Trial Courts As Organizations

Court administrators and judges have long acknowledged that culture plays an important role in the function of trial courts. Trial Courts as Organizations provides a comprehensive framework for understanding this organizational culture, along with a set of steps and tools to assess and measure the current and preferred culture.

The authors examine how courts operate, what characteristics they may display, and how they function as a unit to preserve judicial independence, strengthen organizational leadership, and influence court performance. They identify four different types of institutional cultures using a systematic analysis of alternative values on how work is done. Each culture is shown to have its own strengths and weaknesses in achieving values, such as timely case resolution, access to court services, and procedural justice. Accordingly, the authors find judges and administrators prefer a definite pattern of different cultures, called a "mosaic," to guide how their courts operate in the future.

Brian J. Ostrom is Principal Research Consultant at the National Center for State Courts.
Charles W. Ostrom, Jr. is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University.
Roger A. Hanson is Principal at Hanson and Hunter.
Matthew Kleiman is a Senior Court Research Associate at the National Center for State Courts.