What are the main barriers to court and community initiatives?
The National Center for State Courts convened a pair of national meetings, the Executive Sessions on Court and Community Courts, with funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice. The first session was devoted to barriers. The second tackled strategies for overcoming those barriers. (See chapter 2, A Leadership Guide to Statewide Court and Community Collaboration.)The concerns of judges to preserve judicial independence and to adhere to ethical standards led to caution when court and community initiatives are considered. Judges traditionally define their responsibilities in relation to case adjudication, which is adversarial in nature. In that context, judges interact with attorneys in cases. Other forms of contact—ex parte communications—are unethical. A judge invited to appear at a town hall meeting or speak to a civic group might be concerned about how to handle a well-intentioned question from the audience that touches on a specific pending court case.N
