NEW HAMPSHIRE CITIZENS COMMISSION ON THE STATE COURTS 
COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES – August 22, 2005 
Attendees: Will Abbott (Co-Chair), Kathy Eneguess (Co-Chair), Blake Allen, Kelly A. Ayotte, Gail Barba, 
Kenneth J. Barnes, John J. Brady, Hon. Harriet E. Cady, Daniel J. Callaghan, Michael R. Callahan, Byron O. 
Champlin, Richard Chevrefils, John D. Crosier, Sr., Donna E. Davey, Sally Davis, Joseph Diament, Ross A. 
Doerr, Ida Dzuira, Harland Eaton, Lewis Feldstein, Bruce W. Felmly, Retha Lindsey Fielding, Larry Gilpin, 
Cathy J. Green, Martin L. Gross, Vera Peaslee Haus, John W. Hennessey, Jr., Eric B. Herr, Hon, Christopher 
M. Johnson, Hon. Edwin Kelly, Michael J. Kenison, Hon. David H. Kidder, Cheryl Killam, Hon. William V. 
Knowles, Rev. Dale S. Kuehne, Ann M. Kuster, Albert D. Leahy, Jr., Elizabeth Lown, Marilyn T. Mahoney, Hon. 
James E. Michalik, Stephen R. Monier, Michael A. Morgan, Laurie Morrow, John Moulis, Claudia D. 
Nixon, Danny H. O’Brien, Jeffrey B. Osburn, Andrew Peterson, Hon. Gilman Shattuck, Gary Tasker, , Clyde 
Terry, John E. Tobin, Jr., Marge Webster, Hon. Michael Whalley, Richard F. Winters 
Other Attendees: Laura Kiernan (Communications Director, Judicial Branch), Ann McArdle (Project Manager, 
NH Citizens Commission on the State Courts) Andy Smith (UNH Survey Center), Dale Trombley (Fiscal 
Manager, Judicial Branch), Cathy Yeager (Commission meeting recorder), Howard Zibel (Administrative Office 
of the Courts) 
Unable to Attend: Jonathan P. Baird, Hon. James J. Barry, Dr. Eugene E. Berg, Charles G. Bickford, Anne B. 
Botteri, Raymond Bower, Alan M. Cantor, Paul M. Clements, Margo Connors , Albert A. Duhaime, Mary E. 
Francoeur, Hon. Francis Frasier, Nina C. Gardner, Janine Gawryl, Donald W. Gendron, Sheriff James A. 
Hardy, Peter Heed, Robert L. Hemeon, Gary E. Hicks, Winnie Hohlt, Steve Horton, Christopher Keating, Mary 
Krueger, Ralph Littlefield, Ronald K. Lospennato, Tricia H. Lucas, Hon. Robert J. Lynn, Mark MacKenzie, Hon. 
John R. Maher, Dr. Tim Markley, Ginny Martin, Joseph M. McDonough, Catherine P. McDowell, Hon. Tina 
Nadeau, Stephanie T. Nute, Michael Ostrowski, Terri L. Peterson, Sheriff Michael L. Prozzo, Jr., Cap. Mark A. 
Putney, James M. Reams, John Riley, Hon. L. Phillips Runyon, III, Marcia Sink, Dr. James W. Squires, Katrina 
Swett, Raymond W. Taylor, Rodney E. Tenney , Peter Y. Wolfe 
Eneguess: Good morning! Thank you for coming here on this beautiful summer day! Remember it is still 
summer; not quite fall. Welcome back. We are continuing to work on our web site. I’ve been asked by at least 
a dozen of you, “Is it up? Is it up? Is it up?” The answer is, “Not quite.” We are struggling with that and trying 
to get that process up with all the email addresses on the web site and all the links. We hope to have that done 
by the end of the month. We keep getting promises. Also, we have to thank Byron Champlin for assisting us; 
he has a strong background in this and is helping to push it in a direction that is very credible. 
This morning, as you can see by the agenda, we have Andy Smith to present the preliminary data that he has 
from the survey. The survey has been completed, and we are now putting together the report. I want to 
caution you that these numbers are preliminary; anyone who is going to be contacting the press, please wait. 
We are going to have a press conference as soon as this data is finalized. So, we are asking you, as you are 
listening to Andy this morning, to be sure you ask all the critical questions so, as we go forward with all the 
survey date, we can continue to figure out the critical questions you have as a Commission member. What is it 
saying? What is it not saying? So, as Andy walks through that, I will remind you that we are recording this 
session so, when you ask Andy questions, stand up and say your name so we can be certain to get a full 
report. 
We have begun to schedule our Listening Sessions. We will be going out for those, as we discussed, 
beginning in September. Ann is going to speak to that now. 

McArdle: A couple of updates. The web site process is, actually, going reasonably well. Most of us 
have never built a web site before, and we think folks push a couple of buttons and, in a couple of minutes, it is 
done! When actually done right, you realize that it is much like anything else you construct. Putting the 
infrastructure in place in the correct way is really important, particularly for a web site that is not just going to be 
selling CD’s or something but, rather, actually taking in public input. As Kathy said, Byron is going to be helping 
a lot with that. We have some very good people working on it, and we hope that everything will be up and fully 
running (by that I mean all the content in) by the end of next week. We think that is achievable. 
You have, on the back of your agenda, the dates for the Listening Sessions. Again, anybody ever setting up 
meetings with several people can understand that it is not as easy as it looks! Chief Justice Broderick has 
made a commitment to come all the Listening Sessions. Therefore, we have needed to check with his 
schedule as well as Kathy and Will’s schedules. Then, we have the fun of actually going out to try to schedule 
within the communities. As you all know, the fall is a very, very busy time for many communities. For example, 
when I called Nashua to try to reserve November 14, it was booked. Trying to get dates booked in places in the 
communities has been a bit of a challenge. But, we are making progress. I have two firm dates for Manchester 
and Nashua. Four others are pending. As soon as people return from vacation today, I should be able to nail 
those down. I hope that, by the end of the week, we will have all the locations identified. 
Green: What time are the Sessions? 
McArdle: Good question! We are scheduling two sessions each day. One will be from 3:00 to 5:00 and 
the other from 6:00 to 8:00, so people with different schedules can attend. I will be talking with Claudia [Nixon] 
(I do not think she is here yet today.) and Cheryl [Killam] about access issues. I am hoping we will have 
everything pretty much nailed down by the end of this week, and these schedules along with all the other 
schedules will be on the web site. 
We will continue looking at how we publicize the Listening Sessions in the communities so we can get a very 
broad and, hopefully, full range of people attending the listening sessions. We will be seeking advice from 
Byron and others about how to do that. Are there any other questions on the Listening Session? 
Davis: Will there be two such as afternoon and evening on one day and afternoon and evening on the 
other day? 
McArdle: That is what we have in mind. And, we will be trying to find an easy way to get all of you to 
sign up for Sessions that will be most convenient for you to attend. 
Eaton: Are the afternoon sessions continued into the evening sessions or are they separate? 
McArdle: They are two separate sessions. There will be about a one-hour break between them. Are 
there any other questions on the Listening Sessions? No? Then, Andy…thank you for being here today. 
Smith: Hopefully everybody can hear me. I want to talk today about a few things. First of all, the 
overall part of this report…this is preliminary data; as Kathy said. We caution you to hold off releasing numbers 
to the press because things are in process. Sometimes public-opinion data can mean one thing if you just see 
it on the screen but, when put in context with other things, it tells a stronger story. I want to thank the Steering 
Committee of this Commission for helping out; a number of you gave me input putting the questionnaire 
together. Remember, we used the National Center for the State Courts National Survey which was done in 
2001 in order to give us the national comparisons. This morning I will show you New Hampshire figures as well 

as the national comparisons. So, I think that begins to put things into context. 
There is a lot of information here today. I will try to present it relatively fast, but I want to give you enough time 
to look at it and ask questions. If you have questions about the data or questions for me including survey 
questions used to come up with this data, please ask those, as well as implications such as what we do with 
these things. That’s your role. I hope, if you have thoughts about what to do with the data, store it in the back 
of your head, and we will talk about those at the Research Committee meeting. I do not know if it is an 
appropriate use of time here to try to decide what all of this means. 
Today, overall, there are a couple of general themes that I want you to think about as we go through this. First 
of all, a general lack of knowledge and awareness. Second, there is a sense of real fear throughout; and a 
perception of fairness in the court system, although slightly less for those people who have used the courts. 
There is a sense that people are well treated. On almost every measure throughout the survey, New 
Hampshire rates higher than courts do nationally. So, there is some really positive news. But, I think a lot we 
have to pay attention to is the lack of knowledge and awareness of what the courts do and what’s happening 
behind the courtroom doors. I think that is a real opportunity that we’ve got here because we have a large part 
of the public that can (for public-relations purposes) place us in a great position. You do not want people with 
their minds already made up going into this thing. So, it is an opportunity to educate the public. 
I will, now, go through the survey and show some of the results. First of all, 765 people were surveyed through 
random digit dialing between July 28th and August 12th. We stretched that out a bit; we talked about that earlier. 
In the summertime, people are away on vacation and difficult to get, so what we do is stretch out our field 
period longer to be sure we can get and keep appointments with those people who are harder to get a’hold of. 
The interviews were conducted with a randomly selected individual within the household. The margin of 
sampling is + - 3.5%. Again, the general theme is that there is little knowledge or awareness of the courts; 
there is a general perception of fairness; those who have been to court perceive being treated well; most 
ratings are higher than the national ratings. 
We asked a series of questions about how different types of cases are handled by the courts. Generally, the 
person is not aware of how cases are handled by the courts. Adults rating the courts, rate them highly. Those 
people who have been to court in the past year rate the courts somewhat higher than those who have not. It is 
interesting…one of the things that I wanted to look at is that some of those people who have been to court may 
have a bad feeling about it. In general, they rate the broad perceptions of the ways the court handles cases 
better than people who have never been to court. 
Now, here is the overall picture. First are the “don’t knows.” I wanted to make this point very clear. New 
Hampshire is the red bar here. You can see all the different types of cases (violent cases, non-violent criminal 
cases, civil cases, family cases, juvenile delinquency cases, child court cases…); New Hampshire folks are 
significantly more likely to say we don’t know how the courts handle these cases than people nation wide. 
These are really big differences, and it is across the board. There is a general lack of awareness and 
knowledge about the way the courts are handled. The reason for that (I will show you this later on…) is that we 
are much less likely to have been to court than people nation wide. So just do not have that much personal 
experience here in New Hampshire compared to people nation wide. 
We asked people to rate how well the court handled these particular types of cases on a 5-point scale. Here 
are the top two categories; people who said 4 or a 5 which is the best. You can see that on every measure, we 
are slightly less than the percentages nation wide. But, if you factor in the “don’t knows,” and just look at those 
people who gave an answer, we are rated significantly higher than people nation wide. It’s a pattern. 

