The number of lawsuits filed by federal court employees nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023, a report released by the administrative arm of the courts found.

US Court Administrative Office reported As of Wednesday, there were 94 active matters in the 2023 fiscal year in the court system’s labor dispute resolution process, up from 53 pending matters two years ago. The EDR process covers workplace complaints by current, former or prospective employers of federal courts and related offices such as federal public defenders.

Abusive conduct was the single most common allegation made on those complaints between 2021 and 2023, comprising more than half of all labor dispute resolution issues, the report said. And 41 percent of the cases that were resolved between those years ended in a written settlement or mutual agreement, while one-fifth ended in a written decision following a formal proceeding, the report said.

The AO said in a press release that the increase in EDR cases “suggests that employees are becoming more aware of their options and are increasingly willing to use them to address workplace concerns.”

“More work remains to be done. Cultivating an exemplary workplace is a journey, not a destination. But our strategies are working,” said Judge Robert Conrad, AO director, during a press conference Wednesday. “Employees in the judiciary enjoy far greater substantive and procedural protections than they did six years ago.”

Wednesday’s report is the first of its kind to be published by the federal judiciary’s Office of Judicial Integrity and focuses on statistics from 2021 to 2023.

Workplace misconduct issues have been a focus for the judiciary since the creation of a task force on the topic in 2018 under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts. According to the new report, that task force continues to meet and weigh new recommendations to address misconduct issues.

It gained additional scrutiny because of the resignation of U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred of Alaska, who was found to have sexually harassed a clerk turned federal prosecutor and created a hostile work environment in his chambers. Conrad said Wednesday that that case, which has been certified to the U.S. House of Representatives for potential impeachment, “is a pretty solid example” of a complaint making its way through the levels of the judiciary.

Conrad told reporters that the integrity office, established six years ago, held its first national training course in September for workplace conduct investigations. The training involved more than 30 hours of training for judicial employees who may be asked to investigate judges or other court employers, he said.

Earlier this year, the Federal Judicial Center and the National Academy of Public Administration produced their own report on judicial issues in the workplace, which concluded that misconduct prevention plans have been inconsistently applied across the court system. The Government Accountability Office also released its own report in July that tracks EDR cases, covering those pending between 2020 and 2022.

According to the new judiciary report, all federal courts had adopted and implemented an updated plan to resolve labor disputes by the end of 2023.