Connecticut's Probate Court System Losing Money
Legal Blog Watch brought to our attention last week the curious fact that the State of Connecticut’s Probate Court system is losing money - - according to reports, $20,000 each day (“Connecticut Probate Court on the Verge of Bankruptcy”). The report was also carried by Hartfordbusiness.com.
The story seems odd since you would think that a court system could always raise fees. Hartfordbusiness.com suggests a partial explanation in that courts in wealthier suburbs and make money on estates but subsidize the cities where the courts deal mostly in guardianships which don’t make money (and possibly insolvent estates). According to Legal Blog Watch, the courts bear the expense of paying outside counsel to represent indigent children and the mentally disabled.
One wonders, given the title of the Legal Blog Watch, can the probate court go to bankruptcy court?
In any case, this story is a little “off topic” for us since on the surface it has little to do with managing or learning from litigation. But, we can learn strategic management lessons from the plight of the probate courts. Without claiming special expertise in the management of Connecticut’s probate courts, there are some obvious characteristics that we could question from a management perspective:
- Probate courts are organized and spread out at the level of cities and towns, rather than consolidated at the county level or into more efficient and larger districts;
- Probate courts are supposed to be self-sustaining but are also burdened with the mission to subsidize the indigent;
- Apparently, there is subsidization across geographic lines with the consequence that the suburban towns now subsidizing the cities are not likely to support fee increases;
The overriding goal of the probate court system apparently is to be close to the individual cities and towns. Each town has its own probate court and judges are elected. The State will probably correct the current financial problem appropriately without much controversy. But, as a learning experience, this temporary glitch demonstrates how elements of the operating “model” of an organization can present challenges to its success.