Now, I want to show you how people who have been to court in the past year rate things compared to people 
who have not been to court within the past year. The red bar is people who have been to court in the past year. 
We can see that their ratings are higher, in general, than people who have not been to court in the past year. 
There is a positive perception among people who have been to court that the court handles things well. I think 
that is important to note. 
Davis: Do you combine the “don’t knows” with the positives? 
Smith: No. It is based on the charts; that will be in the final report. 
Davis: You keep combining the “don’t knows” and the… 
Smith: No. I am not combining the “don’t knows”…I am parsing the “don’t knows” out…it is just the 
people who have had some court experience. 
Hennessy: The dark line. Is that the whole country or a selected state? 
Smith: This particular one is just people in New Hampshire. It is just people in New Hampshire who 
have been to court in the past year, and the blue bar is people who have not been to court in the past year. In 
the previous slide, the blue bar is the United States; this is from the National Center for State Courts Survey 
which was done in 2001. 
Diament: You said only adults were surveyed? 
Smith: We asked to speak with an adult (age 18 or older) within the household. We randomly 
selected somebody in the household age 18 or older. 
Diament: Particularly, with juvenile issues, it is a closed court. So, people who come in are likely to be 
less knowledgeable. 
Smith: If you look back at these numbers, when you look at child court and family relations, we have 
about four out of ten people or about half the adults not knowing anything about it. You are right. 
Feldstein: In national survey data, New Hampshire people, generally, rank government, overall, higher 
than people in other states do. So, if you factor that in; maybe that opinions of people pertaining to the courts 
are similar to the general popular rating we have … 
Smith: I think that is a fair reading of it. There are some other things about New Hampshire such as a 
very low poverty rate, high socioeconomic status, high level of income and education. All of those things 
correlate positively with high perceptions of government. So this is not different from what we see in other 
surveys that look at New Hampshire versus other places. That’s a good point. 
Now, perceptions of fairness…our courts are perceived to be fairer than courts nation wide. I do not want us to 
pat ourselves on the back; there is considerable room for improvement in all of these areas. There is certainly 
room for improved awareness on the part of the public. Other than a lack of awareness, people who have been 
to court do not rate fairness in court significantly different from those who have not. Only a little bit differently, 
but it is not significant. 

I will explain these bars. The top bar here is New Hampshire and the bottom bar is the United States. The 
question is about how often people receive fair outcomes when they deal with the courts. In New Hampshire, 
4% say they always receive fair outcomes; 44% say they usually receive fair outcomes; 28% indicate 
sometimes; 5% seldom; 1% never; 19% say they don’t know. 
Compared to national, if you look at the top boxes, we’ve got 48% who say people always or usually receive fair 
outcomes; nationally it is only 38%. So we are doing better than nationally. When we look at the 19% versus 
the 6%, we in New Hampshire just “don’t know.“ The good news is that we have only 6% in the bottom two 
boxes versus 15% nation wide. So, there is room for improvement here. But, in general, there is a perception 
that, in the courts, people receive fair outcomes. 
Gross: Andy, in the top bar which is New Hampshire results, was that cross-checked with respondents 
who have been in New Hampshire courts and those who have not? 
Smith: I looked at that separately. There is no statistical difference in the percentage of how people 
rate them, once you parse out the “don’t knows.” But, the people who have not been to court are much more 
likely to say they don’t know than people who have been to court. 
Gross: So, that’s the only difference; they just don’t know. 
Smith: The big difference is that, if they have been to court, they ought to know. A second question 
we asked which is similar to this is, “How often do the courts use fair procedures in handling cases?” You can 
see here the same pattern holds true; 58% of people in New Hampshire think the courts always use fair 
procedures compared to only 46% nation wide. Negatives here are only 5% compared to 13% nation wide. 
We asked several questions about peoples’ attitudes about specific aspects of the state courts. There is a 
general impression that people are treated well; there is also a perception that they are expensive and not very 
timely. 
We asked a series of questions about whether people agreed or disagreed with various statements using 
“strongly agree”; “somewhat agree”; “neutral”; “somewhat disagree”; “strongly disagree.” We ranked them in 
order from the highest to the lowest in terms of agreement. This is the percentage of people who strongly 
agree or agree somewhat. The red bar is New Hampshire and the blue bar is nation wide. The first statement 
was: “The courts are concerned with people’s rights.” In New Hampshire, 76% strongly agree or somewhat 
agree. It was 70% nation wide. The second statement is: “The courts treat people with dignity and respect.” 
New Hampshire ranked high. Then: “The court makes decisions based on fact.” We had 73% for that. And, 
“The rights of victims are represented.” This was, actually, not on the national survey, but we put it on here. 
You see that 64% of people in the state either strongly agree or somewhat agree with that the rights of victims 
are well represented. And: “Courts listen to what people say.” Here we are tied with the national number of 
63%. Also: “The courts are sensitive to the needs of average citizens.” Here we are 63%. Then, “Decisions 
are fair and consistent.” Here we are only 59%. This is something that comes up a little…a sense of fairness 
and consistency…comes up in some of the questions that we ask people who have been to court. 
Now, mediation. I will read that one for you because that was not used on the national survey: “Mediation of 
dispute by courts are handled and decided fairly.” The bottom two…this is where we do not do so well, 
particularly regarding timeliness issues: “Cases are resolved in a timely manner.” Only 39% say cases are 
resolved in a timely manner compared to 35% nation wide. Here is the last one pertaining to it being affordable 

to bring a case to court. Only 27% in New Hampshire compared to 33% nation wide. 
So, people are generally thought to be treated well and fairly, but the perception is that the courts are not very 
timely. 
Hennessy: If we want to break down responses by female and male, could we do that? 
Smith: Yes. Absolutely. 
Hennessy: Are New Hampshire breakdowns similar to national breakdowns male versus female? 
Smith: Yes. When you do telephone surveys, there are a couple of biases that we know occur. One 
of those is that women are more likely to talk on the phone than men are. Typically, women are more likely to 
be cooperative! The male to female breakdown for adults in New Hampshire is about 52% female and 48% 
male. Typically, in our surveys, get about 44% male responders. So, we balance our surveys statistically to 
make it 48% to match the census numbers. That’s the standard procedure that is done in all random digit 
dialing surveys. So, the answer is yes. 
Hennessy: And if we want to drill down and find out for any particular item male versus female, we can do 
that? 
Smith: Yes. We’ve got a thick stack of charts and tables that look at this by the sex of the respondent, 
where they live in the state, their age, how long they have lived in New Hampshire, whether or not they have 
been to court, their race, marital status, number of adults in the household and, I think, number of children, and 
various demographics. So, we can look at all that. 
Champlin: Do we have some assurance that, when questions were asked about mediation, people 
understood what medication is? 
Smith: I think there are concerns…a higher percentage of people say they “do not know” to that 
particular item. I think that’s important information. When people say they do not know, sometimes that’s 
excluded when something is looked at. In this case…through this entire survey…the percentage of people who 
say they do not know on a number of these things is high. It is certainly higher than national numbers. I think 
that is an important piece of information for the Commission to know; there is a general lack of awareness 
about what the courts do. 
Then we asked a series of questions about how specific kinds of people are treated in the courts. Now, this is 
in New Hampshire only. The national numbers could be put on there but, frankly, a lot of the national numbers 
do not quite apply here. The final report will include that, however. We asked about six different groups of 
people. Starting at the top is fathers in custody cases. Here 26% of people think that fathers in custody cases 
are always or usually treated fair; 30% said sometimes; 12% said seldom; 7% said never. Pro se litigants; 7% 
think that they… (we do not say pro se litigants in the survey, by the way; we say “someone who represents 
themselves in court without a lawyer”). Here, again, there is a perception that…first off, most people don’t 
know. But, there is a bit of a perception here…but, a number of people indicated…26% say that they are never 
treated the same as others. Only 14% think they are always or usually treated worse than others. 
Gross: Andy, I am having trouble understanding what the question asks…treated worse than others?. 

