Cover Letter

Conference of State Court Administrators

Court Statistics Committee

300 Newport Avenue

Williamsburg, VA 23185

(800) 616-6109 / FAX: (757) 564-2032

X

Members

Chair

Mr. Donald Goodnow, Director

Administrative Office of the Courts

Concord, New Hampshire

Vice Chair

Mr. Ron Titus, State Court Administrator

Nevada Supreme Court

Carson City, Nevada

Mr. Daniel Becker, State Court Administrator

Supreme Court of Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah

Dr. Hugh M. Collins, Judicial Administrator

Supreme Court of Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

Mr. Theodore Eisenberg, Professor of Law

Cornell Law School

Ithaca, New York

Mr. James D. Gingerich, Director

Administrative Office of the Courts

Little Rock, Arkansas

Mr. Steven C. Hollon, Administrative Director

Supreme Court of Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Mr. Collins E. Ijoma, Trial Court Administrator

Superior Court of New Jersey

Newark, New Jersey

Mr. Barry Lynch, Supervising Research Analyst

Judicial Council of California

Administrative Office of the Courts

San Francisco, California

Hon. Aaron Ment, Senior Judge

Supreme Court of Connecticut

Hartford, Connecticut

Mr. John T. Olivier, Clerk of Court

Louisiana Supreme Court

New Orleans, Louisiana

Ms. Beth Riggert, Public Information Officer

Supreme Court of Missouri

Jefferson City, Missouri

Mr. Robert Wessels, Court Manager

Harris County Criminal Courts at Law

Houston, Texas

XXX, XX 2011

<Name>

<Title>

<Address>

Dear <Salutation>:

We are pleased to report that the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) was awarded a contract from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to update State Court Organization. Since the first publication in 1980, State Court Organization (SCO) has been one of the most widely used practical resources available to COSCA members and to the state court community generally, as well as to policymakers, researchers, the media, educators, and the public. The current update incorporates questions that have been asked consistently since the first SCO as well as asks new questions intended to elicit information about emerging issues.

We are also pleased to announce that, with this edition of SCO, all data collection will be done using a new NCSC online data collection tool. For your reference, we have included in this email both a link to the data collection tool and an instruction document that explains the manner in which data will be collected. We ask that you appoint one person from your staff to be our point of contact throughout the data collection process. This person will coordinate the update of information among members of your staff and will serve as the person to whom we send project-related communications. A special feature of the NCSC data collection tool will allow your designated point of contact to delegate portions of the survey to other subject matter experts in your organization and track the progress on completing the survey forms.

www.ncsc.org/SCO/yourstatename

This project has been guided by the State Court Organization Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the COSCA Court Statistics Committee. The SCO Advisory Committee has given generously of their time by carefully reviewing all of the questions contained in survey forms in the data collection tool. NCSC staff have also benefitted from the support of the National Conference of Appellate Court Clerks (NCACC), in their review of the appellate court survey questions, and from the

participation of the Court Information Technology Officers Consortium (CITOC) in helping to shape the new technology-related survey questions. We are confident that the expertise provided by these organizations has enhanced the quality of the questions being asked for the newest edition of SCO.

Although participation in this study is voluntary, the response of your agency is very important to this project, and I hope you and your staff will agree to assist us. We estimate that it should take your staff about 43 hours to complete the SCO data collection spreadsheets. It should take an estimated 19 hours to review the pre-populated SCO spreadsheets and 24 hours to complete the new SCO spreadsheets. In compliance with the Paper Work Reduction Act, we weighed the resources required to collect these data against the critical information that will be generated with your participation. This information has been reviewed and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (please see OMB control number XXX on the data collection forms).

We are excited about the opportunity to update State Court Organization, but we know that it is only through your support and the dedication of your staff that SCO remains the authoritative source of state court-related information. We ask that you send us the name and contact information for the person that you appoint liaison to this project no later than ____ 2011 so that we can begin the data collection process.

Thank you for your continued support of State Court Organization and please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Richard Schauffler Don Goodnow

Director, Research Services Director, Administrative Office of the Courts

National Center for State Courts New Hampshire

SCO Project Director Chair, COSCA Court Statistics Committee

757-259-1516

rschauffler@ncsc.org