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The Indiana Supreme Court has issued amendments to the rules governing committees and commissions, including an amendment that creates a new Innovation Committee.
The amendments to Administrative Rule 4 took effect immediately Friday, when the order was issued.
Among the amendments to Rule 4(a) is the creation of an Innovation Committee, which is tasked with “conduct(ing) continuous research on justice reform, identify(ing) innovative strategies to improve judicial and legal process, and mak(ing) recommendations to the Supreme Court for best practices surrounding Indiana’s judicial system. The Committee shall establish a permanent technology subcommittee and may establish ad hoc subcommittees.”
Pursuant to new Rule 4(C)(4), the membership of the Innovation Committee will include the executive directors of the Indiana State Bar Association, the Indiana Public Defender Council and the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council or their designees, who will serve as permanent members; the executive director of the Office of Court Technology and the chief innovation officer in the Office of Judicial Administration, who will serve as ex officio members; and an appellate or trial judge, who will serve as chair of the technology subcommittee.
The creation of the Innovation Committee comes more than three years after the high court established the Indiana Innovation Initiative, which was created to “analyze research on justice reform, assess the impact of reform efforts in other states, identify innovative strategies to manage different case types, and make recommendations to the Indiana Supreme Court for best practices surrounding Indiana’s justice system structures and procedures.”
The September 2019 order creating the Innovation Initiative also established a Family Law Taskforce and a Technology Working Group. The Civil Litigation Taskforce was subsequently established in January 2021.
Since then, all three subgroups have submitted reports and recommendations to the high court.
The Family Law Taskforce submitted its report in March 2021, suggesting, among other things, the use of online dispute resolution in domestic relations cases and the establishment of guidelines for guardians ad litem.
The Technology Working Group also submitted a report in March 2021 calling for, among other things, the creation of an online portal for the submission of proposed exhibits.
The report of the Civil Litigation Taskforce, submitted in February 2022, led to the introduction of a new pilot project to streamline civil proceedings.
Aside from the creation of the Innovation Committee, the Friday order makes changes to the rules governing other committees and commissions.
The names of the Indiana Supreme Court Commission on Race and Gender Fairness and Indiana Supreme Court Advisory Commission on Guardians ad Litem/Court Appointed Special Advocates were changed to remove “Indiana Supreme Court” from the titles.
Further, membership on the Commission on Race and Gender Fairness is no longer limited to “not less than ten (10) and not more than twenty-five (25) members,” and there is no longer a requirement for the chief justice to “appoint one or more chairs for the commission.”
Likewise, language was struck requiring the Supreme Court to appoint the members of the GAL/CASA Advisory Commission.
Finally, language was removed limiting membership of the Records Access and Management Committee to no more than 15 members, as was language requiring the high court to appoint the members of that committee.
All justices concurred in the amendments to Rule 4.
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