Smith: The question says, “Some people say the courts treat everybody equally while others say that 
the courts treat certain people differently than others. How often is each of the following groups of people 
treated worse than others by the courts?” Here 26% (about one quarter of the public) think that fathers in 
custody issues are treated worse than others in court. Regarding pro se, people think that 23% of pro se 
litigants are treated worse than other litigants and 22% think that low income people are treated worse. 
Overall, the numbers are pretty good. There is a perception that people are treated well. 
Cady: When you asked the question, was there any question on if information is anecdotal or 
personal? 
Smith: We do have that information and, when you look at these statistically, there is not much 
difference. Again, we have so many people in the “don’t know” category. All of the information that people 
have is based on their perception and what they are hearing and reading in the paper. Only about 20% of 
people in the state have, themselves (or a family member) been to court in the past year. This is significantly 
lower than national numbers. Most of this is based on perception. I think that is very important point, as you 
think about it. These results are not the “insider’s view” of exactly what is going on in the courtroom. These are 
the perceptions of the general public about what is going on in the courtroom. 
Green: Your figures are based on having been to court within the last year? 
Smith: Yes. 
Green: Did you ask “within the last five years” or longer? 
Smith: When people said they had not been in court in the past year, we have asked if they had ever 
been to court. I’ve got those numbers. 
Killam: Have you information pertaining to individuals with disabilities? 
Smith: No. We do not have that information. Part of that is a practical matter. It is definitional. How 
do you define disability within the survey? It would be a whole survey in itself to try to come up with a definition. 
Champlin: You might want to give some thought to trying to have some different colors when viewed by 
the public, because there can be some confusion. In previous slides, blue and green are good and, now blue 
and green are bad. It might be good to use some purple and red? There is also some confusion because you 
sometimes used red for New Hampshire and blue for nation wide. 
Eneguess: Only if you can tell the difference between purple and red! 
Smith: I will make a note of that! Okay. Next we have several questions about non-traditional things 
the courts do: “Some people think the courts should stick to their traditional role of looking at the facts of the 
specific case, then applying the law. Other people think that it is now necessary for courts to go beyond that 
role and try to follow the problems that bring people into court. I am going to read a few statements about the 
role of the court. “Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that courts 
should hire drug treatment counselors and social workers as court staff members?” There is a series of 
questions about those. In New Hampshire, there is less support for these things than nation wide. We asked if 
courts should consider what psychologists and medical doctors know about peoples’ emotional problems and 

health when making decisions about people in courts. So, 78% of the people in New Hampshire think that we 
should take those things into account which is less than the nation wide number of 84%. Also, “…courts should 
be responsible for making sure local agencies provide help for people with drug abuse and/or alcohol problems; 
make sure that staff is following up on people.” Here, it is only 67% versus 82% nation wide. The next 
question is: “Do you think that courts should order a person to go back to court and talk to their judge about 
their progress in a treatment program?” (The judge should follow up to be certain people are doing what they 
are supposed to do.) In New Hampshire 73% agree with that compared to 85% nation wide. Finally, “Should 
the court provide drug treatment counselors?” This is just over 50% versus 69% nation wide. So, we are less 
likely here than nationally to think it is the role of the courts to get involved in some of these other areas. Part of 
that is because we have less drug problems and somewhat less drug/alcohol problems here than seen in some 
cities. Some states have larger cities and large urban areas. 
Now, we begin to think about personal experience in the courts. The major reason New Hampshire people lack 
familiarity in the courts is that they do not have that personal experience. In New Hampshire 61% of the people 
said they never had an experience in the courts here, compared with only 37% nation wide. When you think 
about all those other areas showing the “don’t knows,” this is where a lot of it comes from. It’s those people 
who have never had a personal experience in the courts at all. They get their information from what they hear 
and what they read in the newspaper; that’s where they get their information. There is really no difference in 
the types of cases that people have used here versus nation wide. I won’t show you all of these because there 
are too many. There is lots of stuff here and we have limited time. There is no difference between New 
Hampshire and nation wide pertaining to recent timely outcomes. Of people who have been to court, about 
75% indicated their case had been terminated in the past year. More than half the people who went to court 
said they had a lawyer. The main reason for not having a lawyer was that they thought they could handle the 
case on their own, did not feel like spending the money (44%); said they could not afford a lawyer (30%); 
wanted to be their own advocate (13%). Here the chart shows this difference. 
And, “Has anyone in the household had involvement in the courts in the past twelve months?” Personal 
involvement among adults nation wide it is 38%; New Hampshire is only 13%. Family member involvement is 
8% in New Hampshire versus 6% nation wide. Here, 61% of adults here have had no personal involvement. A 
lot of this makes sense if you look at the demographics of the state and the nature of the state. We are one of 
the highest per capita income states in the country now; we’ve got some of the highest numbers of people with 
college degrees; we have one of the lowest poverty rates. All these things are correlated with not being in the 
courts. 
Davis: Can you explain that 2nd group of data where we are above in family… 
Smith: That’s only 2% and not statistically important. This update goes a long way explaining a lot of 
that other lack of information. 
Hennessey: Along that same line, is it reasonable to compare New Hampshire with Vermont, Maine, 
Connecticut; all New England states? 
Smith: Possibly Vermont; maybe Connecticut. But there are a lot of significant differences between 
those states. We do not have the urban areas you see in Connecticut or in Massachusetts. Vermont is much 
more rural…and less wealthy… 
Hennessey: True. But if you want to make a data comparison… 

Smith: With the data that we have? I would have to get the actual data from the organization that 
conducted the National Center for State Courts survey to see if they can parse out Northern New England. I 
can check on that. 
This next series of charts is about people who have been to court. These are people who have been to court in 
the past year and their perceptions. Again, we use “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” I am showing you 
the top two: strongly agree and strongly disagree. Questions are “People are treated with dignity and respect.” 
(83% here versus 72% nation wide); “Staff was concerned with your rights.” (78% in New Hampshire versus 
68% nation wide); “Race / ethnicity made no difference.: (72% versus 69%); “Judges were neutral.” (69%); 
“Court staff was neutral.” (69% versus 69%); “Different views were taken into consideration.” (64%); “Fair 
procedures were used.” Here we are a little bit lower than nation wide. There is not statistically a significant 
difference, but I think it is important to point this out. There are a couple of questions here about fairness and 
procedures and decisions based on fact: “Outcomes and procedures were fair.” We rated a little lower on all 
these than nation wide, whereas on all the other perceptions about fairness we ranked higher. This is 
something to store in the back of your mind; there is a little bit of an issue with fairness. It is not big, but we are 
lower than nation wide. 
Green: These are the responses of the 10% of the 765 people. 
Smith: Yes. It is just those people who have been to court. 
Eaton: How did you select the calls? How did you select the people to poll? 
Smith: It’s pretty straight forward. We work with a company that keeps data bases from the phone 
companies including all the area codes, the exchanges, and what is called working blocks within the exchanges 
in geographic areas. The working block is the 1st two numbers of the last four numbers of a telephone number. 
A sample is generated…first using area codes (which is easy to do…), then they randomly generate exchanges 
of all the exchanges that are working, then randomly generate working blocks within the exchanges, then use 
random numbers generated by the last two numbers. So, the random sampling is the result. Then that is 
screened against known business numbers and institutions which are screened out. Then, they do a computer 
check. A computer dials each one of those numbers and, before the phone rings at the house, there is an 
electronic hook up between the two telephones, and it checks to see that it is a live circuit. So, information is 
passed back and forth. Businesses, non-working numbers and disconnected numbers are screened out to 
make the sample more efficient. It comes down to that each residential household telephone number in the 
state has an equal chance of being included in the sample. Then, we randomly select an adult from within 
those households and only speak to those randomly selected adults. 
Eaton: No telephone directories are used? 
Smith: No. Each household telephone number stands an equal change of being included. 
Gross: I am experiencing real cognitive dissidence understanding how I can square the reaction in the 
top three blocks with the reaction in the “fair procedures / decision based on facts” and “outcome and 
procedures were fair.” I just don’t get if! If people, in general, think they are treated at an institution with dignity 
and respect and staff has shown concern for rights…” That is a strong indicator of fair treatment. Then, when 
we get down to specific questions, the results are flipped. Do you have any wisdom to offer us? 
Smith: I don’t know. It may just be peoples’ reactions to the word “fairness.” If you look, it is a pretty 

consistent pattern here; very consistent both in New Hampshire and nation wide. So people seem to be 
reacting to it the same way. Anytime you use a word like “fair” you it can be a loaded term when compared to 
“…they showed concern…they treated me with dignity and respect….” Those are a little bit more 
straightforward. Almost anybody can have a perception of being treated “unfairly.” Maybe this is a rather long 
explanation here, but I think it bears emphasis only because we rated higher on all these other items. We 
ranked lower here, so it may be something to be a little bit concerned with. 
Cady: One of the things that I am hearing from those with experiences in the courtroom is “The judge 
never heard my story.” But, if the staff is very good there seems to be recognition of good treatment as a 
whole. Why is there the perception that they were not heard? 
Smith: We asked a question, an open-ended question. We asked people who have been to court, 
what change or suggestion they would make to improve the court. I recall it was about 11 to 15%...in that 
range…said they wanted to be heard themselves. They wanted the judge to hear them. They did not want to 
speak through the lawyer. They did not want to have to answer questions with “yes” or “no.” They wanted to 
explain what things meant. So, there may be something to that. There is a perception that people are 
somewhat constricted by the rules in courtrooms. Again, I do not want to put too much emphasis on anecdotal 
evidence; only a few people responded this way, but it did come up. 
Barnes: I see your point about comparing New Hampshire to the United States and having some 
concern that we are different from the US. But, also, there may be some concern with the absolute numbers. 
In other words, two-thirds of people (57%) think the courts decision-making process is fair and one-third think it 
is not fair; one-third is a large number. Look at the person to your left and to your right and yourself. If one out 
of the three of you thinks that the courts are unfair…on the other the other hand, one out of every two people 
lose every day. One wins and one loses; you would expect the loser to have a high tendency to think the 
courts are not appropriate to handle their cases. I do not know how to interpret the results. There are absolute 
results as well as this state being compared to the United States. 
Smith: Good point. The last three at the bottom here have the word “not.” We purposely used 
negative wording so people would not get into the habit of saying, “I agree…I agree…I agree…” So this one is, 
“…needs of people were not considered…” Only 33% agreed with that. Then, “…did not give people an 
opportunity to tell their story.” You see that 31% agreed with that; strongly or somewhat. And, “Judges did not 
show concern for rights.” That was only 19% compared to 27% nation wide. 
Terry: The 19% represents responses of people who actually have been to court. 
Smith: Yes. These people have been to court. 
Terry: Well, 19% had the impression that their rights were not respected? 
Smith: Yes. They had the impression that concern was not shown for their rights. The good news is 
that we are considerably lower than the nation as a whole. Generally one out of five people are concerned 
about that. 
The next series of questions are about personal treatment in court: “Were you treated with dignity and 
respect?” Here 79% indicated they were; 77% said that their rights were taken into account; 75% said their 
views were considered; 71% said they were treated the same as everyone else; 69% said they were able to 
make their views known. We scored higher than nation wide on all these measures. The last three pertain to a 

