US Judiciary Reports Increase in Employee Workplace Disputes (1)

The number of pending disputes by federal judiciary employees nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023, a report released by the courts’ administrative arm found.

The Administrative Office of the US Court reported Wednesday there were 94 active matters in fiscal 2023 under the judiciary’s employment dispute resolution process, up from 53 pending matters two years prior. The EDR process covers workplace complaints by current, former, or prospective employers of the federal courts and related offices, such as federal public defenders.

Abusive conduct was the most frequently made individual allegation of those complaints between fiscal 2021 and 2023, comprising more than half of employment dispute resolution matters, the report says. And 41% of cases that were resolved between those years ended in written settlement or mutual agreement, while a fifth ended with a written decision following a formal proceeding, the report said.

The AO said in a press release that the increase in EDR cases “suggests that employees are becoming more aware of their options and increasingly willing to use them to address workplace concerns.”

“More work remains to be done. Cultivating an exemplary workplace is a journey, not a destination. But our strategies are working,” Judge Robert Conrad, director of the AO, said during a Wednesday press briefing. “Judiciary employees have far greater substantive and procedural protections than existed six years ago.”

Wednesday’s report is the first of its kind to be released by the federal judiciary’s Office of Judicial Integrity, and focused on statistics from fiscal 2021 through 2023.

Workplace misconduct issues have been a focus for the judiciary since the creation of a working group on the topic in 2018, at the direction of Chief Justice John Roberts. That working group is continuing to meet and weigh new recommendations to address misconduct issues, according to the new report.

It’s gained additional scrutiny over the resignation of US District Judge Joshua Kindred of Alaska, who was found to have sexually harassed a clerk-turned-federal prosecutor and to have created a hostile work environment in his chambers. Conrad said Wednesday that that case, which has been certified to the US House of Representatives for potential impeachment, “is a pretty robust example” of a complaint making its way through the levels of the judiciary.

Conrad told reporters that the integrity office, established six years ago, conducted its first national training in September for workplace conduct investigations. The trainings involved more than 30 hours of training for judiciary employees who may be asked to investigate judges or other court employers, he said.

Earlier this year, the Federal Judicial Center and the National Academy of Public Administration compiled its own report on judiciary workplace issues that concluded misconduct prevention plans were inconsistently applied throughout the court system. The Government Accountability Office also released its own report in July tracking EDR cases, covering those pending between fiscal 2020 and 2022.

According to the judiciary’s new report, all federal courts had adopted and implemented an updated employment dispute resolution plan by the end of 2023.