Media contact: Jeff Schrade (202)224-9093

(Washington, DC) Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims began calling up retired federal judges to help the court deal with an unprecedented caseload. Senator Larry Craig had strongly encouraged and applauded this effort to increase productivity, and new data show that it is paying off.

In the past six months the court has decided more cases than it did during the entire year before.

"I have said before that it doesn't always take money to solve problems. Sometimes it takes more effective use of existing resources, and I believe that's what is happening today. I commend Chief Judge William Greene for his leadership effort in causing this turnaround," said Craig. "Veterans deserve to have their claims decided in a timely way."

In July 2006, Sen. Craig was then Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and called a hearing to examine the court's productivity and growing backlog. At the time the court had 5,800 pending cases (the highest level in its history) and was expecting to issue only 2,700 decisions in fiscal year 2007 - 900 less than it expected to receive.

After the hearing, five retired judges were called back to serve for 90 days each. By January 2007, output had increased from about 250 decisions per month to over 320 - an improvement of 28 percent.

Then, during the second quarter of this fiscal year, the court issued almost 2,000 decisions - averaging over 650 per month. That spike in output was in part due to the quick disposition of over 1,000 cases that all raised the same issue. But, even if that output level drops back to 320 decisions per month for the rest of the fiscal year, the court is still on pace to issue over 4,800 decisions this year - the highest output level in the court's history.

In fact, that would be 44 percent more decisions than the Court has ever issued in a single year.

Sen. Craig toured the court on Friday and thanked the judges and court staff for their efforts. One of those he met with was a long-time friend, Judge Al Lance, who was appointed to the court by President Bush. Lance joined the court in December of 2004 and served as the Attorney General of Idaho from 1995 to 2003.

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