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Researchers urge courts to build communications capacity to counter disinformation and threats
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Summary
At a University of Washington symposium, researchers from the Center for an Informed Public and participating judges said courts suffer from a culture of silence, minimal communications staffing and a lack of a public-facing narrative—problems they said worsen vulnerability to threats and disinformation.
Allie Duran, a policy fellow at the Center for an Informed Public, told a University of Washington symposium that her team's research with the Washington State Bar Association has found three recurring problems: a cultural hesitancy among judges and lawyers to speak publicly, a lack of institutional communications capacity in courts, and no widely accepted narrative to explain the rule of law to the public.
"We must figure out how to communicate the rule of law and its value to our society," Duran said. Danielle Thompson, the Center's research manager, said the team combined ethnographic interviews with social-listening analysis and found judges and their staffs often default to silence for ethical and professional reasons.
The panel described concrete reform models from abroad: Taiwan, which set up a judicial spokesperson's office and a dialogue group that produced shareable case summaries and a social-media presence, and Canada, which has centralized spokesperson functions and posts accessible briefs for the public. Duran said those practices helped boost public trust in those systems and could be adapted for U.S. courts.
Speakers urged courts and funders to invest in communication staff, training and monitoring tools rather than expecting individual judges to become social-media influencers. "This isn't just judges talking," Thompson said; the work, she said, requires "financial, artistic, legislative" resources and networks of trusted spokespeople beyond the bench.
Researchers also raised data and methodological questions. Amrit Singh of NYU's Rule of Law Lab, participating on the panel, described an ongoing study that seeks to document threats to federal judges and called for clearer public definitions of what agencies count as a 'threat.'
The Center said its work is ongoing; it plans additional social-listening analysis and to publish materials and slide decks for public use. Panelists encouraged law schools and bar associations to expand media-training and to develop consistent, authentic narratives that acknowledge historic grievances while explaining the courts' role in protecting rights and civic order.
The panel closed by urging practical next steps: create or restore public-information officers where feasible, build small communication units that can publish short, accessible explanations of rulings, and partner with community messengers to reach diverse audiences.
