5 Ways to Create Visible Public Access to Justice

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The nationwide “Justice for All” forum is examining ways to ensure justice is accessible to low-income individuals, those facing social injustices and hardship, and citizens with a lack of payment options. This second part of the series provides 5 ways to create visible public access to justice for the citizens you serve.

Accessible Justice Initiatives

Crucial to the success of the Justice for All forum is the need to spread the word and ensure initiatives and services meant to help modest and low-income individuals are visible and known to the citizens that can benefit from these programs. Consider the following initiatives, many of which have been highlighted by the Center for Court Innovation, each ensuring public access to justice is within reach:

  1. Provide representation for those facing eviction. Stable housing is recognized as a major contributor to a family’s well-being. However, many families face eviction without legal representation. In New York City, Poverty Justice Solutions is addressing this problem by offering legal help from recent law school grads.
  2. Offer an arena to solve disputes cooperatively. Peacemaking programs in Brooklyn and Syracuse use traditional Native American practices in which trained volunteers help parties involved in a dispute not only resolve the problem at hand but also work to heal and strengthen the relationship of those involved. This approach builds community through collaboratively “talking it out.”
  3. Ensure the underrepresented have access to legal services. In both Harlem and Red Hook, courts are taking unconventional approaches to ensure increased access to legal services for underrepresented litigants in an effort to spur neighborhood renewal, reduce crime, prevent eviction, and more.
  4. Link parents with support programs. To help non-custodial parents pay child support and improve parenting skills, a partnership of legal and community-based programs offer these parents services to help them be better parents—a win-win for the parents, children, and community.
  5. Let citizens know they can conveniently make payments. Offering payment options that include one-time, recurring, late, and partial payment gives citizens the best chance to make payments in a method that is most convenient and doable for them. This approach prevents undue hardship and greatly improves the likelihood of courts receiving payment.

Operational Benefits to the Court

By making these types of initiatives available and visible to citizens and embracing technology to help make these programs possible, courts not only improve access to justice for all but also gain operational benefits for the court. For example, with the right initiatives and tools, courts can:

  • Implement workload tools to assists judges when making case assignments
  • Enhance reporting capabilities
  • More efficiently manage and resolve cases
  • Adopt case processing time standards
  • Put in place performance, customer service, and case management measures that help citizens while lessening the load on court staff

(Source: Arizona Supreme Court, Advancing Justice Together)

An Approach for All

Unconventional programs and initiatives combined with technology that enables flexible payment options helps bring justice to all while easing court processing. This approach facilitates the reallocation of court efforts and funds from timely manual processing to programs that visibly improve public access to justice.
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Access to Justice: The Future of Court Payment Processing

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As a result of the national attention gained by Ferguson, Missouri, a nationwide forum is beginning to take shape. This forum, called “Justice for All,” explores how to provide access to justice for those who cannot pay fines as a result of hardship, social inequities, or lack of payment options available to them as citizens. This first part in our series explores how to look beyond payment as a transaction and focus on how payment options can be enhanced to meet the best interest of both the court and its citizens.

What Policies are Recommended to Improve Access to Justice?

The “Justice for All” forum stresses that fines and fees are meant to be a deterrent, not a catastrophic financial burden. As such, the forum provides suggestions and policies for courts to adopt in an effort to help mitigate judicial and financial risk. Examples of policies that support access to justice include:

  • Enabling the judge’s discretion to set reasonable penalties
  • Basing a defendant’s payment options and plans on their ability to pay
  • Offering alternatives to paying fines, such as community service or participating in treatment programs
  • Promoting the defendant’s voluntary appearance in court by sending reminders via phone and text to avoid the issuance of failure to appear (FTA)
  • Using the suspension of driver’s licenses as a last resort rather than a first step, as doing so often has a negative impact on a defendant’s ability to pay
  • Establishing non-jail enforcement alternatives to avoid the costs and associated implications of jail time
  • Handling special needs (ADA) offenses appropriately in addition to addressing potential mental health issues

Evaluating the Relationship Between Courts and Citizens

Many courts and government agencies have begun evaluating their relationship with citizens by examining the payment process within the judicial ecosystem. Opening multiple payment channels provides an opportunity for courts and government agencies to better and more effectively serve citizens as well as extend service offerings beyond the transaction itself. This approach has long-term rewards, ranging from increased operational efficiency to minimized occurrences of late payments and case closures.

Each judicial system will have to determine which services and payment options best fit their processes, serve their citizens, and reduce the court’s burden. For instance, by offering recurring payment plans, citizens can make timely automated payments for restitution, which enables citizens who do not have the financial means to pay the full compensation as a single one-time payment. In addition, if courts provide only on-premise payments, it can put a burden on citizens that live in rural areas, potentially causing loss of payments and delay in case closures.

As courts and government agencies make these choices, they will need help tracking community service and other non-financial items (e.g., tracking consequential payments that are not monetary in value, such as community service). And if the government is not funding new legislative mandates, courts will be left carrying the financial burden, which could have a negative impact on revenue for the courts. To aid courts, a reputable payment service provider can act as a trusted advisor to the court and its administrators, helping them reshape their approach to payment acceptance, by implementing long-term solutions that drive positive results for the judicial systems and its citizens.

How nCourt is Shaping a New Perspective on Payments

Every court grapples with decisions around implementing the best payment processing services and case management system (CMS) to support its ever-changing operations. Even courts with access to sophisticated technologies can quickly become entangled with a complex application process. Helping courts streamline their payment process and move towards greater access to justice is a relatively new concept with many payment providers for judicial systems; however, it’s not new to nCourt.

Limited public access to justice, fragmented court processes, reduced financial resources, delayed notification between key personnel in the judicial and enforcement divisions, coupled with roadblocks to obtaining affordable cutting edge technology, are typical challenges for courts, especially if they lack integration between their payment and CMS solutions. Most important, without a solid interface linking these core platforms, courts may unknowingly increase greater risk exposure, that can be damaging and reduce the public’s trust in the judiciary.

nCourt believes that the future of payment processing looks beyond the payment transaction, and how government agencies can improve service to citizens, rather than merely collecting payments. Therefore, one of the best ways to enhance services to citizens is to provide payment options conveniently accessible inside and outside of the courthouse.

With the growing technological advancement in judicial and governmental practices, nCourt has helped thousands of courts alleviate the pressure of falling behind in adopting innovative payment solutions and services. We partner with the courts, to deliver well-designed, easy and secure integration methods, and together we provide timely information and payment options to all citizens.

Please contact nCourt for an initial consultation and evaluation of your current payment processing program. We’re here to help!
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