Caseload increased by more than 19% in fiscal year 2008 over the previous year. Vehicle retention cases filed by the NYPD and license violation cases filed by the TLC accounted for the major share of the increase.

The average adjournment time decreased by two business days from the prior year, averaging 13 days, while the number of adjournment requests increased slightly. This resulted in shorter adjournment times for cases in which the requests were granted.

The settlement rate increased slightly in fiscal year 2008. This was largely attributable to improved settlement rates for vehicle retention cases and TLC license violation cases.

During fiscal 2008, the average number of days to issue a decision was 12 business days, 48% shorter than the prior year's average. The overall faster decision time continued to reflect the adoption of disposition time standards during the previous year. In addition, cases with mandated accelerated disposition times accounted for an increasing share of the caseload.

The Administrative Judicial Institute (Institute) supports the City's administrative judiciary by providing professional practice seminars and developing "best practice" standards in partnership with regional, statewide and national administrative justice organizations.

Traditionally, each city tribunal was responsible for training its administrative law judges. To bring a more formal and standardized process, the Mayor issued Executive Order 84 on January 30, 2006, creating the Institute within OATH with a mandate to provide comprehensive, consistent, and regular training to all city administrative law judges.

The Institute draws upon the expertise of a broad range of administrative law judges and scholars who contribute their skills and experience to the development of curricula and training programs. Certain programs are designed for newly appointed administrative law judges to learn how to effectively manage caseloads and courtrooms, while other programs for experienced judges are updates on legal and procedural developments in administrative law. In FY08, the Institute presented eleven programs to 298 attendees; ninety-four percent of attendee evaluations rated the programs as good to excellent.

The Center for Mediation Services serves as a conflict resource center for City government. The Center provides mediation, group facilitation, training and conflict consultation designed to improve workplace relationships.

In FY 2008, the Center received 47 referrals for mediation, 27% fewer than the prior year. The number of mediations conducted, however, remained fairly constant. Of the 37 cases that went to mediation in FY08, 31 or 84% concluded in resolution agreements, slightly better than the prior year's resolution rate of 82%.

Referrals came from ten different agencies, with the Police Department's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and the Health and Hospitals Corporation, being the two most frequent users. Other referring agencies included the Fire Department, the Human Resources Administration and the Department of Juvenile Justice. The Center had a 94% participant satisfaction rate based on those who expressed an opinion in post-mediation surveys.

During FY08, the Center continued to advance its mission by conducting specifically tailored leadership, mediation and conflict management training sessions including, three separate one-day Conflict Management Courses for executive personnel officers in collaboration with the DCAS Organizational and Executive Development Programs. Other training sessions included a conflict-mediation orientation for newly appointed Police Department EEO investigators; a four-day mediation training session in collaboration with the New York University Law School Mediation Clinic; negotiation and mediation skills workshops for the Department of Consumer Affairs; and several mediation and conflict management overview sessions for senior staff at several agencies. The Center conducted eight formal conflict consultations involving senior executives seeking assistance with workplace conflict and training needs.