perception they were not treated as well as they deserved. Only 25% said they were not treated the way they 
deserved to be treated. Then, “The judge and staff did not care about your concerns.” Only 24% responded 
that this was their opinion. The last one pertains to the racial and ethnic groups being treated differently. Here 
it is only 12%. That is not very surprising. 
So the way people perceived they were treated personally here is higher than numbers nation wide. Here there 
is a lack of “don’t knows.” 
This is a where-the-rubber-meets-the-road question: “If you had to go to court again in the future, how fair do 
you think the outcome would be?” In New Hampshire, 66% indicate that they think the outcome would be fair 
(somewhat fair or very fair) compared to 58% nation wide. And, “How fair do you think the judge will be if you 
go to court again?” In New Hampshire 72% think it would be fair; also 72% nation wide. Not all of the other 
responders indicated it would be unfair; several people said they did not know. 
Next, “How likely would you be to go to court to resolve a similar dispute?” Here we rank higher than nation 
wide; 43% say they would be very likely to go to court again; 18% indicated somewhat likely. If you add those 
two together, we are at 61% indicating they would be very or somewhat likely to go to court again. That’s better 
than the national numbers. Note that 33% say they would be somewhat unlikely or very unlikely to go to court 
again for a similar dispute. 
We asked people if they had ever been discouraged from going to court. In New Hampshire 5% said they had 
been discouraged from going to court. Let me read this to you because this is an important question: “People 
sometimes decide not to take a problem or injury that might be resolved through a law suit to court. Have you 
ever been discouraged from going to court in New Hampshire?” And, 5% said they had in the past year; 9% 
said they had but more than one year ago; 86% said they had never been in a situation where they had been 
discouraged to go to court. 
We asked people how important the following factors were. These were people who said they were 
discouraged from going to court and how important these factors were in deciding not to go to court. Number 
one was the cost of hiring a lawyer; 72% said this was a very important factor; 11% said it was somewhat 
important. If you add those together, 83% said the cost of hiring a lawyer discouraged them from going to 
court. And, court costs and court fees were indicated (by 76%) to be very important or somewhat important 
discouraging them to go to court. Perception of fairness was indicated to be a discouragement by 60%. Then, 
68% said that the length of time it takes to reach a decision has been a factor in their decision to not go to 
court. 
Felmly: Did you ask any questions about the issues that folks bump into around the water cooler? Did 
you ask them if they had any opinions based on the McDonald’s coffee spill or do you have any views about the 
court system based on O. J. Simpson’s trail or Michael Jackson’s case or whatever the current situation 
is…have you done any of that? I suspect you would find that the impact has been very high. 
Smith: I think that the national survey looked at those cases, and they do have a negative component. 
Here, we tried to focus on just New Hampshire courts throughout the survey. We tried to narrow participants’ 
thinking down to local matters. I am sure the national numbers would reveal that those cases you mention 
have had a tremendous impact. 
On another subject, we did some questions this summer in our Granite State Poll about what people wanted in 
a Supreme Court Justice. One of the things I threw in was the Kelo Decision [Kelo vs New London]. It was a 

very difficult question to try to word and balance! The response was huge; 93% disagreed with that decision! 
You never see ninety something percent of people on one side of an issue. Something like that will have a 
negative impact on the courts in general. 
The next steps now are that we are working on the final report. We will have that done before the Listening 
Sessions begin. We want to make a Power Point presentation available. We talked about how much of this to 
pull out and make available to show to people at the Listening Sessions, so they get a sense of how the general 
public thinks about these things One thing we have to think about again, in the Listening Sessions, is having 
groups of people with real interest and strong personal experiences in the courts. It is very important to hear 
their views and, also, very important for them to know what the general public thinks about this. Sharing 
information goes both ways. 
Barnes: Do you think you will show the Power Point [at the Listening Sessions] before or after people 
expressed their own views. I suggest showing it after would allow an unbiased survey viewing. 
Feldstein: I want to add my support for the suggestion John Hennessey made about not, in some ways, 
comparing New Hampshire to the United States national numbers. I think it would be skewed to compare us to 
LA and New York and Chicago and have you say again and again and again, “Look how much better we are 
than the nation.” It just does not say a thing about the courts. It tells you a lot about democracy in New 
Hampshire. I would further suggest that, rather than looking at a couple of states in New England, you look at 
states that are demographically similar to us: income, educational level, small communities and so forth. That 
would tell us a lot more about how the public perceives the courts. Maybe folks would want the national 
numbers, but the lead story should not be “Look at how much better we are than the nation.” 
The second question is about whether or not there can be any comparison over time. Do we have any 
numbers on how the trust of New Hampshire people in our courts has changed compared to “x” years ago? 
Smith: When I looked for survey information on this for New Hampshire…national numbers…New 
Hampshire courts on the national table, there is 8 people, so it’s not significantly helpful. 
Killam: When you talk about [not at all clear on tape] 
Kenison: Is there any way we can analyze the data based on our attempts to resolve disputes through 
medication; court or order otherwise? 
Smith: We do not have that information. We do not. Part of the reason is because it is a practical 
issue. There is just not enough information…if 20% of the people have attended court in the past year, you 
have some information about the type of case, but there are just not enough cases to do anything with. 
Cady: Were you able to find out through surveys…the courts our surveys and how many? [not clear 
on tape] 
Smith: We do not have that. 
Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to making progress. Please feel free to email me at 
Andrew.smith@unh.edu if there is anything you want me to, particularly, take a look at. I have taken down 
several of your suggestions today but, if there are any other things that come to mind, I would be happy to take 
a look at them as we work on the report. Thank you. 

Eneguess: Okay. We will have a 15-minute break, then resume. 
Abbott: It is time for round two! Laura Kiernan has some questions she wanted to raise. Laura? 
Kiernan: Right! You received an email listing the Commission membership that we plan to post on the 
web. I have some notes with requested changes. I will be here until the end of the meeting. If there are any 
other changes to be made, please let me know. Also, I am aware of those having problems with emails and 
have some requested changes. If there are more problems with your emails, please get in touch with me. 
Thank you. 
Abbott: I have one calendar detail. I am sure that everybody read the 38 pages of the August 9th 
Steering Committee meeting minutes! At the very end three suggested Commission meeting dates were 
mentioned. Now, after today, there is only one other which is November 14th. On September 13th the Steering 
Committee will meet at 9am. Please mark you calendar for November 14th 9:00am for a full Commission 
meeting. We will likely be over at the AOC as we were last month. Remind yourself that there will not be a full 
Commission meeting on September 13th, as represented in last month’s minutes. 
At this point, it is my pleasure to introduce Howard Zibel who is a General Counsel for the Court System. Also, 
Dale Trombley, Fiscal Manager for the Judicial Branch. They will give us a perspective on the Court System 
itself and how it operates. So, welcome… 
Zibel: Thank you. I understand from Laura Kiernan that this was billed as a presentation by Don 
Goodnow, Director of Administrative Offices of the Courts. So, those of you who know Don will understand 
what I will say right now. As I speak, please think “Don Goodnow” which will make me over 6’ tall and skinny! 
So, if you think of that, I will appreciate it! 
I will make a presentation. Dale is here to help me with questions, because she knows more about Court 
Administration than I do! I have spent twenty years with the Court System, but most of those years have been 
spent with a very narrow perspective of the Supreme Court where I was for 16 of those 20 years. The last four 
years, as General Counselor, I have had a broader perspective of the entire system. I, personally, work a lot 
with legislation. I will not talk about that today because I want to limit the discussion to the administration of the 
Court System but I hope to leave time for questions and answers, because I think that what you folks want to 
know is most important. Most of my talk here will be aimed toward the non-lawyers and non-judges. Now, 
some of the lawyers will probably learn some things from this! The judges, I hope, will know what it is I am 
talking about. 
When you think of the legal system, you tend to think in the long time periods, like generations. This [holding 
up a volume] is the most recent New Hampshire Report. We have cases that the judges in the Supreme Court 
decide and they are recorded. This is volume one hundred and fifty. I just pulled it from the bookcase. You 
cannot see, but there are bookcases in back of the bench which house the New Hampshire Reports as well as 
the Statutes. This is volume one hundred and fifty which is the most recent. Volume one starts in 1816. That 
is the way we legislate the judiciary, in long periods of time. Realize that the system that you are looking at is 
very, very young! It is just in its 22nd year. And, you wonder what I mean by that. In the early 1980’s the 
legislature passed what is known as the Unified Court System. Before the early 1980’s, there was only ONE 
state court and that is the court in which you sit: The Supreme Court. All the other courts were run locally; 
Superior Courts and Probate Courts were run by the county in which they sat. People who worked there were 
county employees. Judges were paid by the state. The employees were paid by the state. The local cities and 

