LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Justice System Journal, 2005 by Wasby, Stephen L, Bierman, Luke

Under the direction of a new editorial team, this issue begins the twenty-sixth volume of Justice System Journal. The editorial team includes the Legal Notes Editor, Todd Lochner, and the Review Editor, Jolly Emrey, and we look forward to working with them. Reestablished after a ten-year hiatus, the latter position includes both responsibility for assigning and editing book reviews and preparation of short summaries of other books, government reports, and articles of interest from other journals.

The Editorial Board is a key part of the larger editorial team. We join in thanking those whose service on the board has come to an end and thank those whose service continues. We gladly welcome the practitioners and academicians who join us, some of whom return after prior service. All have agreed to help by reviewing and commenting on manuscripts and being on the lookout for relevant materials.

We very much appreciate the assistance that our immediate predecessor, Susette Talarico, has provided in facilitating the transition to our editorship, particularly by working with us on manuscripts submitted or under review in the second half of 2004.

Readers of the Journal will find two changes. One is "Of Note," the summaries of books, reports and articles mentioned above. The other is the newly titled section "From the Benches and Trenches," which replaces the "Management Notes" written by practitioners about specific programs and projects. While "From the Benches and Trenches" contributors will continue to be practitioners, we hope to cast the net for this rubric somewhat more widely, to include accounts of the operation of institutions. Thus, in this issue, three judges write about state intermediate appellate courts, and there is an account of a problem-solving court.

This issue was not planned to present a particular theme, but one touching several items here-problem solving in and out of court-quickly became apparent. That topic is the particular focus of articles, a "From the Benches and Trenches" contribution, and a book review. It is also implicated in this issue's lead article, by Gwyneth I. Williams, an examination of the role of attorneys in child custody cases. Her particular focus is lawyers' view of joint custody, a particular solution to child custody disputes with implications for cases brought, or returned, to court. In it, Williams draws on in-depth interviews to explore family law attorneys' attitudes toward their work and how those attitudes affect what lawyers do vis-�-vis the courts.

The first article on problem-solving courts is "Problem-Solving Courts: Models and Trends," by Pamela M. casey and David B. Rottman. The authors provide an important synthesis of our knowledge about these courts. They explore a number of models of problem-solving courts (community, domestic violence, drug, and mental health courts) and identify a number of trends in this important institutional development. It is followed by "Applying Problem-Solving Principles in Mainstream Courts: Lessons for State Courts," by Donald J. Parole, Jr. and coauthors Nora Puffett, Michael Rempel, and Francine Bryne, a study based on focus groups of California and New York judges who had experience in problem-solving courts. Reported are themes that appear in what the judges say about applying lessons from problem-solving courts to the work of "mainstream" or "conventional" courts, ones not established with a specific problem-solving orientation. Then, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox, in "Justice in Red Hook," provide the story of a particular innovative problem-solving court by telling us about the Red Hook Community Justice Center and how it relates to the community of which it is part.

This issue's "From the Benches and Trenches" centerpiece is a set of three articles, each describing a state intermediate appellate court. Associate Editor Luke Bierman, who himself served as a clerk for state intermediate appellate judges and then was chief attorney for a state intermediate appellate court, introduces the articles with a discussion of how little we know about these courts. Then three judges each discuss the operation of the court on which he sits. President Judge Emeritus Stephen J. McEwen, Jr., of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, discusses that state's intermediate appellate courts. In so doing, he begins by providing some national information about state appellate court organization, which helps provide some further context for the three articles. Next, Judge Rick Haselton examines the Oregon Court of Appeals, and, finally, Judge Jefferson Lankford of the Arizona Court of Appeals discusses that court.

The issue concludes with two continuing segments, Legal Notes and Reviews. The topic Todd Lochner addresses in this issue's Legal Note is application of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to access to the courtroom, on which the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. We present one book review and brief summaries of several articles. Related to the several articles on problem-solving courts are both the book review-of a major book on therapeutic jurisprudence-and a note about a short text on restorative justice; another "noted" article, on judges dealing with custody cases, ties into Williams's article on lawyers' views of joint custody. We also include a summary, prepared by new Review Editor Jolly Emrey, of a Federal Judicial Center study of the use of special masters.