most of them go. I think it's very rewarding for me personally or agency to see some of these kids sometimes really enjoy what we're talking about and to learn about the martial service. If he would try to fight, run, whatever, I would hit the transmitter. And it makes that tone. Let's tell him, you better stop what you're doing. And if he doesn't stop, what I would do is I would just keep on the button. And it would set that off. Right through these two little contacts, 50,000 volts for about eight seconds. And it goes right in the small there back because it's worn right on his back right there. Right on his back there. When I come here, I want to reach one person. If I reach one person with my life experiences, things I've seen in my life from 16 year old crack dealers to two year old crack addicted babies. My big drug case involved three Colombians and 17 Kansas University students. They all got convictions. I saw one of them three months ago. I saw him at Oak Park Mall. He still remembers me. He came up to me and said, you know, you ruined my life. I said, no, you ruined your life. You sold 100 pounds of cocaine in Lawrence, Kansas in 1984 and I caught you. We do not have written speeches. We do not use film. Everything that our speakers talk about is spontaneous. What's on their mind that day? And I had a man who came back after 30 years of prison did not know how to buy groceries. I'm pretty excited about seeing who's in the audience because there's different populations that have a lot of different questions. Because the pre-sentence investigation report is a document that I'm ordered by the court under federal order to find from the day that person's born to the day they stand before the court for that sentencing. And the only way I was able to do that was doing exactly what you're doing. Studying, learning how to do reference materials. I get to learn from the community in order to find out what questions they want to know about what we're doing. The hardest part is getting the viewers here 10 to 15 minutes. So that all these speakers that you have lined up before the judge can get their speaking done. The grand jury is a charging body of citizens and we go in and we present our evidence to them and if they find probable cause that a crime has been committed then they return what's called an indictment. You have a judge waiting to speak to them and sometimes it's made a window of time of 25 minutes giving you five minutes leeway. I think the judges view it as an important way to connect with the community. There is a certain mystique or mystery often associated with the courthouse and I think it's our way of letting them know what we do on a day to day basis. My law clerk sits over here at this desk. She is essentially my lawyer. She is a practicing lawyer and her job is to come into the courtroom and sit with me and listen to whatever's happening and then help me decide issues, help me write orders and opinions. How jurors are chosen is often a popular topic. You can ask to be excused and whether or not you are excused is up to the judge. You cannot refuse. Yes ma'am? Is it true that if you claim to be prejudiced then they will put you off or not take you? In a nutshell the answer to that question is yes. That's the purpose of the questions that the court and the lawyers ask the jury. We want to get a jury of people who are unbiased who will decide the case fairly. When Knieven began giving tours she would call each agency, explain what she hoped to accomplish and ask if they would send a representative to talk for 15 minutes and answer questions. Now I send out just a type written form telling them when the tours are and it's like magic. Here they are. Because we're afraid to say no to Knieven that's the main reason. My job is to represent the United States in court. And so I'm basically a trial lawyer. Actually it's a real opportunity for our office to share information with the public with the community about what we do. You're in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Library. We supply the judges with information that they can use both case law, statute law to come to the decisions of the cases before them. After the agency presentations Knieven takes groups through several public parts of the courthouse describing features and artifacts along the way. This bell was the top first federal courthouse and federal building ever located in Kansas City, Missouri. And we do it on demand. We ask that they schedule one month in advance so we have plenty of time to get everything arranged because we do have another job to do here. It was the one we carried over from last week. We've set that aside somewhat for our civil case. You get all kinds of groups. You get grade schoolers, high schoolers, senior citizens. They're all interesting. They have different questions they're going to ask. And different things they learn. There are a lot of steps in the trials. Time consuming maybe. There's a lot more work in it than I would have thought. If you've got an at-risk group that you can share information about what happens if you violate the law and with high schoolers it gives you an opportunity to give them information about possible careers in the law. I learned a lot about it from the FBI agents and the U.S. Marshals. They told a lot of really good stories and gave you a better idea of the jobs that they actually do. This room that we're in right now is used often times for receptions. Can even estimates that each year about 1,000 people tour the courthouse. But that's not the most amazing fact. We have done absolutely nothing to publicize this tour. For the most part it comes from people who have been here and go back out and tell the community this is a good thing. I think that that value is very important for them to see how their children can go out on a field trip and get the benefits of learning about jobs and about their backgrounds. They can learn that these are real people. The gratification of seeing all these agencies work together, having the support of all the judges. All of my co-workers. It's a really good feeling because I do feel like I participate in a tour that gives back to the community a very great deal. We'll leave this room now. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you'll come back. Don't ever come back for anything except jury service or as a visitor, okay? Sue can even retired recently but the courthouse tours will continue. Sherri Cleveland in the jury administration office will be in charge. She welcomes inquiries on how they make the tour successful and can be reached at 816-512-5016. Our next court to court program will feature a story about probation and pretrial services officers sharing techniques on dealing with computer crime defendants and offenders. And we'll hear from the AO's Office of General Counsel about the rules that govern your participation in political and election activities. We hope you'll join us. We want your reaction to our program and to hear your ideas for future topics. Please fill out an evaluation of today's program. You can find the form at our website at the address on the screen. Click on FJC broadcasts on the FJTN and then click on court to court to find and print the evaluation form. Please nail or fax it to us. Our fax number is 202-502-4088. I'm Robin Rowland. On behalf of everyone at the Federal Judicial Center, thank you for watching today.