towns ran the District Courts and, at that time, the Municipal Courts. A Commission had been established in 
the early ‘80’s and, with the help of several in the legislature (…and I understand that…this was before my time 
in the Court System…one of the people who spearheaded that Commission was Donna Cytek, in the 
legislature). It passed in the 1983 session, I believe, and it was effective on January 1, 1984. All courts then 
became state courts. All employees of the Court System became state employees. Again, the system you are 
looking at is just in its 22nd year. And, part of the unification established the Administrative Office. This is now 
in the building across the street. It was in this building until 1998. The Administrative Offices of the Courts 
handles such items as Purchasing, Accounting, Auditing, Personnel, Information Technology, and Security 
system wide. 
Let’s take a look at some of these functions such as Information Technology. Imagine if, in 2005, we were still 
back in the early 1980’s without a Unified Court System. Imagine that each county was buying computers and, 
maybe, had systems a little different from one another, and we were trying to implement something in the 
Judicial Branch statewide. It would be ludicrous! The Unified Court System that we have implemented has, 
hopefully, made life better. The biggest thing happening in that realm that the AOC has been involved with for 
quite some time now is the new Case Management System. We actually are still running a DOS-based system 
which was purchased in 1989. I think you get some insight into how the AOC operates if you look at how we 
have gone about acquiring this system. I will tell you about one of the things that happened to delay going 
system wide which is that our budget includes Information Technology money. It was lumped into one budget 
and things, budget wise, were difficult in the late ‘90’s and into the early part of this decade. And, at times when 
we were short money, we robbed the Information Technology Budget to process cases that have people in the 
Court Systems to process cases. In 2001, the legislature said, “We are going to budget you in the Capital 
Budget, so Information Technology money for the Court System is going to be money you cannot touch for your 
operating budget.” And, I think it was bonded over a five-year period. And, that was in 2001. It was 
somewhere in the neighborhood of, I think, $4 million. In 2001 we were operating in DOS system wide. We 
were not operating in windows. Our computers in early 2001 were 486’s and 386’s. We were way behind the 
times. First, we took that money and bought modern computers. We bought the hardware. So, now, the entire 
system operates on Windows on modern computers. Then, we went about searching for a Case Management 
System. We first put out the RFP, not for the system, but for a consultant who would help us write the specs for 
the system. We thought that effort needed a higher level than we had in house to help us write those specs. 
We set about seeking a consultant. We had a few bids, and we selected the National Center for State Courts. 
They were, not only the low bidder, but we felt had the most to offer because they had been through this before 
for the Court System. They helped us write the RFP for the actual system. We put out that RFP, and we had 
several bids. We settled on an outfit from Texas known as Tyler Technologies. The Contract was for $2 million 
for the Case Management System for all the trial courts. That does not include the Supreme Court which was 
done separately and is now up and running. 
With the contract with Tyler, we went to the cutting edge, which is a browser-based system which will help us 
when we go to E File and E Noticing because…I am not a technology guru…but the system is browser-based E 
which means, I guess, everything can come in easier when we do those back and forth filings and notes. The 
system is almost ready to be piloted. It has been about one year of back and forth customizing. Tyler has done 
a few of these. They have done the Minnesota courts and a few other local installations of Court Systems. 
There has been a lot of customization involved for our needs. It is also part of the package to be integrated 
with the Court Management System. Hopefully, before the end of this year, the first court will go on line with it. 
That will be the Concord District Court. From that, the rollout will begin and we hope that within a two-year 
period it will be rolled out to all the Courts. 

That’s an example of how we go about doing things in the Court System. In conjunction with the new Case 
Management System there is a slogan I have heard many times when automating procedures: “garbage 
in/garbage out.” In conjunction with the Case Management System, we have gone through procedures of 
Business Process Engineering. Again, the National Center for State Courts has been hired to consult and there 
are committees that are looking at the process in the courts and how we go about doing things and the forms 
we use to do things. They are totally looking at our process, system wide, to see where it can be revamped 
and where it can be made simple and more efficient and better integrated with the case processes. So, that’s 
an example of what the Administrative Office does in the realm of technology. 
Another item I mentioned is that the Administrative Office handles is personnel. It is a fairly standard personnel 
system in state government. Each branch, for example, the Legislative Branch and Judicial Branch have their 
own personnel systems. However there is integration: We are all paid through one outfit. I believe it is run by 
the Executive Branch. All of our checks come from one place. In the Executive Branch there is a Personnel 
Department (a general Personnel Department), however there are personnel operations in each of the large 
departments as well. We have our own personnel system. We have our own personnel rules administrated by 
our Personnel Department. We have our own sexual harassment policies. And, we take that very, very 
seriously. You have seen in state government the past couple of years through news reports some issues, 
including at the Prison and a circumstance in the Legislative Branch where judgments were entered because of 
the actions of a representative. No one is immune from those situations. You know what happened last year 
with Judge Jones. And I see Howard Eaton here who sat on the Judicial Conduct Committee that had to deal 
with that. So, no branch of the government is immune in that area. We have that operation and, if there is any 
scintilla…we have a whole reporting system…and if there is any scintilla of anything wrong, we get right on it 
and do an investigation. We have opened five sexual harassment investigations this year. That is one of the 
things the AOC provides, as an example. 
I mentioned payroll which is integrated with the state system. Payroll is automated such that employees 
throughout the system enter their time on computer, send it in to the AOC and, somehow, it gets handled 
because all I know is that I get a paycheck every two weeks! Dale here knows more about payroll. That’s all I 
know about it! 
Accounting and auditing are two other departments. Again, they are centralized in the system. Any questions 
in that area can be answered by Dale Twombly who is the Fiscal Manager and runs that system. 
One thing that I think you would all be interested in is where we get our money. The fiscal power of the state is 
the legislature. The legislature is the one who appropriates money to fund all facets of government, including 
itself, the entire Executive Branch, and all of the Judicial Branch. We go to the legislature and request a certain 
amount of money to run the system. In the past, we generally would go to the legislature requesting a budget 
for the Judicial Branch we would like to see. For example, in the 2003 Legislative Session, we requested a 
16½% increase over what was appropriated in the 2001 Legislative Session because we were running with a 
lot vacancies, and it wasn’t the Judicial Branch we wanted to see. So, we asked for a 16½% increase. Frankly, 
an increase like that is “dead on arrival.” While we needed that to run, it was just not going to happen in the 
fiscal constraints that face the state. What the legislature has done (in several biennials) is say, “Okay, Judicial 
Branch, you can have the numbers you want. We will put that in the budget. But, you’ve got to save $2 
million…$3 million…$4 million.” Actually in the 2003 Legislative Session, it got up to $5 million. So, even 
though the budget had what we requested, there was a little footnote saying “save $5 million!” And, that’s what 
we got…the numbers minus $5 million. That caused all kinds of problems! And, I think, those problems that 
occurred (when we had to issue layoffs…); and I am editorializing a little now…these are, somewhat, my views. 
There is blame to go around on both sides. I think we were a little blind going in with a budget for the Judicial 

Branch we wanted to see, which was not going to happen given the fiscal constraints of the state. And, I think 
the legislature did not do its job by revamping our numbers. They just would take a number and say how much 
had to be given back. This year things operated differently. We did not go to the legislature with the budget of 
the Judicial Branch that we wanted to operate…we would like to see operate. We came in knowing that, first of 
all, the state was in a fairly difficult financial situation. We said, “We just want to maintain what we have been 
doing.” We actually agreed on certain vacancies that we could work around. By the way, the vacancies we 
talked about are non-judicial, and we have approximately 600 non-judicial employees. We agreed that we 
would keep 25 vacancies. Previously, our vacancy level actually reached up to 70 when we were quite short of 
money, and we were backlogged in the system for weeks and, even, months to get orders out. We agreed on 
25 vacancies and no new programs, and that’s all we requested! The legislature did not tell us to cut that. 
They did not say we had to give back. Actually, the budget that came out of the legislature, after the whole 
process, was little higher than what we requested because of some Family Division shuffling around; it actually 
made it a little bit higher. We operate on about $61 million a year; that is our appropriation from the legislature 
which, I believe, is between 1% and 2% of the state budget; it is a very small portion of the state budget. We 
are not a “pay-as-you-go” outfit. I am not sure that any Judicial System is a “pay-as-you-go” outfit but, frankly, 
you may be surprised to know that, on the revenue side, we are listed for $30.4 million which is just about half 
of our appropriation…a little bit less. Of that, $5 million comes from court filing fees people pay. The rest 
comes from fines, such as motor vehicle fines which were raised for the first time in 16 years and accounts for 
the rest of the $30.4 million that the budget listed as revenue from the courts. Some comes through the court 
system, but most of it comes from those blue lights that you may find in back of you some night! So, rather 
than be upset, realize that it is a good cause! I suggest you just consider it a contribution to the general fund! 
By the way…something that you should all know…that $30.4 million revenue…it does not go into a court 
system fund. It goes into the General Fund; a fund that funds all of state government and is hundreds of 
millions of dollars. We do not have separate funds other than some very small dedicated funds. We had one 
pass this year for mediation. We have one for facilities; we are not talking about much money here. Basically, 
the money we get from fees and fines goes into the General Fund, and we get the $61 million out of the 
General Fund. Sometimes, we actually get Transportation Funds. I do not understand that, but that’s the 
legislature thing; they appropriate from where they want to appropriate. 
On the accounting and audit…I know you were given a link to a system from the Legislative Budget Office. I 
don’t know how many of you looked at it, but this is what it looks like [holding one up to see…]. It is on that old 
style thing called paper. It runs about 200 pages. It makes for interesting reading. It came out in November of 
’03. It looks at five areas of the Judicial Branch: Information Technology, Administrative Function, something 
called Waiting Case Load that I want to talk about later, Case Processing, and Court Reporting. Frankly, they 
did a very good job. We have taken this and used it as a blue print for some action, and I talked with the head 
of the Audit Division of the LDA; she recognized that we have not put this on the shelf. A lot of places, 
apparently, put those audits on the shelf. We have not. We implemented almost all the recommendations that 
were made. 
Now, I want to talk about the Waiting Case Load. I will not tell you in detail what Waiting Case Load is because 
we could spend a lot of time on that. Simply, it is a method that we can use to quantify how many people we 
need both on the judicial side of things and on the clerical side. We have actually had Weighted Case Loads 
both on the judicial and clerical in the District Courts and Probate Courts since the late 1980’s. The recollection 
is…like Justice Thatcher’s decision here…there was some effort expended getting that process going at that 
time. Well, there were some updates done in the mid ‘90’s, at least in the Probate Court. One of the 
recommendations in the audit pertaining to Waiting Case Load was that things were a little out of date, and we 
really needed to get them up to date. We had also, on our own, already started improving ways to get those 
studies into the Superior Court. We had done some studies in 2002 and 2003, even before the audit report 

