The Effects of Judicial Personnel on Hearing and Outcome Timeliness in Juvenile Dependency Cases

Family Court Review, Volume 52, Issue1

This article examines how the amount of judicial personnel work hours available for each juvenile dependency case in a county may be related to the percentage of cases reaching key decision hearings in a timely manner. Panel analyses of data from Washington State indicate that, when controlling for community risk factors, counties with more judicial personnel per case held timely fact-finding and permanency planning hearings more often and more often achieved timely adoptions. Judicial personnel per case, however, was not a significant predictor of the percentage of permanent placements completed within timeliness goals.