MADELINE WARSHAW

 My team from the University of Pennsylvania was hired to

rethink the design of the American courtroom, using the Philadelphia City Hall civil courts as our laboratory. Our clients, Judges Stella Tsai and Daniel Anders, were prompted to re-format their courtrooms in City Hall in response to social distancing requirements due to COVID. We took the project a step further, considering how we could redesign a new layout for the courtroom of the future. Courtrooms haven't fundamentally changed since the American Revolution and our sense of justice and needs for achieving it certainly have. How might we redesign the American courtroom to better fit our current and future needs?

 

Research

We commenced our research by interviewing 50+ judges, jurors,

lawyers, legal professionals and academics about the current painpoints of the courtroom experience. We found that the grandeur and hierarchy synonymous with American legal design were no longer communicating reverence for the law, but rather alienating newcomers to court and
making them less likely to engage constructively with the legal process. Photos of white male judges on the wall were non-inclusive and general courtroom  clutter resulted in distraction and disengagement

during trails, especially among jurors. 

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Design

We landed on our Focus Forum layout because it re-focuses attention in a way that de-emphasizes pain-points of the courtroom experience and re-engages stakeholders without having to fundamentally alter the architecture of City Hall. By utilizing the round, we leverage healing modalities from collaborative law and restorative justice circles, to increase civility in naturally adversarial civil court hearings. The judge has been relocated to a place of honor seated amongst the jury, who are now seated front and center as the main audience of a trial. Lawyers present to the round, theatrically employing the new space created by leveraging Zoom technology to reduce public gallery space and moving the majority of

trial viewing online.

 

Results

We tested the Focus Forum in a mock trial at City Hall

hosted by Judge Tsai, where 100% of legal professional participants preferred it to the classic courtroom layout, citing above all else that it improved focus. We hope to commence a pilot program soon

as part of Penn Law Innovation.