Therapeutic jurisprudence and judicial satisfaction

This study examines the attitudes and job satisfaction of judges working in courts that practice therapeutic jurisprudence compared to judges working in assignments that do not employ such practices. It was hypothesized that judges working in therapeutic jurisprudence settings would experience greater levels of judicial satisfaction than judges not in such assignments. Drug Treatment Court judges were selected as the therapeutic jurisprudence group because therapeutic jurisprudence is the theoretical foundation of their courts. Traditional Family Law Court judges were selected as the first comparison group because they work in courts that do not systematically employ these principles. To help control for the subject matter differences between criminal and family law courts, a third group of judges was selected from Unified Family Law Courts in which efforts are underway to begin application of therapeutic jurisprudence principles to family law cases. This study surveyed 69 Drug Treatment Court judges, 85 Traditional Family Law Court judges and 44 Unified Family Law Court judges.;Analyses of variance revealed that The Drug Treatment Court judges were significantly more likely than either Family Law Court group to feel that the court was actually helpful, and to report witnessing improvements in the litigants. Likewise, the Drug Treatment Court group was significantly more likely to report that they had been affected positively by their judicial assignment. They were significantly more likely to report that they admired the efforts of the litigants to improve their lives; felt that the litigants were genuinely trying to solve their problems; experienced both respect from the litigants, and gratitude for the help they had received from the court. The Unified Family Law Court group scored more highly on all measures than the Traditional Family Law Court group, but these differences were not significant.