We have organized this Summary to assist our readers in finding information about each of the justice improvement activities by topic and by state.

This overview contains a description of the survey process, the survey instrument, a sample cover letter, at chart tallying the activities indicated by the survey responses, and a description of the services of the ABA Office of Justice Initiatives.

After this overview, section C covers justice initiative activities in which non-lawyers are involved (citizens’ conferences, justice commissions, and futures commissions), describing each of them by topic and giving examples from different states. The descriptions are followed by a bar graph showing the year to year comparison in numbers and a table listing state and local justice initiatives by state.

Section D describes activities to improve public trust and confidence (PT+C) in the justice system, citing selected state and national follow-up activities specifically designated as PT+C-related activities. It should be noted that the underlying goal of many of the activities described in this Summary, especially the justice initiatives involving the public noted above, aim at improving public trust and confidence.

The next section (E) is devoted to traditional justice improvement activities. Each of the selected major activities is described by topic, giving examples from different states, and providing resources for additional information.

The state summaries in section (F) provides narratives of justice improvement activities from the various courts and bar associations that responded to the survey. In some cases, we included information gathered from journals, press releases, "State of the State Judiciary" speeches, and other public sources. The narratives generally start with information from the courts, followed by information from the state and local bar associations. The beginning of each court or bar association’s information is marked by an underlined reference to the court or bar name. The end of each court or bar’s narrative is marked with a bold "Contact," followed by contact information for that entity.

In the print version of this Summary, we placed extended information from the states’ narratives into the state appendix (Section G). However, this Web version consolidates all of each state’s reported information into one document. There is no state appendix.

For additional information about the survey, contact Paula Nessel, ABA Office of Justice Initiatives, at 312/988-5450, fax: 312/988-6100, e-mail: paulanessel@staff.abanet.org.