February 13, 2025
By Bill Raftery
In the last several years, three states (Illinois, North Carolina, and Wyoming) have taken different approaches to their judicial councils. The idea of a body within the judiciary that would be responsible for the administration of the judiciary dates to the 1910s and the American Judicature Society. Each state has implemented the concept in different ways at different times.
At the federal level, the Judicial Conference of the United States, created in 1922 as the Conference of Senior Circuit Judges, played much the same function as envisioned for state judicial councils.
As states created their own councils, they differed based on each state’s constitutional and statutory frameworks. Today, many states do not have such councils, instead relying on the state’s court of last resort to exercise many of these functions. Most recently three states examined their existing council-like entities:
- Illinois (2018): The Illinois Judicial Conference was reconstituted in September 2018 “to consider the work of the courts, to suggest improvements in the administration of justice, and to make recommendations for the improvement of the courts.” Created by court rule in 1971, the revised ICJ has released numerous reports including two focused on court data in 2020 and performance measures in 2021, as well as recommending a weighted caseload study report.
- North Carolina (2021): The State Judicial Council was created in 1925 by statute and existed in one form or fashion since then. In 2021 the council was tasked with examining the work of the judiciary and reporting findings to the chief justice. The authorizing statute was repealed, and the council ended in 2021.
- Wyoming (2022): The state had a judicial council at least as early as the 1970s as an advisory committee to the supreme court to hold hearings on proposed rules. Later the council was disbanded. On May 24, 2000, the state’s supreme court created a Board of Judicial Policy and Administration and ordered the superintending authority vested in the supreme court to be delegated to it. A 2022 order renamed the board, and the modern Wyoming Judicial Council was created. NCSC assists with these types of projects: Administrative Structure of the Wyoming Judicial Branch and the Board of Judicial Policy and Administration.
Does your jurisdiction have a judicial council? What are its roles and functions? Email us at Knowledge@ncsc.org or call 800-616-6164 and let us know. Follow the National Center for State Courts on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Vimeo. For more Trending Topic posts, visit ncsc.org/trendingtopics and subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter.