Superior Court asks board to fund settlement pipeline, keep court security and continue tech shift

Presiding Judge Ted Reed told the Board of Supervisors the Superior Court’s most effective recent progress in reducing a pandemic-era backlog came from expanding settlement conferences and alternative dispute resolution, not by adding another full trial division.

Reed said judges using settlement conferences and in‑house civil arbitrations — supported earlier by ARPA funds and temporary staffing known as Division 7 — cut backlog criminal cases from more than 100 in 2020 to about 19 at the end of 2024. “Only about 2% of our cases go to trial,” Reed said. “What happens to the 98% is the availability of attorneys to work the case, come up with settlements, and when they can’t, to get them into a settlement conference.”

Nut graf: The court asked the county to replace a planned new trial division with a smaller, cheaper Auxiliary Judicial Services (AJS) package that funds settlement conferences, limited pro tem judges and operational support so the court can…