Dee Mandiyan

  As problem-solving innovation becomes more integrated into the way courts do business, law schools are beginning to offer courses examining problem-solving principles and practices. The Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators, among others, have urged law schools to include the principles and methods of problem-solving courts in their curricula. In a parallel development, Harvard Law School recently reformed its first-year curriculum to include a new course, “Problems and Theories,” that will focus on teaching students basic problem-solving skills. A recent article in the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy entitled "Lawyering and Learning in Problem-Solving Courts" makes the case for greater engagement between law school clinics and problem-solving courts.  Given the recent interest in problem solving and academia, this article seeks to provide a short overview of current law school classes that touch on topics of problem-solving justice. Courses and clinics are organized into five basic categories: problem-solving courts, community prosecution, restorative justice, problem-solving lawyering, and therapeutic jurisprudence. The list was compiled with the help of Michael Cobden, based on interviews and web searches. It is not intended to be exhaustive or definitive. Rather, it seeks to provide a snapshot of a rapidly developing field by highlighting courses from law schools around the country. Note that this overview is limited to law school classes and does not include courses on problem solving at graduate schools in other disciplines (e.g., criminology, public policy, social work). Problem-Solving Courts In recent years, proponents of problem-solving courts have sought to introduce drug courts, community courts, and other new approaches to justice into law schools. Often this takes the form of a single guest lecture as part of a larger course on a related topic. In addition to these ad-hoc efforts, several more law schools have recently piloted full-semester classes devoted to problem-solving justice. Fordham University School of Law Course: Problem Solving Justice: Courts as Agents of Social Change Professors: Patricia Henry, Susan Knipps, Valerie Raine Fordham has piloted a syllabus created by the Center for Court Innovation with the help of a panel of academic advisors. The course begins with a look at the conventional approach to case processing and offers a history of problem-solving courts, focusing on drug courts, community courts, mental health courts, and domestic violence courts. Guest speakers and site visits are a part of the course. Brooklyn Law School Course: Problem-Solving Justice Professor: Anne J. Swern This course, taught by an adjunct lecturer from the Brooklyn D.A.’s office, covers the history of the problem-solving court movement and addresses the role these new courts play within the larger justice system. Concerns about how courts should treat issues like drug addiction are introduced and discussed. Visits to both traditional and innovative courts are part of the course. State University of New York: Buffalo Course: A Critical Look at Therapeutic Courts: Drug Treatment, Domestic Violence, Mental Health and Gambling Courts Professors: Mark Violante, Mark Farrell This course is taught by two judges and involves extensive site visits. During visits to court, students attend case conferences and “shadow” court staff including district attorneys, defense attorneys, and judges. Students are required to write a 20-page paper about any aspect of a problem-solving court they have learned about during the semester. Columbia University  Program Title: Center on Crime, Community and Law Course: Pro-seminar on Problem-solving Courts Professors: Jeffrey Fagan, Michael Dorf This Columbia pro-seminar changes subject each year. The 2003 pro-seminar focused on community justice centers and community prosecution. The course began with readings on the theoretical basis for the courts before moving on to empirical research. This pro-seminar culminated in a research paper which was defended by each student author in a final symposium. William and Mary School of Law Course: Problem-Solving Courts Professor: Gregory Baker According to Professor Gregory Baker, there are plans to create a new course which would supplement the developing Therapeutic Jurisprudence Program (see below).  Community Prosecution Community prosecution—a new approach to law enforcement that emphasizes neighborhood knowledge and creative, non-prosecutorial approaches to public safety problems—is being taught in a couple of law school clinics. Brooklyn Law School  Course: Prosecutors Clinic Professor: Lisa Smith and Anne J. Swern In the Brooklyn program, third-year students work alongside community prosecutors from the Kings County D.A.’s office in a clinical setting. Students are encouraged to become familiar with the community itself as they learn about specific neighborhood problems. University of Maryland School of Law Course: Community Justice Clinic, Community Law in Action Clinic Professor: Brenda Bratton Blom, Terry Hickey The Community Justice Clinic has five components in which students may participate: community prosecution, community justice council, school conflict resolution, youth advocacy/law/leadership and business development. The community prosecution component allows students to design, operate and evaluate a community prosecution project with help from faculty and the Baltimore City State’s Attorney's Office. The community justice council is a group which consists of community leaders, law enforcement, prosecutors, defenders, law students and clergy who create and evaluate offender rehabilitation programs. New York University School of Law Course: Criminal and Community Defense Clinic Professors: Kim Taylor-Thompson and Anthony Thompson The Criminal and Community Defense Clinic offers students to explore the variety of ways that defender offices can be more grounded in the communities from which their clients come and to which they return. Students work with defenders at the Neighborhood Defenders Service of Harlem and also with community advocacy groups in addressing broader issues that affect communities of individuals charged with crime. Restorative Justice Several law schools have restorative justice programs or courses that focus on efforts to promote alternative approaches to disputes that bring together victims and offenders. What follows are selected examples. University of Wisconsin Law School  Program Title: Frank J. Remington Center Course: Restorative Justice Project Professors: Leslie Shear, Pete DeWind This clinical program is open to 12 second and third-year law students and is divided into two parts: Family Law Project and Restorative Justice Project. The Restorative Justice Project facilitates meetings between incarcerated felons and victims. The project seeks to teach students a non-adversarial approach to criminal justice issues. Marquette University Law School  Course Titles: Restorative Justice; Restorative Justice Initiative Clinic Professors: Janine Geske The course teaches restorative justice in both American and international settings, including victim/offender and victim/family conferencing, victim impact panels and Native American Circles. The course also explores constitutional problems related to restorative justice. Pepperdine University School of Law  Course: Restorative Justice Professor: Daniel Van Ness  This course explores the restorative justice movement, a systematic approach to criminal justice that emphasizes repairing harm caused or revealed by criminal behavior. Restorative justice incorporates aspects of alternative dispute resolution and civil law into criminal matters in furtherance of its overarching goals of healing and reconciliation. The course considers where the movement originated, how it has developed in the past twenty years, the opportunities and challenges it confronts, and specific ways in which it can be woven into and implemented as part of the criminal process. Georgetown Law Course: Restorative Justice In International Human Rights: A New Paradigm Professor: Lynn Fraser This is an LL.M. seminar offered on international human rights and restorative justice that teaches the basics of the restorative justice theory before applying it to the international issues. New York University School of Law Course: Retribution in Criminal Law Theory & Practice Seminar Professor: James Frederick Gilligan and David A.J. Richards This course discusses the role retribution should play in criminal justice. Topics discussed will include the philosophy of retributive justice and social justice in a democracy, the psychology of violence (rooted in patriarchal emotions of humiliation and shame, suppressing the moral emotion of guilt), the historical roots of American retributivism (including mass incarceration and the death penalty), and alternatives to retributive justice (including therapeutic and restorative justice). The seminar includes in its pedagogy experiments in freeing creative voice through weekly writing and theatre exercises and includes a close study of philosophy, history, psychoanalysis, novels, and plays. Problem-Solving Lawyering and Alternative Dispute Resolution In October 2006, the Harvard Law School revised its first-year curriculum to include a new course, “Problem Solving Workshop,” that will engage students in working on complex, multi-faceted problems involving diverse areas of law. Other schools that offer at least a course or two which teach general problem-solving lawyer skills include Stanford, UCLA and New York Law School. California Western University has taken the idea further by creating an entire curriculum and concentration called “Creative Problem-Solving.” The curriculum has three core courses: Problem-solving & Preventive Law; Cross-cultural Problem Identification and Problem Solving Skills & Theory. Georgetown Law School has a special program on “Conflict Resolution and Legal Problem Solving” led by Carrie Minkel Meadow that focuses on mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. Like Georgetown, many law schools have classes in Alternative Dispute Resolution. Indeed, the Association of American Law Schools, the principal association of law professors, has a special section devoted to Alternative Dispute Resolution. Florida Coastal School of Law Course: Comprehensive Law Practice Professor: Susan Daicoff This course is limited to 30 students and has been offered during spring semesters since 2000. The official description says that the course is evenly divided