Federal Judgeships: General Accuracy of District and Appellate Judgeship Case-Related Workload Measures

Biennially, the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary's principal policymaking body, assesses the need for additional judges. The assessment is based on a variety of factors, but begins with quantitative case-related workload measures. This testimony focuses on (1) whether the judiciary's quantitative case-related workload measures from 1993 were reasonably accurate; and (2) the reasonableness of any proposed methodologies to update the 1993 workload measures. The comments in this testimony are based on a report GAO issued in May 2003.