Serious systemic problems plague the juvenile dependency court system. There is a lack of cooperation between the courts and child welfare services as well as difficult personnel and data management issues that jeopardize the courts’ ability to ensure that a child’s stay in the foster care system is as brief as possible and that the permanent placement chosen is in the child’s best interest. Some judges mistrust the judgments of child welfare caseworkers and routinely order additional clinical assessments to compensate for what the judges perceive as professional inadequacies. In addition, courts face increased caseloads, short tenures for judges and attorneys assigned to juvenile dependency courts, insufficient training of judges and attorneys in child welfare law and concepts and information systems that do not adequately track the progress of individual cases or monitor the courts’ compliance with statutory time frames for achieving permanent placements. Notes, tables, appendixes, references