Episode 70: Jennifer Bailey, Administrative Judge, 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida, Circuit Civil Division

“If you were designing a system of justice from scratch, this is not what you would design,” says Judge Jennifer D. Bailey, Administrative Judge for the Circuit Civil Division in Miami-Dade, Florida. As someone who wrote a thesis on why judges should utilize case management software and practices, Judge Bailey is an active advocate for judicial reform.

In this episode, Judge Bailey talks to Jack Newton about:

Why the American judicial system is more complicated and inefficient than it should beHow COVID-19 is reshaping courts and the justice system in general The importance that technology will play in the courts of the future

Judge Bailey has been a circuit court judge in Miami-Dade, Florida, for 26 years. She is the Administrative Judge for the 25-judge Circuit Civil Division and handles a docket of Complex Business Litigation cases. She previously served in the Family and Criminal Divisions. 

During the current pandemic, she has served as leader of the Pandemic Digital Workgroup setting up Virtual Courtrooms for Miami’s state courts. She is serving on the Conference of Chief Justices/Conference of State Court Administrators’ Pandemic Rapid Response Team Civil Courts committee.

Judge Bailey serves on the Board of Governors of Directors of the National Center for State Courts and on the Board of Advisors for the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) and the NCSC Institute for Court Management. She is a member of the Florida Commission on Trial Court Performance and Accountability and earned her L.L.M. in Judicial Studies at Duke University Law School in 2018, where she wrote her thesis on “Why Don’t Judges Case Manage?”

Judge Bailey taught as faculty for the Florida New Judge’s College, the Florida College of Advanced Judicial Studies, and for the Florida Conference of Circuit Court Judges. She has received multiple awards for her service, including 2015 Florida Jurist of the Year from the Florida chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and the Equal Justice Judicial Leadership Award from Legal Services of Greater Miami in 2011.