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State of the Judiciary: Much Patience Needed in 2011 - Features/Substantive Law - The H... Page 1 of 5 14 Main Page I Search — Fe Association News Features/ Substantive _ Law Spotlight/ Profiles _ Departments Classifieds _ The Hennepin lawyer _ February 16, 2011 TM Nennepin[uimm[fl State of the Judiciary: Much Patience Deeded in 2011 Judge James Swenson December 23, 2010 This coming year is likely to be a very difficult one for your Hennepin County District Court and its justice partners. Patience will be required of everyone. Significantly Reduced Judicial Resources The Judicial Council recently decided that we must wait a minimum of four months to fill any judicial vacancies. This presents a big practical problem for us and our justice partners. A study by the Office of the Legislative Auditor determined that Minnesota judges handle approximately 49 Judge Swenson is the chief percent more cases per judge than judges in each of our judge of Minnesota's Fourth neighboring states, plus Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. Your Judicial District. Hennepin County District Court is even more productive Prirrtahle Version when compared to other large urban courts in America, handling about twice as many cases as judges in comparable large urban counties. According to the newest judicial weighted caseload numbers, your court has at least five fewer judges than it needs to properly perform its work even before we consider the impact of the current and pending vacant positions. Judge Warren Sagstuen retired in September, Judges Tanja Manrique and Stephen Aldrich retired at the end of October, and part-time Judge Hopper retired at the end of December. Another judge reaches mandatory retirement in February 2011 and as many as five or more judges may retire before the end of the second quarter. Depending upon how soon we can fill the seats left vacant by our fall 2010 retirees, we are looking at a very serious judge shortage for a number of months during the first half of 2011. The situation is not likely to improve soon as we anticipate additional retirements next summer. Some people suggest that we can fill these vacant positions with senior (retired) judges, but that is not the case. First, the funding formula for employing senior judges only allows us to use senior judges three out of every four days of judicial vacancies. Second, this first round of vacant positions is cropping up during the winter months when many of our senior judges are happily enjoying their retirement in warmer climates. Third, even if we could hire senior judges on a one to one basis, I doubt that we could find enough qualified senior judges to fill our needs. As you no doubt know by now, we have eliminated the master calendar for our criminal cases and all criminal cases are now blocked. This means that we no longer have opportunities for senior judges to fill in on a day to day basis, handle traditional mass calendars, and leave at the end of the day without orders to write and follow-up appearances to handle. Instead, we need committed senior judges to work for extended periods, pick up a significant number of blocked cases, and work those cases like their own. Technological Advances Patience will be needed as well as we roll out our many technological innovations. By the time this article is published, our Civil Division will have commenced its e -filing pilot for new attorney -initiated, major civil cases, officially known as the Civil Electronic Filing Pilot http:l/hennepin.timberlakepublishing.com/article.asp?article=1495&paper=l&cat=147 2/16/2011