Courts to Ask Visitors to Complete Access, Fairness Survey

COURT HOUSE – Litigants, lawyers, jurors and others who visit New Jersey Courts next week will be asked to participate in the Judiciary’s first Access and Fairness Public Survey, announced Judge Glenn A. Grant, acting administrative director of the Courts.
Designed by the National Center for State Courts, the survey measures the public’s perception of how accessible and fair they find the courts during their visit.
In a release announcing the survey, Grant stated, “The New Jersey Judiciary has led the way among state court systems in our efforts to ensure that the courts are accessible to everyone regardless of their ethnicity, gender, race, religion, physical condition, ability to speak English, economic status, sexual orientation or level of education. This survey will help us assess how we are doing.”
The survey will be administered from Oct. 7- Oct. 11 in every Superior Court courthouse in the state, the Superior Court Clerk’s Offices at the Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex in Trenton, and in many off-site court facilities such as probation offices.
The survey will be available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, Hindi, Gujarati and Portuguese. A video-recorded American Sign Language interpretation also will be available in every building for deaf and hard-of-hearing court users.
The survey project was developed by the Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Access and Fairness. Formed in 2011, the committee includes judges, Judiciary staff, and representatives from the New Jersey State Bar Association, Legal Services of New Jersey, the Sheriffs’ Association of New Jersey, the state’s surrogates’ organization, Rutgers School of Law-Camden, the Asian Pacific American Lawyers Association of New Jersey, the Garden State Bar Association, and members of New Jersey’s Hispanic legal community.