October 7, 2004                                                                  Contact: Laura Kiernan
                                                                                             Court Public Information Officer
                                                                                             603-271-2646 ext. 359

NEWS ADVISORY
 

NEW HAMPSHIRE JUDICIAL BRANCH LAUNCHES  NEWSLETTER

"COURT CONNECTIONS" TO APPEAR QUARTERLY

CONCORD---The New Hampshire Judicial Branch, through its Public Information Office, today  launched the first edition of  its  electronic newsletter, "Court Connections,"  available on the judicial branch website at www.courts.state.nh.us.  The newsletter will be published quarterly and covers a wide range of range of subjects, from staff changes to critical issues facing the court system. 

    The judicial branch website homepage has also been redesigned to include a "Mission Statement" for the judicial branch which was a key element in a recently released report to the Supreme Court called "A Vision of Justice: The Future of the New Hampshire Courts."

    In a message to the court staff published on the front page of the newsletter, Chief Justice John T. Broderick Jr said  “Good communication about issues on the job is essential to our broader mission and Court Connections will help up achieve that goal." The Chief Justice, who has been traveling around the state and visiting courthouses since January, said in his message that he wants to "build a culture within our court system that consistently recognizes that all of our jobs are important and add value of the administration of justice."

    .  Broderick has invited employees to join a new “Staff Advisory Committee to the Chief Justice” comprised of 12 representatives from courts around the state. The committee will meet four times a year at sites outside of Concord.

    For the newsletter’s first feature article, headlined "Support on the Homefront," court employees submitted information and photographs of relatives who are serving in the military. Other articles detailed information about two very critical projects that have recently begun in the judicial branch: the clerical weighted caseload analysis and business process enhancement.  Both of these areas will assess the actual workload is in a particular court location, examine how the work is currently done and propose how procedures and practices can be improved.

        The quarterly publication also contains a regular feature called "People on the Move" about court employees who have been promoted, recently hired or left the system. 

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