Field Note #2 - Visualizing How Your Courts Actually Operate

Why real-time courtroom reality - not abstract workflows - determines whether justice technology holds up

Justice systems are often implemented as if court operations were linear and sequential: file → schedule → hear → dispose. On paper, that looks reasonable. In practice, it rarely reflects how courts actually operate, especially inside a live courtroom.

Court operations are simultaneous, role-dense, and time-bound. Clerks are entering minutes, managing documents, processing financial information, and coordinating with external systems while hearings are underway. Judges are reviewing files, managing calendars, approving changes, doing research, contemplate statements, asking questions, signing orders, and responding to developments across multiple matters—sometimes across multiple courtrooms - in real time.

When these realities are not visualized explicitly, technology projects advance on assumptions that quietly break down under actual courtroom conditions.

Visualizing how your courts actually operate is not documentation. It is operational risk management.

Why This Matters to Court Leaders

In a live courtroom, multiple things happen at once—and they must happen without delay.

During a single session, courts may need to:

• Review case files and documents in a judge-preferred order

• Enter hearing minutes in real time while proceedings continue

• Adjust charges or allegations as matters evolve

• Generate or receive, revise, review, and route orders

• Calculate, often re-calculate and assess financial obligations

• Coordinate transfers, related matters, or overflow across courtrooms

• Receive and respond to new information from justice partners during the proceeding

These activities are concurrent, not sequential. Yet most workflow diagrams depict them as if they occur one at a time and often spread across many diagrams - or omit them altogether.

When usability, concurrency, and real-time information flow are ignored:

• Staff must context-switch excessively during live proceedings

• Tasks block one another when systems do not support parallel work

• Judges and clerks wait on screens to display, updates to be reflected in the system, or document locks when simultaneous access was not explored in workflow analysis

• Errors are introduced under time pressure

• Proceedings slow down - publicly and visibly

Paper tolerated this. Digital systems often do not.

Criminal and Juvenile Matters: Workflows That Shift Mid-Proceeding

In criminal and juvenile delinquency cases, workflows often change on the fly.

Charges may be:

• Amended upward or downward, or dismissed (nolle prosequi)

• Consolidated, severed, or substituted

• Reclassified in severity or disposition path

Each change can trigger:

• Different statutory consequences

• Altered sentencing or supervision logic

• Changes in required findings or orders

• Different downstream processes for probation, detention, or child services

• Specific additional treatment regarding disposition reporting

These shifts often occur during the hearing, with immediate implications for:

• Clerk entries

• Order generation

• Justice partner notifications

• What must be documented before the matter can proceed

Workflow diagrams that assume static charge structures fail to represent this reality - and systems configured on those diagrams struggle when real proceedings unfold.

Real-Time Information Flow Is Not Optional

Courts do not operate on yesterday’s data.

During proceedings, real-time information may need to flow:

• From and to parties, attorneys, prosecutors, defenders, or probation

• From and to law enforcement or detention facilities

• From and to child welfare agencies or service providers

• Between courtrooms or judicial officers

That information must be:

• Visible to the judge and clerk immediately

• Shared with justice partners as decisions are made

• Reflected in the official record without delay

When systems cannot ingest, display, or propagate updated information in real time, courts are forced into workarounds - verbal confirmations, handwritten notes, delayed entry - that undermine accuracy and confidence.

Workflow visualizations must show when and where real-time updates are required, not just what happens eventually.

Confidentiality and Protected Information Are Workflow Constraints

In child welfare, juvenile dependency, and certain civil or probate matters, information is not merely sensitive. It may be legally protected.

Courts may need to:

• Receive medical, mental health, or treatment information

• Restrict visibility by role, case type, or proceeding phase

• Comply with HIPAA, PII or other confidentiality requirements

• Ensure that protected information flows only to authorized participants

These constraints affect:

• Who can see what, and when

• How documents are accessed during hearings

• How information is shared with justice partners

• How records are stored, audited, and retrieved

Workflow diagrams that do not explicitly model confidentiality boundaries create risk—both legal and operational.

Judicial Variation Is Not an Edge Case

Individual judges often run their courtrooms differently - by design.

Differences may include:

• How case files are presented on screen

• Which documents or data must be immediately visible

• What cases are called by who and in what order

• How orders are drafted, reviewed, signed, and returned

• Which events or filings a judge subscribes to

• How documents are filtered, sorted, or navigated during session

These preferences are not cosmetic. They directly affect:

• Clerk workflow

• Timing of proceedings

• Handoffs between chambers and courtroom staff

• How efficiently matters move

When workflow diagrams assume a single “standard” judicial workflow, systems may technically function but they will not support how judges actually work.

Seeing Related Cases at the Point of Use

In many courts, especially at the regional or statewide level, judges and clerks need to see related cases or person involvement while proceedings are underway.

Examples include:

• Defendants with matters in multiple courtrooms

• Parents or children involved in parallel child welfare and other cases

• Related probate, guardianship, or protection matters

• Co-defendants or associated parties in different divisions

This information must be:

• Discoverable quickly

• Accurate and current

• Visible without disrupting the proceeding

If related-case visibility is not modeled in workflow visualization, it is often discovered late - when judges ask for information the system cannot surface fast enough.

What Helps (Observed Pattern)

• Visualizing workflows by court type and operating model, not abstract lifecycles

• Explicitly modeling simultaneous actions during hearings

• Including usability and concurrency requirements in workflow diagrams

• Modeling mid-proceeding changes (e.g., charge amendments)

• Flagging real-time information dependencies

• Explicitly modeling confidentiality boundaries

• Accounting for judicial variation where it affects timing or flow

• Using workflows to drive usability, testing, and acceptance criteria

What Hurts (Observed Pattern)

• Treating usability as a downstream UI issue

• Assuming static workflows

• Ignoring concurrency and real-time demands

• Discovering UI or locking constraints during go-live

• Relying on paper-like coping strategies in digital systems

Leading Signals to Watch

• Clerks creating manual notes during session

• Judges requesting paper backups “just in case”

• Delays attributed to screen switching or record locks

• Errors introduced because tasks could not happen in parallel

• Justice partners lacking current information during proceedings

These are signals that workflow visualization did not reflect real-time courtroom reality.

Takeaway for Leaders

In justice systems, time, concurrency, usability, and information flow are not secondary concerns. They are core operational requirements.

If your workflow diagrams do not show:

• What happens simultaneously

• How workflows shift mid-proceeding

• Where real-time information must flow

• How confidentiality is enforced

• How judicial variation is accommodated

• How related cases are surfaced at the point of use

then they are incomplete - and your implementation risk is higher than it appears.

Visualizing how your courts actually operate means visualizing real work, under real pressure, with real legal constraints. That is the difference between a system that technically functions and one that holds up when the courtroom is full and the public is watching.