came out; in fact, two updates. After the audit came out, we again contacted the National Center for State 
Courts and turned over material we had from our own studies. We asked them to take a look at it and asked 
them if the data was sufficient to do new case waits on. They concluded that it was, and they have a report 
“New Hampshire Judicial Needs and Assessments – 2005,” which came out in June. This the Judicial Court’s 
Waited Case Load Study. It deals with all three of the trial courts (Probate Court, Superior Court, District Court) 
and it can be used…and we are, in fact, using it…to migrate the Family Division because the waits are broken 
down by different types of cases, and we know what cases are moving to Family Division. Therefore, the 
Waited Case Load can be used for Family Division staffing purposes. The clerical update should be 
out?…[turns to Dale Trombley]…help me out...[Trombley indicated “very soon”]...Very soon! So this is a way 
we can quantify the staff needed in various places. 
Let me finish and turn it over to your questions. I will give you a flavor for what the AOC does and do it by using 
the biggest change that has occurred in the court system in quite some time. There have been some major 
changes over the years that go back to the 1960’s when the legislature passed a bill which totally modified the 
Judicial Court system and eliminated lay judges which we had in New Hampshire. Because of the New 
Hampshire Constitution, it took 37 years for that change to take place…total. It was passed in 1963, but there 
were “lay judges” that had been appointed and, constitutionally, we could not un-appoint them; the last lay 
judge died in 2000…which ended the Municipal Courts. Again, a legislative event in 1963 was finally brought to 
fruition 37 years later. 
There have been other major changes; some have worked and some have not. In the early 1990’s there was a 
major consolidation in the District Court system, lowering the number of District Courts in the state. That has 
had a mixed review, because some of the Districts Courts which were consolidated, have been un-consolidated 
recently. But, consolidation was successful. That change did move forward. 
There was an experiment in the mid-‘90’s with jury trials in the District Courts. There were certain District 
Courts that were designated as jury trial courts, and the experiment ended sometime around 2000, just 
because of the expense of running dual jury systems. Juries, by the way, are very expensive. I think it says a 
lot about our society that we put so much money into them, as we should because we are dealing with peoples’ 
liberty; we are dealing with major civil cases. But, just running the jury system is probably 2% to 3% of our 
annual budget in the present system. It is a very expensive system. That is one of the reasons the District 
Court jury project failed; it was too expensive. 
A question is, of course, “What’s the big change happening now?” That’s the Family Division. As I am sure 
you all know, Family Division was passed by the legislature as a pilot program in 1995 and took effect in 1996 
in Grafton and Rockingham Counties. It takes jurisdiction…I will not go through the individual items…but it 
takes certain jurisdiction related to family matters from all three levels of our trial court. Family jurisdiction in our 
state was scattered between the Probate Courts, District Courts, and Superior Court. It consolidated all the 
jurisdictions into a new level of court known as the Family Division. Why is it a division rather than a separate 
court? The answer is it is because it does not have separate judges. It will utilize judges from the District 
Courts and Probate Courts. And, why not use judges from the Superior Court? That is because one of the 
ways we are financing the Family Division is by reducing the size of the Superior Court from 29 to 23 judges. 
The accomplishment on that score was due to Governor Benson. By the way, I was surprised that, when he 
did some interviews upon leaving office and was asked what his greatest accomplishments were while in office, 
he never mentioned the Family Division. I think that may be one of Governor Benson’s greatest 
accomplishments. Indeed, it is the greatest accomplishment of his office. Not many governors would give up 
six judicial appointments to make something happen, and Governor Benson did that. He gave up six Superior 
Court appointments to make the Family Division happen. That way, we can use Marital Masters which are less 

expensive than judges and could establish the Family Division without a budgetary increase. 
By the way, that statute (diminishing the size of the Superior Court) passed in 2004. A committee was 
established by the legislature and was chaired by Judge Delainis to work on implementation. The committee 
worked last summer and gave its report in the fall. Implementation legislation came out of that committee and 
that implementation legislation passed this year. So, the Family Division is now going to be rolled out over the 
next three to four fiscal years. As I understand it, Judge Kelly, the first county becomes operational when? 
[asking Kelly] 
Judge Kelly: September 12. 
Zibel: September 12 in Sullivan County. Now, how is the AOC involved in making this happen? In 
every facet, the AOC is involved. Auditing was used to establish just how many people are needed in each of 
these Family Divisions. Of course, we are taking jurisdiction from the Superior Court, Probate Court, and 
District Court. We are also taking people from those courts to make this happen. They are very involved in 
Weighted case loads and helping things occur on the clerical and judicial sides. Accounting systems have to 
be established within those courts and training conducted So, that’s how Auditing is involved. We have a 
person who does centralized purchasing for the Judiciary Branch. We have been involved purchasing 
abundant materials; library materials have had to be purchased, statutes, and handling the RSA’s. We do not 
have to purchase New Hampshire reports because we have enough of those, but they may to be moved. 
Telephones have to be moved. The Superior Court will need fewer telephones than they now have. There will 
need to be telephones for the Family Division before September 12. People across the street will continue 
work on that. 
The facilities themselves…this is an interesting cooperation between branches…the legislature decided quite a 
while ago that court facilities would be run by the Department of Administrative Services. And, Don Hill is 
responsible for administrative services, for providing adequate court facilities. There is a commission consisting 
of judicial and legislative and public members called the Court Accreditation Commission. They make sure the 
facilities are accredited. It is Administrative Services that handles those functions. We do have a person in the 
AOC who works on facilities and coordinates with Administrative Services and will coordinate the move from 
our end in cooperation with Administrative Services. So, again, the AOC is helping. 
Information Technology, obviously, will handle the computer work stations for the people in the Family Division. 
Most people will come from elsewhere through transfers and, maybe, there will be some new people hired, and 
there will be some purchases of a few new work stations. Computers need to be ready and systems 
configured. 
The Personnel Department has been heavily involved in who is moving. They are talking to people and 
identifying those interested in moving from the court where they are into the Family Division. They are 
interviewing people and making sure staffing is adequate. This is a major undertaking. The Personnel 
Department has been heavily involved. 
We also have somebody who is, actually, administratively tied to the Supreme Court but that handles education 
for the Judicial Branch; both judicial and staff education. One of our education efforts this year is the effect of 
change on systems because a lot of change is going on! 
Your Commission…this Commission’s existence…is an example that the current Supreme Court is very 
receptive to change. They are receptive to new ideas. They will, I am sure, be receptive to your ideas. They 

were receptive to what the legislature had to say. So, a lot of things are going on. We have contracted with a 
consultant in the field pertaining to “change.” In fact, we will have some programs this fall for various managers 
within the system (and it will trickle down into some staff programs) on the effects of change on an organization. 
We are trying to save money; we do not have that much money in education. The consultant is going to work 
on “change” with the managers. We will have a program we are calling “training the trainer.” So, rather than 
have the consultants handle the staff-level programs at great expense, we are going to identify some trainers 
within the Judicial Branch who will go to training sessions with the consultants and bring the message to those 
in the rest of the system. We have actually worked that way very successfully with sexual harassment training. 
We trained trainers; the trainers go out and conduct sexual harassment programs. I will be doing one of them 
at 2:30 today. But, right now, change is happening quickly, and we will have programs on the effects of 
change. 
That’s my presentation. That’s what I have to tell you about administration of the court system. I hope it gave 
you a flavor for it, and I would love to know what’s on your mind. Of course the toughest part is answering 
questions! That’s why I brought Dale; she has all the answers! 
Killam: When somebody has a complaint about the court…whether it’s accessibility or about how they 
were treated in court, who would they call? 
Zibel: Well, it depends. If it is accessibility, for example, and they are not getting satisfaction, they 
really have to get in touch with the Court Accreditation Commission. A person could call an Administrative 
Judge. It is not going to stop on that desk. A person could call Don Goodnow, Director of the Administrative 
Office. Those calls are going to get attention. 
If it is about how a person is treated in court, it could depend upon the level you are talking about. The first 
thing that comes to mind is the Judicial Conduct Committee. The court’s Judicial Conduct Committee has…and 
this is very unusual, by the way…we are one of few states…the last I knew it was four…it may actually be 
fewer…where court clerks and deputy clerks are subject to the Code of Judicial Conduct. So, if someone is 
getting bad treatment from somebody at the county…probably we should be talking about contacting the clerk; 
that is where I would go. It is a matter the clerks should handle. If the person is being treated badly by a court 
or being treated rudely by a judge, it is the Judicial Conduct Committee that should be contacted. Where does 
one find the Committee? Well, if the individual calls any court, I am sure they would be provided a phone 
number. The Executive Director, Tony McManus, is in Dover but, if you call any court, I am certain Tony’s 
phone number would be given to talk with him about how complaints are made. 
While we are on the subject of judicial conduct, there is a whole bunch of information about the independent 
Judicial Conduct Committee; the courts set it up and it includes its committees. The legislature established a 
committee; there was a case in 2004 which said that the legislature cannot discipline judges short of removal. 
They are the only ones that can remove judges. The Judicial Conduct Committee has no power to remove a 
judge. Only the legislature can do that. So, basically, the court says that the legislature committee can only be 
involved in taking complaints, etc., to the extent they are looking at conduct pertaining to removal, but they 
could not be involved in discipline short of removal. The legislative committee decided that it did not make 
sense, so they disbanded. Therefore, the only committee is the Court Committee. But, again, the court has set 
out even further than before to make it independent. Effective July 1, 2005, the Court Committee is no longer 
totally appointed by the court. The Court Committee, actually, now has a majority of public members; few 
lawyers and judges. If I remember the structure, there are five appointments by the court of lawyers and judges 
(one from the District Court, Probate Court, Superior Court, a court clerk, and a lawyer who is not a judge) 
appointed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court appoints one public member. The Bar Association 

