Court Services Management
Abstract
This research paper has two objectives. One of the objectives is to explain the factors that should be considered in policy development so as to ensure that legal requirements are met and that the best practices in management are applied to court management.

Overview
The Court Services Management has various functions among them made to suit and have the responsibility of directing the way through which the administrative work of the federal courts is carried our,also, has the function of ensuring that the operations of the courts are executed as best as possible.

Policy development
The court system undergoes various changes. One of them is a changing of the guard. When such a change occurs in a federal court, there are administrative law changes that occurs. An example of an administrative change that can occur is making an increment on the number of bonds. An example of a case was in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Louisiana after Harold J. Schlumbrecht, Jr. appointment as a new Pretrial Services Officer Chief in October 7, 2002, and the effect was that both the Federal Public Defender and the CJA Representative, Herb Larson, “made overtures to the new chief to increase the number of bonds and had more hopes for more bonds in 2003.”

The second change is the election of a new administration. During election campaigns, aspiring administration leaders have their manifestos. If the leaders are lucky to win the elections, they embark on implementing their manifestos. These manifestos may affect many forms of governance. Perhaps one of such administration leaders whose form of governance changed the judicial system was Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the U.S., and who assumed office in January 1981. He made a proposal of 30% tax reduction proposal for three years among many other changes. However, of great relevance was that his administration changed the federal judiciary. Until the time Reagan was succeeded by George Bush, Sr., he’d named three Supreme Court justices and over half the nation’s federal judges.
The appointments made by Reagan changed the judicial course that was more than two decades old. The conservative judges and the justices who were appointed as of the 1980s alleviated the Warren Court decisions of the 1960s. The resulting effects included lessing the measures on civil rights, modifying the stringent protections of the rights of criminals and reducing the efficacy of abortion rights decision made from the Roe v. Wade case by the Supreme Court in 1973. Reagan appointed William H. Rehnquist, a renown conservative Supreme Court justice to the position of a chief justice; subsequently, Reagan named Antonin Scalia, to the position left by Rehnquist who was an intelligent legal scholar who had conservative opinions. Still on the appointment of conservative judges, Reagan tried to appoint Robert H. Bork, yet another conservative judicial lobbyist though it was opposed. Therefore, federal judicial can be transformed by the election of a new administration.

Three, the replacement of key executives and managers. As Kovacic (1991) aptly puts it, “President Reagan attempted to use judicial appointments to change the course of federal regulatory policy, his administration reshaped the federal judiciary from 1981 through 1988” and “the ideology of the Reagan appointees is especially to the formation of federal environmental policy.” Therefore, “In making appointments, the Reagan administration sought to alter the ideological perspective of the federal judiciary by choosing individuals who were likely to doubt the efficacy of economic regulation” p. 675 & 676. The aforementioned examples portray how the replacement of key executives with new appointments affect the federal judiciary trend and the policy development as the new appointees import their ideologies into the existing federal judicial trend.
Forth, is policy development upon a new political party assuming power. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party dominate the American political environment; republicans and conservatives. In U.S. Opinions differ, mostly based on “who is in which” political party: either Republican or Democratic. A lot of issues which form the bases of varying opinions include “abortion, capital punishment, same-sex relationships and stem cell research lines in a way which is not true of most European countries” and in other countries “these sort of issues would be regarded as matters of personal conscience and would not feature prominently in election debates between candidates and parties.” This example, paints a picture of the social standing of the political parties and their election to power charts the course which the passing of federal laws will chart if they get a majority win in the House.

A new legal interpretation resulting from a court’s decision on an existing law related to court procedures can affect court administration. Legal differences can occur from how different legal scholars and lawyers interpret law. In the Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur case, the court’s majority declared ineffective a regulation by the school board that made all teachers who were pregnant to get unpaid leaves of five months before their babies were born. This led to Rehnquist’s reply whose opinion was, “If legislative bodies are to be permitted to draw a line anywhere short of the delivery room, I can find no judicial standard of measurement which says the ones drawn here were invalid.” due to David Shapiro’s judgment, he didn’t like any legislative inquiries with the exception of racial, nationality and the trespassing of certain issues in the constitution. The opinion triggered Shapiro’s response which stated that Rehnquist’s opinion made, “rational basis a virtual nullity.”

The passage of a new law can affect court administration. Controversies can arise regarding the efficacy of an existing law upon adoption of a new law. This controversy affect or can chart the course for the decision of the court. Such is the situation which arose when Arizona adopted the Senate Bill 1070 which was directed to either prevent immigrants from going into the state or staying there. A day before the law became effective, on July 28, “ a federal district judge struck down its most controversial provisions, including sections that called for officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.” (New York Times, 2011).
As a court administrator, when significant changes occur that impact the court system, there are a number of management practices that I would implement; to ensure continuity, I would come up with a policy of both majority appointment and removal (Fed. Pbl Def Office E. Dist. of Louisiana, n.d) . To ensure efficiency, effectiveness and fairness, it would require good management of personnel resources and be a liaison with the various organizations, persons and other agencies in the area and have create professional associations with influential figures in the community (Darlington, 2010). To ensure fairness in a court administration after court changes, as a court administrator, I would ascertain that the during the development of the decision, the one making the decision adheres to the lawful and fair court procedures and correcting information relevant to the decision to cushion people on whom the court decision may mightily affect them.

In conclusion, in policy development, certain crucial factors are of great importance in policy development and in court management practices. Such considerations chart the course of the court system upon various societal changes. Failure to consider those factors, it may jeopardize the processes of court administration.

References
Darlington, R. (2010). A Short Guide to the American Political System. Retrieved on February 28, 2012 from http://www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/Americanpoliticalsystem.html
Kovacic, W.E. (1991). The Reagan Judiciary and Environmental Policy:The Impact of Appointments to the Federal Courts of Appeals, B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev, Vol. 18, Issue 4.
The Defense Never Rests. Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Vol. 4, Issue 3
The New York Times. (2011). Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070). Retrieved on February 28, 2012 from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration-and-emigration/arizona-immigration-law-sb-1070/index.html