between theory and skill development. Most of the course covers mediation and general lawyer skills from the perspective of law as a healing profession. One week is devoted to problem-solving courts. University of Baltimore School of Law  Course: Center for Families, Children and the Courts’ Student Fellows Program Professor: Barbara A. Babb The fellowship program has a limited enrollment of six students. The program consists of weekly two-hour seminars and weekly one-hour supervisory meetings. About eight or nine class sessions (out of sixteen) are devoted to problem-solving courts, teen courts, drug courts and family courts. Students participate in research projects for the Center. Therapeutic Jurisprudence Proponents of therapeutic jurisprudence, most notably Professors Bruce Winick and David Wexler, argue that therapeutic jurisprudence—the study of the therapeutic (and anti-therapeutic) impacts of legal decisions and actions—can apply to all areas of legal practice. Many of the courses listed below have posted syllabi on the website for the International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence maintained by the University of Arizona. William and Mary School of Law  Course Title: Therapeutic Jurisprudence Professor: Gregory Baker Students spend most of their time working in either a drug court or mental health court. This work commonly involves being a “therapeutic court law clerk,” researching constitutional and other legal issues and writing legal memoranda for the judge. There is also a community service component that requires students to provide some non-legal service to either the court or to the local community. University of Miami School of Law  Course Titles: New Directions in Lawyering: Interviewing, Counseling, & Attorney/Client Relational Skills; Therapeutic Jurisprudence Seminar; Therapeutic Courts Externship Professors: Bruce Winick, Bernard P. Perlmutter, Jennifer Zawid The first course focuses is on preventive lawyering, holistic representation and civil matters. Students are assigned a variety of readings including articles profiling attorneys who utilize therapeutic methods in their practice. Traditional cases are re-examined with an eye towards how they might have been handled differently from a preventive or holistic perspective. Students engage in mock interviews and role-playing exercises, some of which are based on real case files and some of which are scripted. Outside speakers from other departments in the University of Miami inform the class of other disciplines and how they might contribute to the understanding of the client’s perspective. In the final phase of this course, students conduct supervised interviews of clients who are in the custody of a juvenile detention facility and prepare memoranda which are shared with the public defender’s office. The second course focuses on studying and attempting to reform substantive legal rules and legal procedures. Students will prepare a 30-40 page paper on a therapeutic jurisprudence topic or theme and will have the opportunity to participate in research or law reform activities conducted by the Therapeutic Jurisprudence Center. University of Puerto Rico Courses: Therapeutic Jurisprudence; Therapeutic Jurisprudence and New Directions in Criminal Lawyering; Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Therapeutic Jurisprudence; and Sentencing and Corrections from a Therapeutic Jurisprudence Perspective Professor: David Wexler Professor Wexler is a Professor of Law at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a Distinguished Research Professor of Law at the James E. Rogers College of Law, Tucson, Arizona, and the Director of the International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence. Touro Law Center  Course: Selected Topics in Professional Responsibility: Lawyering as a Happy, Healthy, Healing and Ethical Profession Professor: Marjorie A. Silver According to the course description, this course is geared toward students who are already experiencing disillusionment about their chosen profession. The course addresses the emotional and mental strain on lawyers as much as on litigants. Problem-solving courts and restorative justice are presented as areas of practice that might avoid the ethical and emotional difficulties of working in a traditional legal career. New York Law School Course: Therapeutic Jurisprudence  Professor: Deborah Dorfman This course focuses on mentally disabled individuals who are litigants or are the subject of litigation. It is a predominantly on-line course, requiring students to participate in a weekly chat room, discussion board, and two, day-long weekend live seminars at New York Law School. University of Connecticut Law School  Course: Therapeutic Jurisprudence Professor: Robert G. Madden This is a seminar covering a wide range of theory and skill development. One class session is titled “Specialized Courts: Applied Therapeutic Jurisprudence.” Three other sessions deal with Domestic Violence, Juvenile Justice, Drug Courts and Criminal Courts. Mercer University School of Law  Course: Therapeutic Jurisprudence Professor: Bonnie Cole  The course covers the psychology of law and the psychological well-being of practitioners. Other topics include comprehensive law, holistic lawyering and collaborative law.

