Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Center for Judicial Process: Welcome & Mission

The Center for Judicial Process is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization devoted to the interdisciplinary research and study of courts and judges, including decision-making and voting, the judicial role and selection, and other facets of the judicial process. The Center’s mission is to encourage such research and study and to provide a forum for publication.

Studies and reports on judicial process research are published on the Center’s website, the Judicial Process Blog. These studies and reports are primarily the work of students, and the Center’s staff is primarily students. The founder and Director of the Center, Vincent Martin Bonventre, is a professor at Albany Law School, and the students who staff the Center attend that institution.

The Center, however, welcomes law students and law-related graduate students from other institutions nationwide to participate in its work of the Center, and to contribute research and study of the judicial process for publication. Likewise, the Center welcomes the advice and suggestions of academics, jurists, and practicing attorneys, regardless of institutional affiliation. Ultimately, the Center's aim in encouraging and publishing judicial research and studies is to serve as a valuable educational resource for the academic community, public officials, journalists, and the public at large.

Inaugurated in the 2002-03 academic year, the Center was reorganized and reactivated in 2010. The primary change was the development of the Center's own venue for publication, the Judicial Process Blog [http://www.judicialprocessblog.com/ or http://www.centerforjudicialprocess.com/], and its emphasis on student research and greater reliance on student administration. This has had the desired effect of increased productivity, as well as increased visibility for more quality student (and faculty) research that would otherwise go less or un-noticed. At the same time, the Center remains committed to its original mission of study and research on courts, judges, judicial decision-making, judicial politics and selection, and all other aspects of the judicial process.

A listing of the Center's Editorial Staff is available HERE.

(revised 11/28/2012)