SJC Exchange Library

As the great British statesman William E. Gladstone said in the nineteenth century, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”1 In America, delay reduction has been one of the primary focuses of twentieth-century court reform efforts. To reduce and avoid delay, American courts have developed a set of principles and techniques since the 1970s that we refer to as “caseflow management.” Caseflow management involves the entire set of actions that a court takes to monitor and control the progress of cases, from initiation through trial or other initial disposition to the completion of all post disposition court work, to make sure that justice is done promptly.

The main premise of this book is that caseflow management is more than just a way to reduce or avoid delay, however. In fact, caseflow management is the conceptual heart of court management in general. We can fully understand courts as organizations only if we understand the requirements of caseflow management. In managing a court, the chief judge and court managers should focus first on caseflow management—not just because it addresses problems of delay or backlog, but more importantly because it is the very foundation of court management in general. Even if a court is current and has no problems of delay, it should have an effective caseflow management program, both as a means to achieve successful general court management and as a key aspect of successful overall court management.
#CaseProcessing