Judge Judy Harris Kluger, New York’s deputy chief administrative judge for court operations and planning, is responsible for overseeing problem-solving courts in New York. She spoke with the Center for Court Innovation’s Carolyn Turgeon.
What challenges have you encountered as you’ve established more domestic violence and integrated domestic violence courts in New York?
I’ll start with integrated domestic violence. Since there are three separate courts (criminal, matrimonial, family) that have cases that can belong in the integrated domestic violence court, the challenge is to identify the cases and bring them before the judge so that all matters relating to a particular family are heard by one judge. We have separate computer systems, separate courthouses, separate files, so it’s been a huge operational challenge. What it hasn’t been is a conceptual challenge because the sense from everyone you talk to around the state—be it litigants, lawyers, prosecutors—is that everyone realizes it makes sense to have these cases in one court. So as the years go by and we begin to increase the number of courts, we don’t have to convince people that this is the right thing to do.
Domestic violence courts are less of an operational challenge because we’re looking to just gather all the domestic violence cases in a particular county or court before one judge, so it’s a matter of training staff and training judges on issues relating to domestic violence. Once there’s a commitment by the administrative judge and stakeholders in a particular jurisdiction, we are able to open domestic violence courts fairly quickly and efficiently.
Another challenge is to get services linked to the court. What we want to do is not just house the cases in one place but make sure there are support services for victims and, if appropriate, offenders.
How is your office overcoming the operational challenges for integrated domestic violence courts that you just described?
Through a lot of hard work. Giving the courts different strategies and tools to handle the cases. We have a tool kit, an operational manual for the courts to make it easier for them to identify cases and to bring them before one judge. And we’re also working with our technology people here in the court system to identify cases in a quicker and more efficient way. Right now it’s very labor intensive. It’s easier than it was two years ago but it’s still basically a daily check of three computer systems.
What successes have you seen with the integrated domestic violence court model?
I just had a conversation with a judge who sits in the Queens integrated domestic violence court and she informed me that since the court’s been open they have had very few supplemental filings in Family Court. She sat in Family Court before then, and she said that there she would routinely have four or five or six supplemental filings and now in most cases she’ll have none or, at most, one or two. So what we assumed would happen is in fact happening. Because the matters are all before one judge and he or she is aware of all the issues, the parties have their issues resolved more quickly and don’t have additional filings. So that’s one of the benefits.
What convinced you of the value of this approach?
It is really [New York State Chief] Judge [Judith S.] Kaye’s idea. It wasn’t hard to figure out that if a person wants to get a divorce, has certain issues that have to be resolved in Family Court, and has a criminal case, the cases don’t need to appear in three different places before three different judges. It’s simple common sense. The whole concept of merging our court system, which is a major initiative of the chief judge, is to streamline the process so that this won’t happen.
How has the model been adapted for different areas of the state—i.e., rural and suburban settings?
It’s a big state with a lot of diversity in terms of population and types of courts, and it’s been a challenge, managing them centrally. You want to recognize local differences while understanding that there are certain concepts that have to translate both in a big city and a rural area. It’s not going to be the same in a tiny hamlet in rural New York as it is going to be in the Bronx. In our rural areas we might have one judge who goes to a different county each day to handle their domestic violence cases. In some parts of the state the courts only sit half a day or one day a week because that’s all that is required based on the caseload. In other cases it’s a full-time court. But by and large the model is the same all over. There may be some local differences in terms of calendaring cases and how different cases were phased in, but it’s pretty much a set model around the state that fits in most of the jurisdictions.
How did you go about creating a statewide infrastructure to oversee problem-solving courts?
It was really done by [Chief Administrative] Judge [Jonathan] Lippman and Judge Kaye, who created my office to oversee the problem-solving courts around the state. With drug courts, we developed plans to open the courts around the state and to do that based on the size and needs of the jurisdictions and we applied for federal funding when we could. It’s really a combination of training, education, and guidance on best practices. My office works with the Center for Court Innovation, and together we send out technical assistance teams to help jurisdictions around the state implement problem-solving courts.
And once the initiatives are implemented, how are you able to oversee them?
In our integrated domestic violence courts, our technical assistance teams continue to have input and guidance once the court is open. We also monitor statistics. Staff from my office and the Center for Court Innovation meet every two weeks to follow up on existing courts and new courts that we’re opening, and now we’re working on mental health courts as well. So we continue to kind of have our finger on the pulse of the courts that are open throughout the state.
Can you describe your office’s relationship with the Center for Court Innovation?
We work as a team. They’re smart people with good ideas, they can do the research to back up what we’re doing operationally within the court, and they are committed to the whole area of problem solving. I consider them—all the people in the Center who work with us—to be part of our team. For example, each technical assistance team has one person from the Center and one person from my staff, and we just work together very seamlessly, I think. I don’t see any barriers to what we do.
What is the next frontier for domestic violence and integrated domestic violence courts, in your opinion?
I think what we want to do first is expand throughout the state. We’re in a lot of places already and I think by the end of this year three quarters of the population will live in counties served by an integrated domestic violence court. We also want to expand the kinds of cases they handle. Right now most of the integrated domestic violence courts handle cases where there’s a criminal matter and a family court case and a matrimonial case. Our next phase would be to handle a case if there is a family court case with domestic violence as a component and a matrimonial, even if there’s no criminal matter. We are expanding to do abuse and neglect cases in most of the courts as well. And with domestic violence courts, our goal is just to continue to place those in more jurisdictions around the state.
Where do you think problem solving needs to go next?
I think that as we continue to go to scale, research is critical to teach us whether what we’re doing is correct and whether we should adjust some of our concepts. We’ve already had some really good research in the area of drug courts and there will be some research this year in integrated domestic violence courts. So I think we need to continue to look at that and to monitor it in the long term.
February 2005