SAN FRANCISCO-The Judicial Council of California hosted hundreds of court professionals to discuss how data can be used to inform decisions within the courts and improve access to justice for all court users.

On Oct. 19-20, the Judicial Branch Data Analytics Summit in San Francisco gathered professionals from across California to share best practices and examples of how data can be effectively utilized to support court functions. More than 300 individuals from more than 40 courts participated in the event.

The council's Administrative Director, Michelle Curran emphasized the importance of collaboration through events such as the Data Analytics Summit.

"Events like this help us meet one of our core responsibilities as a branch," Curran said. "And that's ensuring that policies that we set in order to serve the public are grounded in accurate, timely, and trustworthy information."

Leah Rose-Goodwin, chief data and analytics officer for the council, spoke about the Research, Analytics, and Data (RAD) office's work to make data aggregation and processing easier for the courts.

"Courts have to manage hundreds of mandated requests for data reporting, ad hoc surveys, public records requests, and more," Rose-Goodwin said. "I am committed to finding ways to alleviate that reporting burden. Some of it might come from automation, some of it might be lowering silos to use data across programs more effectively."

From Analysis to Action

Courts collect data and must find ways to use that information to make improvements. In a summit breakout session, Jenny Thomas, Richard McHatton, and Chris Roman of the Superior Court of San Bernardino County demonstrated how the evolution of data collection technology has allowed court staff to extract and analyze data more efficiently and put it to use.

"In the past, we weren't able to drill in on data elements that were not available on preset reports, but now we can locate and analyze specific pieces of data," Roman said. "Having this reliable and timely information in the hands of both our teams and the decision-makers has really allowed our court to make better-informed decisions more quickly."

With faster data, court staff can work with the judiciary and make changes that improve efficiency, such as opening more courtrooms for case types that are more impacted, allowing for courts to tackle judicial backlog more nimbly.

Solution to Help Self-Represented Litigants Understand the Divorce Process

The Superior Court of San Francisco County's Assisting Court Customers with Education and Self-help Services (ACCESS) Center improves self-represented litigants' access to court services by using data to assess the language needs of the public and allocate court interpreters to the busiest areas of the court.

By examining court data and seeing where self-represented litigants were most likely to need assistance in navigating processes, the court found that divorce was the number one area where court users with language needs struggled.

The court developed the PARTWAYS™ app as a solution to help self-represented litigants understand the divorce process and access information and guides in a timely and user-friendly way. The app, accessible through mobile devices, as well as the ACCESS Center webpage, is available in English, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese, and tailors the guidance to the responses of the user.

"PARTWAYS™ helps individuals navigate the legal process independently and confidently because their progress bar only showcases where they are in the life of their case, how they're going forward with their knowledge of what is next, what they've already filed and what the next steps are procedurally," said Judy B. Louie, director of the court's ACCESS Center.

The app, though currently used only by the San Francisco Superior Court, was featured at the summit as an example of a technology solution that could inform similar efforts in other courts.

Making More Efficient Use of Jurors

At the Superior Court of Contra Costa County, staff analyzed data to improve the juror experience. The goal was to reduce the number of jurors called for service each day . This not only benefits citizens potentially called to serve but also reduces administrative costs for the court and allows it to shift that money to other programs and services.

The court uses data to better predict the number of jurors needed, depending on the case type and duration of the case. "These recommendations preserve courtroom readiness while meaningfully reducing the unnecessary burden on our jurors," said Jordan Maxwell, a business systems analyst at the court. "Reducing how many people we summon by 20% means that 60,000 jurors are not going to receive a summons next year. It's also a $31,000 savings just in mailing costs."