Since 1982, CCE has distributed more than 350,000 free educational publications explaining issues such as probate, jury duty, crime victim rights, juvenile justice, bankruptcy, small claims, judicial appointment, and court guides.

• Journalist's Handbook
• School Outreach
• Court Observation
• Third Branch Project
• International Visitors
• Justice System Reform in Your Community
• Recent History

One of the most important goals of the Council for Court Excellence since its founding has been to stimulate communication between the residents and the courts in the District of Columbia. Educational publications were staples of the Council’s early work to improve public understanding of the DC justice system, and they continue to this day.

Publications like Community Guide to the Courts, first published in 1989 and updated in 2008, still provide community education about the local and federal courts in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The Guide to the DC Juvenile Justice System provides the community with the first written roadmap to that complicated system.

CCE has also devoted considerable attention to probate. Starting from its first probate-related publication in the early 1980s, When Someone Dies: A Non-Lawyer’s Guide to Probate, the Council has updated this most-requested CCE publication in 1987, 1995, 2006 and 2010.

Throughout its history, CCE has sought to stimulate public debate on various justice system issues. Most recently, the Third Branch project explored DC democracy issues. In the 1990s, CCE produced seven Socratic dialogue public forums and ran ten successful jury service appreciation campaigns. Since 2001, the Council has conducted three court observation projects, to provide community residents with a practical way to comment on how their courts are run. CCE has also published a Court Observation Handbook to share its project methods with other jurisdictions.