“Justice at Work:  The State of Judicial Performance in Louisiana” was prepared pursuant to the provisions of the Judicial Budget and Performance Accountability Act of 1999 (R.S. 13:81-84). The intent of the Act is to “encourage the judiciary to develop, implement, and maintain a budget and performance accountability system for those entities under the authority of the Judicial Budgetary Control Board.  This system is intended to be based on ongoing strategic planning, the development of a management information system containing standard data elements and indicators, performance budgeting, performance reporting, and performance auditing.”  La. R.S. 13:81. 

Under the Act, the Judicial Administrator of the Supreme Court is responsible for developing a performance accountability program and for reporting annually on court performance.  In each annual performance report, the Judicial Administrator is required to present the following information:

• ×A brief description of the strategies being pursued by courts to improve their performance based on their respective strategic plans;
• ×A detailed analysis of the Supreme Court’s progress in creating a data gathering system that will provide additional measures of performance;
• ×A description of the uniform reporting standards that will be used to guide the development of the data gathering system; and,
• ×An analysis of the barriers confronted by the courts in establishing the data gathering system.

“Justice at Work: The State of Judicial Performance in Louisiana” is presented by the Judicial Administrator to fulfill the judicial performance accountability reporting requirement of the Act.  Previous versions of the report may be found on the Supreme Court website at http://www.lasc.org/press_room/annual_reports/justice_at_work.asp.