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During the fall of 2004, this collaboration
was formalized and expanded to include more rigorous data collection and
analysis. The report that follows summarizes this significant
analytical event.
Joan Miller
Chair of the Justice Committee of the League of Women Voters of
Champaign County (LWVCC), coordinated this project for LWVCC. She organizes
the League courtwatchers and is herself a veteran courtwatcher with
many years of experience. Ms. Miller provided training for the Trial
Advocacy Students who participated in the pilot project and leads the
League's courtwatchers.
J. Steven Beckett
Director of the Trial Advocacy Program at the College of Law at
the University of Illinois, taught the Trial Advocacy course that
assigns students to do "real life" courtwatching and oversaw all
legal aspects of the project including this final report.
Scott Kording
Served as the College of Law internal project expert, coordinating
student observation times, creating the website for data input,
working directly with the Statistical Consultants to facilitate
a rigorous data analysis, and taking responsibility for the many
details required to collect and collate the large quantity of
data involved in this project.
C. K. Gunsalus
Adjunct Professor at the College of Law and President of LWVCC,
served as liaison among all the project participants, bringing
parties together, working on the final report and finding resources.
Mike Salwan, Yuan Yang and Xiangkui Yu
Served as Project Statistical Consultants, under the supervision
of Adam Martinsek,
Professor of Statistics in the Department of
Statistics at the University of Ilinois.
Advice on the project, including the development of the unified
data collection instrument was provided by Professor Mark Aber of
the Department of Psychology as well as a focus group of previous
generations of student courtwatchers and interested members of the
local community who attended an initial meeting to discuss project
feasibility and goals. Professors Tom Ulen and Richard McAdams of
the College of Law generously provided some timely advice and
guidance on data interpretations.
This project's feasibility rested upon the full and willing
participation of the 130+ law students enrolled in Law 695,
Fundamentals of Trial Practice, in the Fall 2004 Semester at the
College of Law at the University of Illinois. Their time, energy
and careful recordkeeping were essential. Kay Tresslar, the veteran
Trial Advocacy faculty assistant at the law school, has provided
support to the courtwatching component of the course for many years,
and the existence of this project owes much to her dedicated service.
Finally, a study such as this is simply not possible without the
cooperation and educational approach of the judges and staff of the
courts of Champaign County. The judges here have offered guidance
and support for the students and we are grateful to them.
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