“The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) have developed an innovative training curriculum and faculty guide – along with practical tools – to help state courts establish and manage business court dockets more efficiently and effectively. The curriculum was developed as part of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Business Court Docket Pilot Project.” An article describing this important development can be found here.
“The curriculum was developed as part of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Business Court Docket Pilot Project.” Links to the Tennessee Business Court can be found on this statewide website and a Davidson County (Nashville) Chancery Court website.
“That project was established in 2015 to address complex corporate and commercial cases in a specialized manner, and proved so successful that in 2018 the State Justice Institute (SJI) awarded a grant to the Tennessee AOC and NCSC to develop and implement a training curriculum to help expand commercial dockets across the nation.” We have previously posted on this program.
This new curriculum includes topics such as the purpose and growth of business courts; challenging commercial arbitration’s hegemony; benefits to commercial litigants; factors to consider in determining whether a jurisdiction should create a business court; organizing, funding and resources for a business court; geographic and subject matter jurisdiction; judicial selection; creating business court rules; staffing; best practices; complex case management; use of special masters; handling confidential information; ADR; program measurement and assessment; and judicial training.
For any jurisdiction considering establishing a new business court or developing an existing business court, these documents provide important resources. Moreover, the NCSC itself is now a resource for additional and practical insights on business court creation and development.
