CONFERENCE OF CHIEF JUSTICES
Improving the state judicial system is the mission of the Conference of Chief Justices. Founded in 1949 as an association of chief justices of state supreme courts, the conference tackles organizational, administrative, and procedural issues at its biannual meetings and through standing and special committees. It is governed by a board of directors. Long regarded as an austere group with narrow concerns, the conference emerged in a broader role in the 1990s. Pressing concerns about a logjam of cases in state courts led it to open a new partnership with federal courts, resulting in the first-ever meeting between the highest judicial officers of both court systems in 1990. More dramatically, the conference broke its long-standing silence on politics: it entered a heated battle with the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT over ethics rules, made outspoken attacks on federal HEALTH CARE and crime legislation, and began earnestly LOBBYING Congress. This bolder identity caused ripples in the legal community as the conference announced its willingness to be a political player with the help of its research and lobbying arm, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).
Traditionally, the Conference of Chief Justices tended to looked inward. Its membership includes, besides state supreme court justices, the highest judicial officers of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. territories, and each jurisdiction has long faced similar concerns. State court systems are simple only in appearance: every system of trial, appellate, and supreme courts requires vast organizational resources. The conference was founded to share ideas, compare methods, and brainstorm new
solutions to managing these behemoths. From
the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, meetings
addressed matters ranging from the expanding
role of the court administrator to the problems
of caseload management and rules and methods
of procedure. Not all these concerns were lim-
ited to the courts. The conference reacted in dis-
may to the ruling in the 1984 case of Pulliam v.
Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 104 S. Ct. 1970, 80 L. Ed. 2d
565 (1984), which overturned the historic doc-
trine of JUDICIAL IMMUNITY and permitted
attorneys to collect awards against state judges,
and it began an ongoing lobbying effort aimed
at having Congress restore judicial immunity.
The conference’s horizons started to broaden
in the 1980s, as changes in federal policy began
overloading state courts. The states have always
handled the vast majority of civil and criminal
cases, but the so-called war on drugs filled state
court dockets with more cases than they could
reasonably handle. By 1990, the conference’s
president, Chief Justice Vincent L. McKusick, of
the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, noted that
Arizona’s trial courts processed more drug cases
annually than did all federal trial courts com-
bined. The conference’s response was to open a
dialogue with the JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF
THE UNITED STATES, its federal partner. In Sep-
tember 1990, the highest officials of both sys-
tems met for the first time at the national level to
address mutual concerns about drug and TORT
cases. They formed the Federal-State Judicial
Council to continue to seek solutions.
By 1994, the conference was taking bolder
steps in a long-running dispute with the Justice
Department. As far back as 1989, then attorney
general RICHARD THORNBURGH had suggested
changing the Justice Department’s code of ethics
to stop following Rule 4.2 of the American Bar
Association’s Model Rules of Professional Con-
duct. Upheld by the states and most federal
courts, this rule governs the communication of
lawyers in disputes: it specifically bars lawyers
from communicating with a party who is repre-
sented by another lawyer, without that lawyer’s
consent. The Justice Department believed that
the rule hampered federal prosecutors in their
investigations, and in early 1994, Attorney Gen-
eral JANET RENO said the U.S. Constitution
exempted federal prosecutors from the ethics
rules of state bar associations. In August 1994,
the conference passed a resolution blasting the
Justice Department’s position and advising state
bars and supreme courts to enforce Rule 4.2.
Conference members accused the department of
blatant illegality, and legal observers expected
the matter ultimately to end up before the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Although the conference had traditionally
refrained from taking overtly political positions,
members decided in 1994 to enter the fray. Two
issues troubled them: health care reform and the
crime bill, both put forward by the administra-
tion of President BILL CLINTON. Using the
research facilities of the NCSC, the conference
claimed that health care reform would fill state
courts with 90 million new claims. And in a
strongly worded resolution, it lashed out at the
original text of the crime bill for “indiscriminate
federalization of crimes, the needless disruption
of effective state and local law enforcement
efforts, and the inefficient use of the special but
limited resources of the federal courts.” Going
beyond harsh criticism, the conference directed
the NCSC to lobby members of Congress in
what became a partially successful effort at trim-
ming the bill.
This departure from tradition excited the
legal community. The National Law Journal
spotted “new-found muscle and aggression” in
the conference’s activities, and other observers
saw potential for the conference to become a
major player in political debate. Not wishing to
be viewed as a partisan organization, the confer-
ence itself vowed to limit its lobbying to issues
that affected JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION.
The conference maintained a lower profile
since the mid-1990s and reaffirmed its commit-
ment to improving the administration of justice.
In 2002, it passed a resolution endorsing a
report on public access to court information
that seeks to bring uniform practices to the judi-
ciary. In addition, the conference endorsed a res-
olution that seeks to make the system more
accessible to self-represented litigants. With the
precipitous decline in state government budgets
in 2002 and 2003, the conference began to
explore how far the judicial branch must go in
sharing the financial burden with the other two branches of government.
FURTHER READINGS
“Chief Justices Meet, Grouse about Crime Bill.” 1994.
National Law Journal (February 28).
Conference of Chief Justices. Resolution 33. Endorsing and
Supporting Public Access to Court Records: Guidelines
for Policy Development by State Courts (2002). Available
online at (accessed May 21, 2003).
“Feds, State Judges in Showdown.” 1994. National Law Journal
(August 15).
National Center for State Courts. Available online at (accessed May 21, 2003).
“Podium: Combining Resources.” 1990. National Law Journal
(November 19).
“State Court Chiefs Flex New Muscle—Chief Justices Conference
Sheds Benign Image and Challenges Washington.”
1994. National Law Journal (October 17).
