Courts Unmasked

Civil Legal System Reform and COVID-19

Alyx Mark

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English

University Press of Kansas
28 February 2025

Central government; Regional government; Courts & procedure

A groundbreaking new study based on extensive and original data that examines court policies and proceedings during the COVID-19 pandemic to uncover the realities of power, procedure, and reform in state civil courts.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the work practices of nearly every industry around the globe, forcing institutions to quickly adapt to the evolving public health emergency. The state court systems in the United States—from trial courts to state supreme courts—were no exception. In response to the crisis, courts were forced to make dramatic changes to the way they processed cases. The alterations ranged from selecting which types of cases should be prioritized or delayed to choices about which standards for filing documents and appearing at hearings could be relaxed. Petitions for emergency protective orders sped through the courts out of necessity, while small claims were processed far more slowly. Courts also allowed digital filings and video and phone call appearances without special permission. As Alyx Mark shows, COVID acted as an accelerant for procedural change and laid bare the different approaches to administrative decision-making that characterize the state courts. The distinctive and unifying case study created by the pandemic witnessed decisions that challenge prevailing explanations of how power manifests and process operates in state judiciaries.

The legal administrative changes brought significant differences to light in how state court systems design and implement policies that affect the administration of justice, revealing the degree to which such decisions are centralized. In states like Kentucky and Massachusetts, for example, high courts tended to craft orders that gave lower courts little room to make choices about their operations at the local level, reflective of these systems’ top-down approaches to court administration. Administrative orders distributed by Kentucky’s trial courts thus instructed judges to conduct all proceedings remotely, specifically attributing this policy choice to provisions that were made explicit in their supreme court’s orders.

In contrast, other supreme courts’ orders reflected the more diffuse nature of administrative power in their systems. Lower courts in Florida and Missouri interpreted their supreme courts’ orders to mean they were empowered to develop the administrative policies they deemed most appropriate. Given the discretion afforded to them, lower courts in Florida interpreted their high court’s wishes liberally, with their administrative orders offering judges the opportunity to make decisions about the appropriateness of remote hearings at the individual level—permitting judges to determine when, if, or wherever such hearings would be possible or practicable. Exploring these differences, which COVID made visible in a unique way, Mark provides a more comprehensive understanding of the role that the structure of administrative institutions plays in designing, implementing, and sustaining procedural change.

Informed by an extensive data collection effort—encompassing administrative orders disseminated across state court hierarchies, as well as insights from nearly sixty interviews with elite court actors who participated in constructing and implementing these orders during the pandemic—Courts Unmasked uses the COVID-19 pandemic as the vehicle for exposing and unpacking the realities of power and process in state civil courts and what this might mean for the future of civil justice reform.

By: Alyx Mark
Imprint: University Press of Kansas
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9780700638260
ISBN 10: 0700638261
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 28 February 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Alyx Mark is associate professor of government at Wesleyan University.

Reviews for Courts Unmasked: Civil Legal System Reform and COVID-19

This exciting new research smartly capitalizes on the crisis brought about by the COVID pandemic to explore the fascinating complexities of administrative power within state court systems, including the capacity of lower courts in civil cases to modify day-to-day work practices. A truly outstanding achievement, Courts Unmasked is a must-read in numerous fields of scientific inquiry, including judicial politics, judicial reform, and public policy.""—Melinda Gann Hall, author of Attacking Judges: How Campaign Advertising Influences State Supreme Court Elections""Courts Unmasked: Civil Legal System Reform and COVID-19 is an essential and accessible read for anyone seeking to understand judicial politics and administration. Using unique evidence from interviews and empirical data, Mark illuminates how higher and lower state courts interact to shape the rules that influence whether and how citizens seek justice. This remarkable work’s implications regarding how courts operate reach far beyond the pandemic.""—Morgan L. W. Hazelton, coauthor of The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary ""Courts make policy and are governed by their own administrative policies. For far too long, researchers have focused on the former with scant attention to the latter. No longer! In this important book, Alyx Mark shines a light on the administrative procedures that govern state civil courts and explains how these important institutions adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic (and beyond). With innovative data and argument, Mark blazes a new trail at the intersection of judicial politics and judicial administration that will invite a new generation of research.""—Michael J. Nelson, coauthor of The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary ""Courts Unmasked provides a probing analysis of court administrative policymaking that simultaneously contributes to scholarly understanding of state courts (and their decision-making outside of the courtroom) and provides a set of practical insights relevant for those interested in reforming the civil justice system to enhance access to justice. This book is an exemplar of multidisciplinary, multimethod scholarship with both theoretical and policy implications.""—Wendy L. Martinek, coauthor of American Judicial Process: Myth and Reality in Law and Courts ""Alyx Mark employs a rich body of evidence to describe and explain the responses of state court systems to the challenges created by the COVID pandemic. In doing so, she provides an innovative and valuable analysis of the realities of court administration in the United States.""—Lawrence A. Baum, author of The Supreme Court