ABSTRACT

The past decade has been a fertile one for court reform. All across the country, courts – in concert with both government and community partners – have been experimenting with new ways to deliver justice. This wave of innovation goes by many names and takes many forms: Domestic violence court in Massachusetts; drug court in Florida; mental health court in Washington; community court in New York. Each of these specialized courts targets different kinds of concerns in different kinds of places. And yet they all share a basic organizing theme: a desire to improve the results that courts achieve for victims, litigants, defendants, and communities.