In 2006, the Red Hook Youth Photography Project was developed as a response to community needs in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Over the course of a summer, young people use photography to express their feelings and questions about the world. At the end of the summer, all student portfolios are displayed in a show at the Red Hook Community Justice Center, giving participants an opportunity to be the subject of positive attention from their community. As a geographically and socially isolated neighborhood, Red Hook has struggled with the absence of many basic services and amenities. For example, local youth and their parents have emphasized the need for more arts programs for young people. At the same time, the Red Hook Community Justice Center’s social workers have identified a need for programs that build self-esteem and enable positive forms of self-expression. The Red Hook Youth Photography Project was developed in 2006 as a response to this set of needs. Over the course of a summer, young people ages 14 to 18 use photography to express their feelings and questions about the world in which they live. Program participants are trained in the technical elements of photography—camera operation and care, image editing, and photograph printing—and develop visual literacy by identifying and employing composition, framing, symbolism, mood, and gestures in images. At the end of the summer, all student portfolios are displayed in a show at the Justice Center. The display of their work gives participants an opportunity to be the subject of positive attention from their community, according to James Brodick, director of the Justice Center. Supported by the Edith Glick Shoolman Children’s Foundation, the Youth Photography Project in its first year recruited 10 students to work three days a week for eight weeks. Over the next two years, the program’s capacity will increase to 15 and then 20 students. The program begins with a 25-hour training that teaches youth appropriate workplace behavior, financial management, conflict resolution, and other skills. Participants receive a small weekly stipend that enables them to make a contribution to family finances and helps them begin to implement some of the financial management skills they have learned. In 2006, classes were coordinated by a lead teacher Alice Proujansky and assistant Johanna Neufeld, who have extensive experience in arts education with youth from under-resourced areas. “Sharing and discussing their photographs helps young people develop coping behaviors like positive self-expression, constructive risk-taking, and appropriate social participation, while the photography itself provides an alternative way to communicate difficult emotions and ideas,” Proujansky said. Because some topics may spark challenging and deeply personal conversations, a Justice Center social worker participates in some class meetings and activities, and is available to the participants individually as needed. Each participant also has an individual meeting with the teachers and the social worker to identify any services or programs the young person may want or need and to provide appropriate referrals. The program is designed to have an impact that extends beyond the eight weeks the students spend at the Justice Center. All young people who participate in a Justice Center program have life-long access to the center’s network of partnering agencies and programs, and also become eligible for a variety of services provided by the Justice Center’s Youth Court, including college prep classes and trips, summer internships, and mentoring matches. They also get to keep their digital camera, enabling them to continue their artistic work. To view photos from the 2006 class, click here.

  In just 10 years, the New York State Court System has launched dozens of domestic violence courts across the state—an achievement that the court system marked during a special ceremony Sept. 20, 2006.   The state’s first domestic violence court—the Brooklyn Felony Domestic Violence Court—opened in 1996.  The court, which was developed in collaboration with the Center for Court Innovation, was distinguished by a specially trained presiding judge and an emphasis on reaching out to potential partners, including victim advocates, batterer programs and probation officials. Researchers found that these innovations led to a reduction in probation violations, reduced dismissals and improved delivery of services to victims.   Today, that Brooklyn model serves as the inspiration for two kinds of domestic violence courts in New York: criminal domestic violence courts and integrated domestic violence courts. While the criminal courts handle only criminal cases, the integrated courts bring before a single judge all the cases involving an individual family, whether the cases involve criminal, civil, family, housing or matrimonial issues.   As New York State Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman explained, the most important goals of all the state’s domestic violence courts are “victim safety and defendant accountability.”    Domestic violence courts represent “a basic change in the way we do business,” Lippman said. “It’s about not letting domestic violence victims fall through the cracks. With this and other problem-solving courts, we developed a new role for the courts, one that is less passive … The courts cannot remain passive in a world where the ills of society are reflected in the courts.”   Judith S. Kaye, the state’s chief judge, recalled two murder-suicides in the mid-1990s that motivated the court system “to find a better way” to deal with domestic violence.  The question court planners asked themselves, Kaye recalled, was, “How do we assure there will be a just result in every one of these heart-wrenching cases?”   Despite the progress of the last decade, Kaye lamented that there seems to have been no reduction in the need for orders of protection.  She noted that 1.4 million orders had been issued in the state over the last 10 years.  “Yes, we’re making a difference, but as these grim statistics remind us, our work is far from complete,” Kaye said.   Barry Kamins, president of the Bar Association of New York City, called the concept of the domestic violence court “a breathtaking one.” He said the courts today have changed dramatically for the better since his days as a young prosecutor when “a battered woman would appear before the judge, and the judge would ask me if there’s a relationship, as if that explained the evil that had been done… and then he’d suggest that they go home.”   Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson noted that domestic violence crime poses unique challenges. “This crime doesn’t quite respond to the placement of a police officer in a particular location. It happens behind closed doors… Because of that, it cries out for the community and courts to do a bit more.”   Also speaking at the ceremony was a woman whose case had been handled by an integrated domestic violence court.  The mother of two young children talked about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband of 13 years.  “It started as verbal and then went to hitting, pushing, slapping… Once he had me on the floor with a knife to my throat threatening to kill me.”  Her husband restricted her access to money and the phone “to control everything I did.” Eventually, fleeing to a battered women’s shelter, she brought both criminal and custody cases in an integrated domestic violence court.  Today, she said, her life is much better. Among other things, she lives in a shelter and her children are in counseling, getting proper medical care for their asthma and have supervised visitation with their father. An order of protection is also in place.   Judges John Leventhal, who has presided over the Brooklyn Felony Domestic Violence Court since its inception, and Matthew D’Emic, who was appointed to the second Brooklyn Felony Domestic Violence Court in 1998, were singled out for special praise. “How lucky we were John Leventhal to have found you on day one and then his colleague Matt D’Emic,” Kaye said.   Speakers also highlighted the Center for Court Innovation’s role. The center, which serves as the independent research and development arm of the New York State Court System, helped develop and run the state’s first domestic violence courts and provides training and other forms of technical assistance, including evaluation services, to all the state’s domestic violence courts.    Other speakers at the 10th anniversary ceremony included Assemblywoman Helene E. Weinstein, chairwoman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, and Yolanda B. Jimenez, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence.   There are over 60 domestic violence and integrated domestic violence courts in operation or planning in New York, and the state has received over $5 million in federal grants to support domestic violence court operations, program development and staff. Domestic violence court judges from across the state attended the ceremony, which was held in the Brooklyn Courthouse.