appoints one public member also, so that totals of seven. The Governor appoints two public members, so 
that’s nine. The President of the Senate appoints another public member, and the Speaker of the House 
appoints a public member. That is a total of 11. So, the court gave up its appointment of five members. It inow 
has a majority of public appointments. To make it even more independent, the Committee now hires its own 
Executive Director where, before, the court would hire the Executive Director. Previously, the court would 
appoint the Committee Chair and Vice Chair. Now the Committee elects its own Chair and Vice Chair. Finally, 
to make it even more independent, the Committee does its own budgeting. It submits its budget to the court 
every two years. The court must pass it through to the legislature without amendment. To accomplish that in 
the budgeting scheme of the State of New Hampshire…this will not make any sense except those involved in 
the state budget…the Judicial Conduct Committee is a separate PAU within the Judicial Branch. The court 
passes the budget number on to the legislature, and the legislature can do what it wants with that number 
within the Judicial Branch Budget. 
Cady: One of the things that citizens are very upset about is the rules of the courts; they are all over 
the place. Court Rule 3 in Probate Court is not the same as Court Rule 3 in the Superior Court. Why can’t 
there be a uniform set of rules used by all the courts so everything is uniform? 
Zibel: That may be a good suggestion. Although, I will say that the Probate Court and Superior 
Court, I believe, are uniform. I think the Probate Court adopted the bulk of the Superior Court rules. There may 
be some particular Probate Court areas the Superior Court does not have that are subject to separate rules but, 
for the processing of cases, the Probate Court has, I believe, adopted the Superior Court rules on case 
processing. Does anybody here work in that field? Am I right or not? 
Judge Kelly: The Rules Committee is actually looking at unifying all the rules. 
Zibel: So I think that, for the most part, there is uniformity between two courts. We are moving in the 
right direction. 
Gross: I appreciated your description of how the funds are being moved to accommodate the Family 
Court as well as your discussion on how the court has upgraded its IT operation. I wonder if the IT provisions 
now are sufficiently flexible to permit the court’s system to avoid a lot of the cost of hard copy purchases of 
RSA’s and case reports, for example. Many, many law firms that I am familiar with have very substantially 
reduced their hard copy purchases because so much of the stuff is available on line. 
Zibel: For your abdicating that, it is a good thing I am not involved in those decisions because I like 
books! I am one of those who likes to open a book! I am very computer literate and use computers all the time! 
I use computerized research, etc. I still like books! We are not quite there yet for this reason: Most judges in 
the state do not have internet access. And, that is happening, but it is happening as we move the case 
management system along and, actually, Judge Kelly may know a little more about plans and timing of getting 
internet access throughout the system. The Judge and I have had discussions about how far internet access 
should go staff wide. There are varying opinions on that. I do not know if law firms allow access to all staff 
members or just certain staff members. That’s an issue. But, definitely, the judges should have it to facilitate 
just what you are talking about. I assume there will be a migration away from books to some extent, but I do 
not know when it will actually happen. One thing that is on my desk that I will be reviewing this afternoon is a 
contract for the library. Because of budget cutbacks, the library stopped buying some of the seldom used 
shepherds…we are now transitioning to buying no shepherds other than New Hampshire. I am entering into a 
contract with LexisNexis for shepherds electronically, and there will be four public access terminals in the library 
for shepherds electronically, and we will begin the whole body of shepherds which will include the ones we 

discontinued in the book form. So, some of that is happening and I suspect it will continue to happen at a slow 
pace. 
Ayotte: I think there is a separate committee that looks at issues that you could update us on. With 
computer systems coming in, such as the Case Management System, I wonder what the court’s vision is for 
electronic filing and, also, for computer access that people can have to information about the court systems via 
the internet and computer systems. 
Zibel: We have envisioned for years, computer access. A long time ago we talked about it and I think 
now, as the Case Management System is rolled out, we will see computer filing come to pass. I have a feeling 
that, computer notes will be the first step toward computer filing. I will ask major users if they would like to do 
away with paper notes, and we will start notifying folks of hearings and other things by computer. 
The other part you were talking about is “What will the citizens be able to do?” The Committee on Public 
Access affectionately refers to this as “Jammie Serving.” …getting into pajamas at 3:00am at home and check 
out that divorce you know is going on down the street. And that has been the subject of great debate! A report 
is coming out on that which will describe what access we, this Commission, envision. We deferred is reaching 
a decision because we are not there yet technology wise, and we wanted to see how things shape up. We did 
not reach a decision on pleadings, i.e. that divorce libel…that divorce petition…they do not call them libels 
anymore…that divorce petition, the one for custody…or parental responsibility…how much of that would one be 
able to see? We deferred that question because we are not at a point where the pleadings…the papers that 
are filed in the court…are going to be in electronic form. Until we are at that point, we defer that question. Be 
assured that, once we are up and running, you will be able to get access to most of what’s in the document 
telling you “…this was filed on that date…this was filed on this date…there is hearing scheduled for this date…” 
Folks will be able to get that over the internet from home and from the office. Folks will not be seeing pleadings 
and other information such as Social Security numbers, certain addresses, etc. 
Are there any other questions? 
Abbott: Thank you very much Howard and Dale! We appreciate your taking time to spend with us this 
morning! You have been very informative. 
Our next agenda item is to try to reach some closure on the Research Committees which we started to talk 
about at the last meeting. I think, in your handout, you have a list of 23 bulleted topics that were put up on the 
flip chart at the end of our last meeting. We have more than one hundred Commission members, so it would be 
possible to have 23 research committees, I suppose. Kathy and I are not advocates of that. What we would 
like to try to do is in the time we have left today, see if we can nail down how many committees what subject 
areas we want tackled. I realize that this could be quite an extended conversation! In an effort to try to 
facilitate things a little bit, we put up on today’s flip chart some categories. After the last meeting, I received a 
suggestion that, we look at the 23 items and try to create some sense of how they fit into categories. I am not 
suggesting that these have to be the final committees; this is just a starting point for discussion. Possibilities 
are: Trial and Judicial Performance, Accessibility, Cost Issues, Public Interaction, Family Matters, Criminal 
Justice System, and Customer Service / Education. 
Accessibility: I think that it could be viewed much broader than just people with disabilities accessing the 
courts. If you consider people who are worried about costs, I wonder if costs are a barrier to some peoples’ 
access in addition to folks with physical disabilities. So, I ask you to look at Accessibility as a wider issue than 
people’s physical abilities. 

Cost Issues: You heard Howard Zibel’s explanation of the budget. Clearly, everything that this Commission 
decides to recommend probably has some impact on the court’s budget. We have to take those issues into 
consideration. 
Public Interaction: I think that at the last meeting it was Marty Gross who suggested that the relationship the 
court has with other branches of government is something that really needs to be looked at and have the 
attention of the court and the Executive and Legislative Branches. That would come under, in my opinion (and I 
think others agree…), Public Interaction. And there are other things that fall into that category, as well. 
Anything dealing with public education about how the court systems work and function, which I think is, 
obviously, in need of some attention. 
The other thing that Howard mentioned (and about which we all become educated about through reading) is the 
magnitude of Family Court system. And, we are moving a lot of furniture but a lot of other things are happening 
with that. We are moving a lot of money and the size of that part of the court system is almost significant 
enough to, perhaps, warrant having a Research Committee of its own. I realize a lot of work has already been 
done, but just by the shear size of that part of the court operations, it probably deserves Research Committee 
focus. 
So, that is our starting point. We are now open to discussion and suggestions. Is there any disagreement on 
numbers? If we decide on five or seven categories, can people agree with those numbers? Cathy? 
Green: My point of view is…I am a lawyer…so I am coming from that focus. At the end of 2004, I 
recognized the number of cases in the Superior Court and the Criminal Court. And, we never anticipated 
anything like that many years ago. So we need to look at the way we have set up our Criminal Justice System. 
Other states have taken different approaches. I think that ought to be looked at. 
Abbott: Harriet? 
Cady: [difficult to hear because of someone in the room coughing repeatedly…] One of the things 
under Trial and Judicial Performance that I think needs a subcategory that could be looked at is allocations for 
family assistance. An example is one of my constituents…when I got involved with the family, I was told that 
the Rockingham County Corrections…out of 315 prisoners…more than half had mental illness and how that 
impacts the court. I was told recently that, in the Cheshire Court, they have ________________________. I 
am concerned that our society is freeing Laconia and placing increasing responsibility for the mentally ill left to 
be handled by the court system. It is probably going along the lines of what Cathy Green said about folks being 
charged with criminal conduct, but they need other services. 
Abbott: Does that fit, in your view, in any one of the buckets we already created? 
Cady: I think it fits into the Trial and Judicial Performance because it…in Cathy Green’s and my 
experience there are mental health issues. 
Abbott: Cheryl? 
Killam: [not clear] I could not…very…accommodating people with disabilities of all types. 
Abbott: Joe? 

Diament: [background noise made it difficult to hear his voice on the tape] When Howard answered 
questions about when there is a problem who to go to, the beginning of the response indicated “that 
depends…” and suggested clerks. That struck me as a significant problem. It seems to me to be a 
management problem. Usually there are more clearly defined lines pertaining to responsibility and who is in 
charge? 
Abbott: We might not have the right word up there for public interaction. How about Public Interface? 
Clearly, this is an issue from what has been said previously and what you just added. This has to be a big one. 
Felmly: With regard to roles and accessibility and public interaction, we can certainly expand those and 
pick up customer service and user-based communication. That is very different from getting into issues about 
how the public should be allowed in the building and things of that sort. I would be concerned if we did not at 
least highlight that, and I think it ought to get its own separate category…a customer friendly, user-based 
system…communications… 
The other piece that is a concern and, of course you could place it anywhere you want to is seeing Andy’s 
figures today and realizing the enormous numbers of people in the state who do not have a clue what is going 
in our justice system. And, if this information does not do anything else, we have to figure out how to change 
that and create information models and systems that get us up to at least 85%! So, I would say “education.” 
Maybe that would fall under Public Interaction; again, very different than how to deal with critical issues of 
different branches of state government interaction and making sure there is adequate funding. We do not need 
seventeen different categories, but these could be subsets (public service and education) that are going be the 
critical components, I think. 
Gross: I’d like to second what Bruce said but refine it a little bit, if I could. There is a difference, in my 
mind, between a committee looking at how an institution performs in relation to its public interaction…whether 
it’s the other branches or the public…and another committee should be devoted to the substance of what kind 
of education programs the court system should be undertaking to be more effective in telling what the story is. I 
see those roles as distinct and big. 
Abbott: We could form a separate Research Committee on Customer Service and Education and let 
what we had up there originally be separate… 
Gross: Frankly, I would put Customer Service under Public Interaction and Education separate. 
Peterson: I think you have done a good job preparing the categories. I just have a couple of comments. 
I strongly agree with what Cathy said about having criminal justice as a separate category. I also strongly 
agree that we made a very big change by bringing about the reduction of Superior Court judges, and we have 
the authorization to revamp the Family Courts statewide. We are going to be a Commission moving into the 
future. I think it is important to have a separate category on Family Counts to be sure the changes are, indeed, 
viable and positive, as we move forward. My last comment is about accessibility. It may not be necessary to 
change the title from “access” to “justice” and add a couple of other categories, particularly pertaining to pro se 
litigants; that may not be understood anyway, but looking at whether or not citizens have access to justice in the 
state covers a number of issues…we seem to be circling that word “accessibility.” 
Barnes: I agree with Andy’s points. 

