National Association for Presiding Judges and Court Executive Officers

How Courts Can Help Solve the Access-to-Justice Problem

The internet flattens the world, allowing equal access to all largely without cost, right? Wrong. The internet allows access to all sorts of information, but only after algorithms funnel users to specific websites. And as discussed here, litigants searching for help are algorithmically funneled to courts—not to low-cost self-help providers. With modern legal technology now widely available, the primary constraint on access to justice is no longer the absence of tools. It is the inability of those tools to reach the litigants who need them. This article provides background for that gap, shows how it gives courts a unique opportunity to help, and recommends some solutions and innovations, all based on recent experiences in this realm seeking to create new pathways to justice.

WEBINAR: The Life and Legacy of Ernie Friesen: Court Reformer par Excellence

Many court leaders throughout the United States and worldwide were recently saddened to learn Ernie Friesen, one of the most influential icons in court and judicial management, died December 11, 2025 at 97 years of age. His work toward improving trial court governance structures and case processing efficiencies is legendary, living on today as strategic, practical principles in managing courts and evidence-based remedies for reducing needless court delay.

WEBINAR: The Importance of Character in Leading

Leadership character is a lot more than ethics. Though moral, upstanding behavior certainly contributes to a strong, principled leader, new research by MIT Sloan School of Management and the Ivy Business School in Canada reveals a much broader spectrum of values and associated behaviors that condition leadership character.

Ernie Friesen, Court and Judicial Administration Icon, 1928–2025

In his remarkable life, Ernie Friesen pioneered the field of court administration and left a durable legacy of crucial reforms of our judicial system. He was an idealist and a reformer, with a gift for getting to the heart of a problem and a passion for finding practical solutions he could teach the world.

The End of Reality? How to combat deepfakes in our legal system

There’s nothing fake about it. The legal industry is facing a big problem with deepfakes. Courtrooms are not yet flooded with a tsunami of deepfake evidence, but with this artificial intelligence-generated technology playing with great success on social media and in fraud schemes, it’s only a matter of time before deepfakes regularly drop into the exhibit list.

JudgeGPT: The Benefits and Challenges of an AI Judiciary

As litigators begin to incorporate artificial intelligence into their work, some courts are doing the same. A pilot program in Estonia allows litigants in small claims court to submit their disputes to a computer program. Some Brazilian judges regularly use artificial intelligence when drafting decisions. And a virtual judge presides over court proceedings in some parts of China, although human judges make the final decisions. Before American litigators immediately dismiss this trend, or fully embrace it, I offer two benefits and two challenges that this technology may offer to the judiciary.

If the Trump administration defies the courts, what can be done about it?

What happens if the president decides to ignore the Supreme Court? According to constitutional experts, not much. Part of the problem, says Richard Garnett, the Paul J. Schierl professor of law at the Notre Dame Law School, is that courts have always been reliant on the cooperation of the executive branch to enforce their orders and comply with decisions, regardless of whether or it agrees with them.