Request for increased staffing and judges is supported by a 2022 weighted caseload assessment by NCSC which recommends hiring 17 new circuit court judges as well as court processing staff
By Scott Merrill, for Granite State News Collaborative
April 5, 2023
The New Hampshire Judicial Branch made its case for more judges and court staff in front of the House Judiciary and Children and Family Law Committees recently by pointing to a 2022 weighted caseload assessment that shows the need for 32 new clerical staff and 18 new judges—17 in the state’s circuit court.
The Judicial Branch’s request to the legislature for more judges and staff for fiscal years ‘24 and ‘25 comes as complaints about the court’s ability to handle cases promptly have continued. Last year, HB 1346, calling for the establishment of a commission to investigate the Judicial Branch’s family court system and how it handles cases, was killed.
Chief Administrative Judge of the New Hampshire Circuit Court, David King, said the purpose of the presentation March 28 was to go over the weighted caseload study and to have an audience with the Judicial and Children and Family Law committees. New Hampshire’s Circuit Court, which hears the vast majority of cases in the state, currently has 13,000 cases pending beyond the time the court has set for itself for cases to be disposed, Judge King said. “That’s not where we want to be.”
“A lot of bills have [targeted] the Circuit Court and we wanted these committees to understand the complaints they're hearing from their constituents about cases not being heard in a timely fashion are directly related to a lack of resources,” King said, adding that the presentation to the committees also served as the Judicial Branch’s budget presentation to the House Finance Committee earlier this year. “We are grossly understaffed on both the staff and the judicial side, which explains why we've been treading water for so many years and trying to keep up with the case load.”
Former NH Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Lynn, currently the chair of the NH House Judiciary Committee, said the first weighted case load assessment was done in 2005 when he was serving as Chief Justice of the Superior Court. Lynn believes caseload assessments are important because they allow the legislature to understand the need for resources. “Unfortunately, [the Judicial Branch] shouldn’t have waited until 2023,” Lynn said, explaining that the assessments should be done every ten years.
What is a weighted caseload assessment?
Determining how many judges and staff a court system needs to operate efficiently can be done using population-based formulas as well as formulas based on the number of cases filed in a court overall. But according to the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), which contracted with the NH Judicial Branch in 2019, weighted caseload studies are better indicators of resource needs because they are evidence based. The NCSC has conducted weighted caseload studies for judges in 35 states and for court staff in 24 states.
New Hampshire’s Judicial Branch is made up of the Supreme Court which handles appeals, a Circuit Court and a Superior Court, and an administrative office that supports the courts. The Circuit Court, which hears the highest number of cases by far in New Hampshire, averages 126,811 cases each year. The Superior Court handles all civil and criminal trials, including jury trials, of which there were an average of 11,558 from fiscal year 2017 until fiscal year 2019. Data collection for the weighted assessment was carried out from Jan. to March 2022 using the average of fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, as the most representative time period unaffected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The data collection portion of the study received 100% participation from judges and court staff.
Weighted caseload assessments determine variations in case complexity based on the amount of judicial and staff time required to handle a case in a timely manner. Three factors contribute to the calculation of resource needs: cases filed, case weights and annual availability for casework.
The initial weights represent the average amount of time judicial officers and case-processing
staff currently spend on cases across the state. The case weights do not provide a basis for determining how much time judicial officers and court staff should spend on their caseloads. For this, NCSC conducted an Adequacy of Time Survey and focus group discussions with workgroups within the judicial branch.
According to the assessment, Superior Court Judges spend 654 minutes (11 hours a year) on each complex criminal case. The Superior court also handles routine criminal cases, complex civil cases, routine civil cases, juvenile certifications and others. Superior Court law clerks spend 282 minutes per complex criminal case and court clerks spend 1705 minutes on these cases each year.
Times spent on cases are derived from taking the total minutes a judge spends on a case and dividing that number by the average number of filings of a type of case. Small claims cases in the Circuit Court represent 167,045 minutes overall and each judge spends 12.38 minutes per small claims case. The average number of filings of small claims cases from fiscal years 2017 to 2019 was 13,493.
NCSC recommends hiring 50 more full-time employees
Based on the amount of time various cases take, NCSC found a total of 563.77 judicial officers and staff are necessary to support NH Judicial Branch caseload levels. This represents approximately 50 more positions than currently exist in the budget and includes judges as well as case processing staff. The NCSC estimated in their assessment the Circuit Court needs an additional 37.09 positions, and the Superior Court needs an additional 12.7 positions.
NCSC also recommended that the Judicial Branch consider incorporating a minimum staffing level in
each Superior and Circuit Court location to improve customer service and access to justice. The report suggests having three full-time employees in rural courts.
One crucial recommendation in the assessment, Judge King said, is the need for more case processors. The current distribution of work, he explained, often requires clerks and other managers to engage in case processing work. “What the National Center measured is how much time clerks are spending processing, which they're not supposed to be doing,” he said. “Often this takes place to the detriment of performing their own critical job duties, due to line staff shortages.”
The reality for the Circuit Court, Judge King said, is that a number of cases involving abuse and neglect, guardianships, and landlord-tenant cases, along with many others, have strict statutory time deadlines. “We have to meet those statutes,” he said. “And something has to give.”
Increasing pay and retaining employees
The number one budget priority this year, according to Judge King, is increasing the starting labor grades for court staff. The starting labor grade for an entry level Court Assistant Two is currently set at 10, which pays $29, 445 per year. “We’re asking to bump those entry level applicants to Labor Grade 14,” he said, adding that another priority is hiring more staff. “If we don’t raise starting salaries, we could have 100 positions and they’ll just remain vacant; we’ll lose people to Dunkin Donuts and fast-food restaurants who pay more.”
Judge King said he is cautiously optimistic the legislature is going to approve the budget that was submitted. “It’s a conservative budget when compared to what the NCSC says our needs are,” he said, adding that he’s confident that if the legislature provides the resources being asked for, which includes seven judges and staff, the Circuit Court will be able to meet its internal deadlines for disposing cases. As an example, Judge King explained the court’s goal for appointing an administrator in a new estate case is 30 days. “Right now, that timeframe is 60 days. There’s no statutory deadline we need to meet in these cases so if there are going to be slippages it would be cases like this or in small claims cases.”
And after hiring new employees, Judge King continued, “We will need to train them and retain them in order to meet our deadlines.”
Lynn said NH Speaker of the House, Sherman Packard, is appointing a committee to look at the handling of family law cases and that it has been an eye opener as chair of the judicial committee to see the court’s needs through the lens of the weighted caseload study. He said he strongly supports the judicial branch’s request for more court staff and judges. “They need at least seven judges and staff and I strongly support that,” he said. “Overall, it’s a very reasonable request.”
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