Eaton: If 60% of people are going pro se, I think that the cost of going through the courts needs to be 
addressed. Everyone should have access to justice; not just the wealthy. 
Abbott: We are going to have a bit of difficulty, just like Howard and Bill raised, delineating what’s in 
what category. But, we all have to be on the same page. All this input is really helpful. Any others? 
Davey: [not clear…] I am concerned that civil law is being pushed out of the mix. I am wondering if, 
maybe, judicial performance and accountability must be included across the board; it’s in criminal law and civil 
law….it’s… 
Abbott: I suppose it is possible to have two separate Research Committees; one focusing on trial and 
judicial performance and civil cases and one on criminal cases. 
Herr: I think what we actually have here is not a linear list, but a matrix, because a bunch of those 
factors apply in each type of law. So, accessibility applies to family issues, the Criminal Justice system, the 
Civil system, as well as accessibility and cost issues. If you want to deal with just one kind of law, you have to 
deal with measures of outcomes. 
Abbott: Laurie? 
Morrow: {not very clear on tape…] _______________ the courts…so I am coming from that 
perspective. When you [addressing Andy Smith?] gave your report, I was sitting there thinking, “Ten years ago 
we had comparatively fewer handicapped people in our town and it is different now.” Now, what are the people 
of our state coming to court for? What proportion is that? Who is coming to Family Court? Who is coming 
because of harassment? Who can come to court and be heard? I need to know what people are coming to 
court for. I think that would be more helpful. But, I need help. I do not know what people are coming to court 
and I don’t know why or for what? And, what are the courts doing to help them? I don’t know. 
Judge Kelly: I think the first half of that question is something that we all ask in terms of the number of 
people that are coming to court for different case types. There is probably a trend over the last 10 years or so. 
So that is something that can be gotten, as well as the organizational charts that Joe referred to. I think that is 
something all Commissions members ought to look at. 
Abbott: Other questions? 
Moulis: The education component…it really has to become the matrix because it crosses over so 
much. From our research, we know that a significant number have either had no contact or no experience. As 
I look back, I see that each one of us has different and similar impressions. How that is going to be delivered is 
another issue. 
Abbott: Lou? 
Feldstein: Can I raise a question? I would love to hear someone make the case as to why we would 
focus on education. While I can, generally, understand it, I think that such a relatively small percentage of the 
residents of the state use the courts; I think about the cost that would be involved to make any impact at all. 
Felmly: It’s about getting the resources to support it. The Justice System needs to have a constituency 
of people in the public. People do not support that which they do not understand. They do not call their 

legislators. They do not worry about who the lifetime appointed judges are going to be. Until we have the 
situation where the public understands the importance of what goes on there and the way it affects their daily 
lives, I believe we are not going to have the kind of public support, public attention, and public scrutiny desired. 
When you see that the public is not concerned about some of the issues…major policy issues in our court 
system…frankly, they are more worried about things like the McDonalds coffee case and such, I make the case 
that we are never going to achieve 100% education and support, but I believe we will have a system that, not 
only functions better, but will have better public support and cooperation with the legislature if the public 
understands what is going on in this building and the other ones like it everyday. 
Webster: It is my understanding that we looking at this from the public side, but we are also looking at it 
for people who sit on the bench to make the concern whole; all the questions raised by Harriet and raised by 
Laurie and all the questions about the mentally ill. What do the judges know about services that are available? 
It is a two-way street…. 
Abbott: I do not think we started this with any biases or prejudices. I want to reiterate what was 
discussed last month. This is the first cut. As a Commission, we have to organize our deliberations, if you will. 
We may find, after a number of Listening Sessions that we have seven groups, but we need to rethink the way 
we constructed the groups we put together. The goal is to deliberate, start, and end in November. Each of you 
will be asked to serve on the Research Committees, so think about manageable tasks. That is the hard part. 
Think about the important issues and, then, identify manageable tasks. Each of us has only so many hours 
over the three or four month period to allocate to this. I think a lot of the work has, already, been done. We do 
not need to revisit everything. We have tackled a lot of the issues. What are the issues that we, as a group of 
people, can bring to the table? This is not the final word today. I think that’s what it’s all about. 
Nixon: I just have a couple of things. I wonder if there should be some sort of streamlined questions 
for all the committees to be working toward so we are on the same plane in terms of responses. Another thing 
is that I am really concerned about the number of drop downs that come under these titles. Maybe what we 
need to be doing determining what the subtitles should be. 
Abbott: I agree with you on that. But, this is a starting point. Frankly, if we can get to five or seven 
core issues…I think Eric is right about his analysis talking about a matrix. A matrix is very complicated. If we 
can figure out a way to identify five to seven or ten issues that we can raise to the top, and deal with those with 
groups of 15 or so people, I think that might work process wide. If we try deal with all 23 of those issues, as 
pointed out in the handout we have, the work of this Commission is going to get bogged down. That is not to 
minimize any one of them, but we can only do so much. Part of our job is to sort out what we are able to 
accomplish and what we are not. 
Mahoney: I am listening to what you are saying and looking at the seven issues. Two of those issues 
(family and criminal) are substantive. I have been on a family task force and would say that the concerns that 
have been raised around family issues are ________ and criminal. So, the things that, maybe, we should really 
be focusing on are the systemic not the substantive. 
Herr: If we organize our approach to topics by the classes of law we have today, the inertia in the 
process will be overwhelming, as opposed to thinking about ___________, which will get us outside the box a 
little bit.. 
Winters: I have a final question. Can you bring us up to date about the time line you see here with 
respect to the Research Committees? I assume that they won’t begin working until after the Listening 

Sessions? 
Abbott: That’s our plan. We might start recruiting and soliciting Commissioners to tackle chairing and 
working on the leadership of individual Research Committees before November. The timeframe is public 
Listening Sessions and public input through November. As a practical matter, the Research Committees may 
not start their actual work until early January followed by three months of deliberating. Then the Research 
Committees will bring back to the Commission their recommendations. The Commission will have to come up 
with a process of hashing that out, and we are allocating three months for writing the final draft report. So, 
sometime in the summer of 2006 we will be done. That may be ambitious, but we will give it a shot. 
Eaton: I assume that, when once we’re done and we have written all the reports, I would assume that 
there will be recommendations for change. People do not like change. So, for change to come about, I think 
that everyone in this room will have to tell why we came up with the recommendations we came up with. 
Abbott: I think that everyone in this room will have to help drive the recommendations that we come up 
with. Not to be disrespectful of the court or the legislature, but I think that, if we are really going to be a public 
body identifying public priorities and issues, if we want to get things get done, those of us in this room are going 
to have see that they get done. 
Abbott: Laura? 
Kiernan: I want to share information about something we recently got up on the web site. We posted 
what is called The Self Help Center, which is really directed toward people who are thinking about going to 
court (for whatever reason), and they plan to come without a lawyer. If you look at that posting, there are court 
structure diagrams; we really approached developing it for people who don’t know about the courts but are 
involved in some dispute and need 3rd party input. So, that web site is www.courts.state.nh.us and there is an 
icon on the home page; you can’t miss it! We welcome feedback on it, particularly from the judges and lawyers 
on the Commission, so we can do our job to best benefit everyone. Thank you. 
Abbott: We have reached the witching hour and, I guess we will leave this as follows: Kathy and I will 
start to work based on the conversation we just had and circulate, within the next week or so, a draft topic list to 
result in a workable set. We will be asking for your input. I think we ought to be prepared, at the public 
Listening Sessions, to give people at least a snapshot of how we are going about this. We will try to have that 
ground down by September 12. One other thing is that, on the web site we will try to create a document that 
can be downloaded and transferred to people, rather than have the little cards as discussed before. We need 
your help getting the word out about the dates, locations and times of the public Listening Sessions. So, you 
will have available a document that you can to send to anybody you would like in your network which would be 
very helpful and will be the cheapest way to get the word out. We will also do some paid advertising and 
promotions, but we do not have a lot of resources. Therefore, anything you can think of in terms of groups of 
people who would be willing to distribute the information, would be great. 
Gross: On the public Listening Sessions, I take it that our responsibility is to go and just listen. 
Abbott: Absolutely! We would like to have each of you attending at least one public Listening Session. 
I think, if you can get to two or three, it would be terrific! We really do not know what to expect. The more 
information we can get out about the places, dates and times, the better! 
Davis: Is there going to be some way for us to access what goes on at all the Sessions? 

Abbott: There will be a taped record of each Session. The transcription of that record, hopefully, will 
be posted on the web site. That will happen if we can afford to make it happen. The information will be 
available to the entire Commission. Ken? 
Barnes: I definitely understand that the Commission does not have a lot of resources to purchase 
public relations about the Sessions. I think that, if we rely exclusively on members of the Commission 
contacting people we know, we will get a rather skewed group of attendees. I believe it would be very helpful if 
there is contact with news stations and radio stations for, maybe, public service announcements. I think we 
seem to agree that this is a public service kind of event, and we want to reach out to folks. 
Abbott: We definitely intend to do that, but we do not have a large block of dollars to spend on a 
proactive PR campaign. Kathy and I are planning to talk to editors of daily papers. We are going to try to do an 
op ed piece to be distributed state wide. That will include the Session schedule. We are going to do a press 
conference with Andy in early to mid-September and use that as an opportunity to get the word out statewide 
that this is happening. I do not want to suggest that we are relying totally on folks in this room. But, I think that 
if you have lists of individuals you can access via email such as people you think are interested or you think 
should be interested, that will be very helpful. I really think that that kind of thinking will help us reach a much 
larger audience than, even, the traditional PR moves that one might make in a situation like this. So, the more 
you can distribute to your lists, the better! 
Any other questions? No? Thank you all! 
Flip Chart: 
1. Trial & Judicial Performance 
2. Accessibility 
3. Cost Issues 
4. Public Interaction 
5. Family Issues 
6. Criminal Justice System 
7. Customer Service / Education