For courts with limited resources that are interested in problem-solving, Buffalo (N.Y.) City Court offers an intriguing model. With no extra funds, in 1995 the court began to identify defendants’ social problems and link them to needed services. Today, Buffalo’s innovative C.O.U.R.T.S. (Court Outreach Unit: Referral and Treatment Services) program links together more than 130 community-based providers and makes more than 6,000 referrals a year.   The program, a collaborative effort of Buffalo City Court and the City of Buffalo, provides judges with an on-site court-based screening and referral service. “We’re basically a treatment and communication broker for the court. And you name it, we got it. We basically can meet any need of a person who comes through the doors,” Director Hank Pirowski says. The program links individuals coming through the justice system with a full range of social services, including drug treatment, mental health treatment, medical care, anger management, family counseling, youth counseling, domestic violence and battering programming, vocational/educational services, and housing. The idea for the program came about in 1994, when the Hon. Thomas Amodeo became chief judge for the Buffalo City Court. Frustrated by the haphazard way defendants were being placed into treatment, the lack of a centralized tracking system for the court, and increased recidivism rates driven in part by the crack epidemic, he started talking to court staff and city officials about new ways of doing business. According to Amodeo, the court had two major problems: first, reports weren’t coming back to the judge, and second, the court needed a regimented screening system to ensure that everyone who needed treatment received it. Treatment provider Hank Pirowski spearheaded a study of how the court could best link clients to services. “That’s when we came up with this idea, to get all our partnering agencies involved,” Pirowski says. The court then called together a meeting with over 60 area providers to get them on board, explaining the concept for the program and convincing providers that if they would co-locate staff members in space provided by the court, defendants would have easier access to their treatment systems. “On the staffing side we started the program with no dollars,” Pirowski says. “Zero. I was given a closet in the courthouse that still had wash basins in it. But the city gave me a team of six people, two from the Division of Substance Abuse Services and four from the Division for Youth, and my partnering agencies donated staff at no additional cost to the court.” Today there are 26 full- and part-time workers on site, only four of them from the Office of Court Administration. “Without the community partnership, we wouldn’t exist,” says Pirowski, who also helps oversee Buffalo’s drug court and mental health court. C.O.U.R.T.S. staff interview defendants while in custody, relaying the information to court advocates, who make recommendations to judges. The judges make the final call on whether a defendant is appropriate for C.O.U.R.T.S. or not. Defendants referred to the program are placed with a participating member of the treatment consortium. Placement is based not on which agency performed the assessment but on the defendant’s individual needs, geographical location and ability to pay. No one is allowed to refer defendants to his or her own agency, though the judge may approve such a placement if it is clearly the best choice for the defendant. Managed care partners are on site to make the process run more smoothly. And once defendants are placed, case managers monitor defendants’ compliance with tailored, individual service plans, and report treatment outcomes to the judge. By the summer of 2006 the C.O.UR.T.S. program had made over 40,000 referrals, and was referring 6,000 cases to social service providers each year. From 2000 to 2005, defendants completed over 75,500 hours of community service, including graffiti removal and demolition of crack houses. The value of labor contributed to the community during that time was estimated to be $453,000. The program has received the New York State Bar Association Public Service Award for the Furtherance of Justice and the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ City Livability Award.