Innovating at the County Courts, one mail bin at a time

By James Warren, Cohort 72 – Columbia Point, Judicial Assistant II, Denver County Court

Working in the Denver County Court can be an incredibly interesting job. Whether it be a complex court case, a persistent defendant, or a perplexing legal decision, there is always something going on at the courthouse. For all it offers in a workplace, it can also be pretty inefficient. The status quo and precedent are the foundation of the legal system, but these things often are accompanied by old forms, outdated policies, and slow or inefficient procedures. One inefficient practice that I found frustrating as a court employee was mail delivery.

The court’s clerk office receives loads of mail every day from court stakeholders, and it’s important that this information is transferred to the courtroom in a timely fashion. Historically, clerks from all 13 courtrooms have walked to the clerk’s office multiple times a day to pick up mail. Because the courtrooms are on different floors from the clerk’s office, this meant we had dozens of trips going all over the court, which was wasting a huge amount of time. This was particularly hard for clerk’s who were in the courtrooms alone. We decided to apply some innovation skills we learned from the Peak Academy to save time and money in our jobs.

With the help of two other clerks, Garrett and Jenna, we designed a new and improved “Mail Run,” wherein a single clerk makes two trips a day to each of the courtrooms. This cut down significantly on inefficient movement and wasted time.

Our final step was to present this idea to our supervisors to justify the purchase of the new mail bins. We successfully convinced them that this innovation was a good one by documenting the considerable staff time savings – 277 hours! We soon began rolling out our full plan.

The mail run has been a huge success! Courtroom clerks are happier, the court has a more regular schedule, and all correspondence is expedited. Not only that, but the court is saving around $6,600 a year primarily from saved movement around the courthouse!

*These are the boxes we use in our office to sort mail. The mail from around the office first congregates here before moving to the accordion folder.*

We had nowhere to reliably deliver the mail with our current setup. Garrett, Jenna, and I presented the mail run to the team of supervisors, and we received funding necessary to purchase these hanging baskets.

*We also needed a way to deliver the mail. We found a spare accordion folder in a storage closet and received permission to use it. I created labels to show where the mail was going.*

cheat sheet — Courtrooms not only receive mail, they also deliver it. There are only a handful of places the mail regularly goes, so we created tabs for each of these places and a mini cheat-sheet at the back in case someone forgets.

*A basket in action! You can see the “incoming” and “outgoing” labels I made to ease drop-off/pick-up. Looks like 3F has some work to do!*

*A real image of a happy clerk performing a mail run.*

Posted on September 25, 2018 0 By robertpeakacademy Bright Spots Posted in Bright Spots

robertpeakacademy

Robert is a Process Improvement Analyst with Denver Peak Academy. Before joining the team, he worked on advocacy campaigns ranging from renewable energy to human rights to local elections to water conservation. He worked in non-profit development, operations, grassroots organizing and customer service and in all those spaces there were always processes that needed improving. He was so frequently responsible, at least informally, for helping ensure that things work better that it’s only natural that he find himself officially in that role here at the City and County of Denver. He’s excited to bring his passion for creating change to Denver and to help empower city employees to innovate on their work. Robert grew up in Mishawaka, IN and holds a BS in Public and Environmental Affairs from Indiana University.