CHARLESTON – The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has launched an online interactive data dashboard to provide public access to statewide court statistics in near real time.
The dashboard launched July 1 under the statistics section of www.courtswv.gov. It provides information on active case statistics statewide, by county and by judge for circuit and family courts, as well as information regarding probationers under active supervision and cases in family, juvenile and adult treatment courts.
Bunn
“This dashboard launch is part of the Supreme Court’s continued commitment to increasing transparency and technological innovation across the judicial branch of government,” Chief Justice C. Haley Bunn said in a press release. “Providing accurate, real-time data about the court system is not only a public service, but will help legislators and those of us charged with the administration of the judicial branch make better, more-informed decisions about how to best allocate resources and craft policies that affect the court system.”
In 2023, the court adopted a strategic plan with a goal of enhancing judicial transparency through the use of technology and public availability of statistics and data trends. The Division of Statistical Information was created within the Administrative Office to marshal the data used to track judicial activity for the circuit, family and magistrate courts throughout the state.
“The Supreme Court and policymakers frequently hear firsthand accounts of experiences with the legal system; however, the key statistical question is whether those experiences are representative of the broader population or simply outliers,” said Mallory Watkins, the court’s director of statistical information. “By leveraging our resources to gather and analyze data from all our courts statewide, we can move from anecdotes to analytics to determine how well the judicial branch is serving our citizens.
“Reliable data provides the context needed to answer these important questions.”
Last year, the court announced a partnership with i3 Verticals to create CourtOne, a unified case management system for magistrate, family and circuit courts. The new case management system will allow for better data collection and case tracking across lower courts in all 55 counties.
Additional data and analytics will be added to the online dashboard in coming months. The dashboard data refreshes every day at midnight, so users will be able to get a snapshot of statewide and county-level case statistics in near real time.
Bunn said the dashboard information will provide the public and policymakers with a better picture of the overall volume of work being handled by judicial officers and staff around the state.
“According to the National Center for State Courts, roughly 96 percent of all legal work in the country is handled by state courts,” Bunn said. “While the public may read a story about a prominent case or see coverage of a trial on the news every now and then, those stories represent just a small fraction of what may be on a judge’s docket at any given time.
“This dashboard will give the public a greater appreciation for the tremendous amount of work our judges and judicial staff process on a daily basis.”
