JTDL: Judicial Innovation Fellowship Report
Editor’s Note
Last you heard from me it was May 15, 2023, and I was headed into summer break. The newsletter usually takes a break in the summer, but then fall, winter, spring, summer again, and one more fall passed with nothing from me. The short reason for the long silence is that I was focused on building and running the Judicial Innovation Fellowship at Georgetown Law. It proved a big undertaking, and I paused my other interests, like the newsletter, to give it my undivided attention.
As you might have already guessed from the subject line, the JIF pilot came to an end and we’ve got some stories to share—more on that below. What matters for the newsletter is that I will formally relaunch a new version of the JTDL in the new year. More specifics on that when you hear from me again.
Thank you for not unsubscribing over the past 500 some odd days. It’s good to be back and in your inbox again. Have a great holiday. Talk to you in 2025.
-Jason
Judicial Innovation Fellowship Final Report
Two and a half years ago, the Judicial Innovation Fellowship (JIF) at Georgetown Law set out to build a new type of program: one that would help courts better support their patrons by embedding technologists and designers within specific courts, as JIF-sponsored and -managed fellows.
To determine whether this program should become an ongoing facet of the court modernization landscape, we set out to answer three questions:
Would courts want to participate in a program like this?
Would technologists and designers want to work in courts?
If we brought courts and technologists together, would anything good happen?
Now, at the end of the program’s inaugural class, we can report that the answer to each question is unequivocally “yes.” The JIF fellows were able not only to deliver on their technical and design projects, but also to demonstrate the value of their technical and design skills in the day-to-day work of the courts. In doing so,they helped courts change how they operate, as well as seed systemic change.
Among other accomplishments, our three fellows redesigned court forms that were then approved for official use; improved usability of data systems to decrease input errors; and inspired a court to develop a tool in-house, instead of relying on a subpar, out-of-house vendor. In one instance, proving the long-term and unique value of talent not usually hired by courts, one court offered to create a new position to retain their JIF fellow. And in all three courts, our fellows voluntarily offered to provide support to their courts after the end of the fellowship.
What’s listed here only scratches the surface of what we were able to accomplish together. To dig into the weeds on what happened and what we learned, please give our final report a read.
As for what’s next: We are taking some time to think deeper about the lessons we learned and how we can tackle upstream problems that not only impact JIF but other programs looking to make our court systems better too.
We are grateful to everyone that made this successful pilot possible, from our thought partners to our funders and especially to our fellows and court partners. It was a fantastic group effort.