What is Federal Judicial Center?
[[File:Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building front.JPG|thumb|Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building]] [[File:Federal Judicial Center logo.png|right|250px]] The '''Federal Judicial Center''' is the education and research agency of the United States [[federal courts]]. An [[Act of Congress]] ({{UnitedStatesCode2|28|620|629}}) started it in 1967. The idea for a center came from the [[Judicial Conference of the United States]]. The Center main activities are: *[[orientation]] and continuing education and [[training]] for federal [[judge]]s, court employees, and others; *recommendations about the operation and study of the federal courts; and *[[research]] on federal judicial procedures, court operations, and history. The law sets who serves on the Center's [[Board of directors|Board of Directors]]. The [[Chief Justice of the United States]] is ''[[ex officio]]'' chair of the Center's board. The board also has the director of the [[Administrative Office of the United States Courts]] and seven judges elected by the Judicial Conference. The Board appoints the Center's director and deputy director; the director appoints the Center's staff. Since its founding in 1967, the Center has had ten directors. Judge [[Jeremy Fogel]] became director in 2011. He was appointed U.S. district judge for the [[Northern District (Israel)|Northern District]] of California in 1998 but has been resident in [[Washington, D.C.]], since becoming director. The deputy director is [[John S. Cooke]]. == History == Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]] and other members of the judiciary wanted a separate agency that would conduct research and educational programs for the federal courts. They hoped that a separate agency would build the judiciary’s institutional [[independence]]. They recommended starting the Federal Judicial center to Congress. They hoped that regular programs of research and education would improve the efficiency of the federal courts and relieve the backlog of cases in the lower courts. The calculation of backlog is typ