Introduction

The Massachusetts Trial Court was created by Chapter 478 of the Acts of 1978. Before that time, all trial courts in the Commonwealth, (except the Land Court that was a state court), were county or local courts funded through the counties. The 1978 statute reorganized the courts into seven Trial Court Departments: the Boston Municipal Court, the District Court, the Housing Court, the Juvenile Court, the Probate and Family Court and the Superior Court, as well as the Land Court. Administrative Justices became responsible for the administration of each court department. After 1978, the judges of all departments received the same salary and benefits from the state and all became state judges.

The 1978 statute created a central administrative office managed by a Chief Administrative Justice who was also responsible for the overall management of the Trial Court. The statute charged the central office, now called the Administrative Office of the Trial Court, with developing a wide range of centralized functions and standards for the benefit of the entire Trial Court. Not the least of these was the development of a budget for the Trial Court, central accounting and procurement systems, and personnel policies, procedures and standards for judges and staff who were formerly employed by counties. Over time, the Trial Court became responsible for the management of its facilities, security, libraries, automation and many other matters.

In 1992, the Massachusetts Legislature enacted a second court reorganization bill: c.379 of the Acts of 1992. The structure of the Trial Court remained the same: seven departments, each with a Chief Justice, rather than an Administrative Justice, and a central office headed by a judge to be known thenceforth as the Chief Justice for Administration and Management. The 1992 statute greatly expanded the Juvenile Court Department and ended trial de novo in the District Court Department. The Act further expanded the duties and the responsibilities of the Chief Justice for Administration and Management.

In 2003, the Massachusetts Trial Court, under the general superintendence of the Supreme Judicial Court, is still made up of the seven departments, each with its own administrative office, the central Administrative Office (consisting itself of eight departments), the Office of the Jury Commissioner and the Office of the Commissioner of Probation. There are three hundred sixty-two authorized judicial positions in the system. Trial judges sit in more than one hundred thirty locations across the state. The Trial Court employs more than 7,000 people. It is an institution that has a short recent history but has the benefit of the illustrious traditions and history that each of its constituent departments and courts brought to it in 1978.