New, Updated Laws Require Fixes to Hundreds of Court Forms
by Vincent Funari
PHOENIX (August 30, 2022) – September is a busy time of year for new rules, legislation and the people responsible for keeping approximately 3,000 legal forms at the Law Library Resource Center up to date.
From the time the Arizona Legislative Session ends on June 25 to the General Effective Date of newly enacted laws on Sept. 24, a four-person team at Superior Court’s Law Library Resource Center is busy creating, updating and managing legal forms to reflect Arizona’s new rules and laws.
“We are very busy right now but I’m grateful to have such a highly skilled team so focused on helping self-represented litigants navigate the justice system,” LLRC Form Supervisor Jon Confer said. “We are well prepared because we get a head start on the process. Our team proactively reviews all bills introduced at the state legislature, as well as rule petitions, and evaluates whether the proposed changes will impact our documents.”
Confer, a licensed attorney, supervises two employees with law degrees and a third who has a master's degree in legal studies. The team oversees an inventory of approximately 3,000 legal forms both in English and Spanish.
“We field hundreds and hundreds of changes to legal forms each year. We are usually juggling around 100 projects at a time,” Confer said. “Each legal change involving Family, Probate, Civil or Criminal Department’s content likely impacts some aspect of a corresponding form. Many updates impact dozens of documents. This creates an exponential webbing effect, which we must tackle strategically.”
Aside from making changes and updates, the legal form team is continually looking to improve processes by generating new forms when needed.
“Departmental presiding judges and administrators help us examine the significance of a new legal form and how often assistance is needed in that area. They also let us know when users are struggling with forms or processes, and we try to design solutions to address those challenges,” Confer said.
The Law Library Resource Center team creates a vast majority of these forms in-house at Superior Court; while other forms are developed by the Arizona Supreme Court’s Administrative Office of the Courts and enacted through administrative directive.
As of now, the legal form team makes changes to most of the forms manually. Language is changed in Word documents and approved by the presiding judge of each respective department. The final work product is then translated to Spanish, converted into a fillable .PDF document, inserted into packets and finally uploaded to the appropriate pages on the Court’s website.
“Legal forms are great tools that self-represented people can leverage to engage effectively with the justice system. It's a pleasure working with this team,” Confer said.
For more information on the services offered through the Law Library Resource Center, call 602-506-7353, chat with a librarian at http://superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/llrc or send an email to services@jbazmc.maricopa.gov.
Law Library Resource Center locations include Downtown Phoenix (101 W. Jefferson Street), Northeast Phoenix (18380 N. 40th Street), Surprise (14264 W. Tierra Buena Lane) and Mesa (222 E. Javelina Ave.)
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The Judicial Branch of Arizona in Maricopa County is comprised of Superior Court, Adult Probation and Juvenile Probation, which includes juvenile detention. The Judicial Branch in Maricopa County is the fourth largest trial court system in the nation and, along with its 3,000 employees, is dedicated to providing a safe, fair and impartial forum for resolving disputes, enhancing access to services, and providing innovative, evidence-based practices that improve the safety of the community and ensure the public’s trust and confidence in the Judicial Branch. For more information, visit www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov.
Contact: Vincent Funari, Public Information Officer Vincent.Funari@jbazmc.maricopa.gov 602.506.7032