Statistical Reporting Information and Forms

In 2023, Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy directed the Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Case Management (ACCM) to review and, where necessary, recommend changes to the processing time standards promulgated under Sup.R. 39. In October 2024, the ACCM presented to the Court its recommendations for changes to the trial court time standards. Public comments were solicited and reviewed by the Court, which approved the ACCM recommendations in April 2025.

The revised time standards are contained in the Court’s caseload statistical reporting forms available on the Supreme Court website. A summary of the revised time can also be found on that webpage.

The revised time standards for the courts of common pleas or their divisions with general, domestic relations, or juvenile jurisdiction as well as the municipal and county courts will be effective Jan. 1, 2026. Accordingly, the courts’ caseload statistical reports for the month of January 2026 will need to reflect the courts’ performance against the revised time standards. For all reporting throughout the remainder of 2025, judges should continue to report their performance using the current time standards, which remain in effect through Dec. 31, 2025. The revised caseload statistical reporting forms, effective Jan. 1, 2026, can be found on the Supreme Court website.

The changes adopted by the Court have two dimensions: (1) a performance target, expressed as a percentage, and (2) the length of time within which judges are expected to dispose of cases.

Under the previous version of Sup.R. 39, courts were expected to dispose of 100% of cases within the prescribed time standards. The revised time standards set a more realistic performance target of 95%, acknowledging that a small portion of cases may, for various reasons, exceed the standard. This approach aligns with recommendations adopted by the American Bar Association, the Conference of Chief Justices, the Conference of State Court Administrators, and the National Association for Court Management.

Importantly, the 95% performance target does not apply to marriage dissolutions or child welfare cases (i.e., abuse, neglect, dependency, and permanent custody matters). For these case types, Sup.R. 39 incorporates statutory timeframes, which continue to require that 100% of cases be resolved within the applicable period.

In addition to modifying the performance target, the Court also reviewed and revised the time standards themselves. For instance, the time standard for criminal cases in courts of common pleas was extended from six months to nine months. Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, judges in the courts of common pleas will be expected to dispose of 95% of their criminal cases within nine months.

The specific programming changes needed will depend on the design of each court’s case management system. Generally, the updates should be relatively straightforward because the primary adjustment involves recalculating the age threshold for reporting over-age cases. For example, under the current standards, a common pleas criminal case (reported in Form A, Column I) is counted on Form A, Line 21 as an over-age case once it is older than six months. Beginning in January 2026, only those cases that are nine months or older will be included in Line 21. The underlying logic remains the same—the only change is the applicable time threshold used to identify over-age cases. The following elements in the caseload statistical reports will reflect the new case age calculations:

• General Division (Form A)
  • Line 21: Cases pending beyond time guideline
  • Line 22: Number of months oldest case is beyond time guideline
  • Line 23: Cases submitted awaiting sentencing or judgment beyond the time guideline
• Domestic Relations (Form B)
  • Line 18: Cases pending beyond time guideline
  • Line 19: Number of months oldest case is beyond time guideline
• Juvenile (Form D)
  • Line 18: Cases pending beyond time guideline
  • Line 19: Number of months oldest case is beyond time guideline
• Municipal and County Courts (Form AJ)
  • Line 16: Cases pending beyond time guideline
  • Line 17: Number of months oldest case is beyond time guideline
• Municipal and County Courts (Form IJ)
  • Line 19: Cases pending beyond time guideline
  • Line 20: Number of months oldest case is beyond time guideline
  • Line 21: Cases submitted awaiting sentencing or judgment beyond the time guideline

The measurement of the courts’ performance against the 95% performance target is done after the fact, using data elements that have long been part of the caseload statistical reports. The measurement is simply the inverse of the over-age rate metric, which is the percentage of cases pending at the end of each month that have been pending past the time standard. For example, if a judge reports having 100 cases pending at the end of a month, and four of those cases are pending past the time standard, the judge is reporting a 4% over-age rate (4 divided by 100). The inverse of that is 96%. This metric would be interpreted to mean the judge is on track to dispose of 96% of his or her cases within the applicable time standard.

Although the Court has adopted time standards for probate cases, their implementation has been postponed to a future date, which will be determined following the ACCM’s completion of its ongoing review of the broader caseload statistical reporting program under Sup.R. 37. Because probate cases have not previously been subject to case processing time standards under Sup.R. 39, court case management systems will require more extensive programming changes to enable judges with probate jurisdiction to report on their performance against the new time standards.

The courts’ performance against Sup.R. 39 case processing time standards is reported online within the various data dashboards and in the eStats Public Reports lookup tool. Staff in the Case Management Section and in the Office of Court Services are available to provide additional information and to help courts understand their numbers.

Additional questions concerning the revised time standards should be directed to the Case Management Section at CaseMgmt@sc.ohio.gov.