THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AND STILL COUNTING

Justice System Journal, 2005 by Yegge, Robert B

The University of Denver Sturm College of Law (DU) has always been a leader in and committed to the development of law-related professions and occupations, which have been influenced by the forces of expanding technologies, new forms of economic organization, and changing social expectations. Recognizing the need to incorporate these factors into the legal profession, the DU College of Law created a master's degree program in Judicial and Legal Administration, which is now celebrating its thirty-fifth anniversary.

In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a slow recognition in legal and governmental circles, and among those working in the courts, of the need for professional managers within the judicial system. The DU College of Law, through Professors Robert B. Yegge and Harry O. Lawson, also expressed such a concern. From novel experimental approaches designed to promote closer collaboration between law and the various social sciences evolved a somewhat complementary concern that came to fruition in 1971 as a master's degree program. Lawson and Yegge were instrumental in developing the curriculum; Lawson directed the course from its inception until 1980 when Yegge joined him as codirector. Lawson retired in 1997; Yegge continues to serve as the sole director.

In 1906 Roscoe Pound, noted legal educator and administrator and then dean of the Harvard Law School, in a seminal address to the American Bar Association (ABA), urged the courts to adopt organizational reforms, which would reduce the "causes of popular dissatisfaction with the administration of justice." Among the causes Pound (1906:56) noted was the erroneous yet "popular assumption that the administration of justice is an easy task, to which anyone is competent." Pound's speech was widely heralded as the beginning of managerial reform in the courts. Thirty years later, as president of the ABA, Arthur Vanderbilt, later chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, sought to systematize the internal workings of the courts.

Before 1970, much progress had been made in modernizing court structures and improving judicial selection and tenure methods, but little had been accomplished with regard to enhancing the competencies of those who direct the court system. The courts grew in size and complexity as caseloads multiplied, but the administration and management of courts remained essentially as it was a half-century ago and earlier.

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger is popularly credited with providing the impetus for the first formal training of professional court managers and administrators. Echoing Roscoe Pound, he stated that it is in large part "a lack of up-to-date procedures and standards for administration or management and especially the lack of trained court administrators" that caused a lack of effective court management. As he put it, "The courts of this country need management which busy and over-worked judges, with vastly increased caseloads, cannot give. We need a corps of trained court administrators or managers to manage and direct the machinery so that judges can concentrate on their primary professional duty of judging." In 1969 Burger called for a conference within sixty days, to include ten or twelve of "the best informed people in this country," to plan a program to train the large number of managers that would be needed. (Burger, 1969). Included in that group was Yegge, then a member of the Board of Directors of the American Judicature Society.

The University of Denver College of Law was soon to share the spotlight in a national program designed in response to the chief justice's call. A task force, sponsored by the ABA and funded by a grant from the Johnson Foundation, was formed and charged with the development of an educational program for court managers. The task force's efforts led to the creation of the Institute of Court Management (ICM) in March of 1970 and the basic design for a court executive educational curriculum. At this same time, DU provided an academic home for the institute.

The primary goal of ICM was to train managers capable of coordinating the complex operations of both federal and state courts while researching the most efficient and effective means of court administration. Ernest C. Friesen, Jr., director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, was named executive director of ICM and appointed a professor of law at DU. In June 1970 the first ICM class began their studies at the DU College of Law, and the class consisted of thirty professionals representing legal and judicial fields. They graduated in ceremonies at the United States Supreme Court in December of that year, with Chief Justice Burger awarding the certificates of completion.

THE MSJA PROGRAM

The philosophy of judicial administration at DU has been, and still is, that a number of disciplines, besides law, have valuable roles in determining what justice is, the factors affecting it, how you get it, how you know it when you get it, and how you keep it. In short, the general political, social, and economic environment in which a judicial system or court functions constitutes the proper subject matter of judicial administration in the broadest sense. Working with the university's dean of graduate studies, the College of Law, with the College of Business and Public Administration, initiated a master's degree in 1971.