The document presents a state-of-the-art review of citizen court watching projects. It examines two particularly well-documented projects, and offers guidelines for citizen effort in court improvement. Citizen court watching is interpreted to include unofficial court monitoring, observation, and recommendation for reform by citizen groups and individual citizens. The document is presented in five chapters. Chapter I identifies volunteers as the usual participants in court watching projects and characterizes the three main types of projects (defendant protector projects, law and order projects, and specific data projects). Chapters II and III describe the development, operations, and findings of the League of Women Voters' Court Watching Project in Illinois and the Family Court Monitoring Project of the Fund for Modern Courts in New York. Chapter IV summarizes criminal and civil court-watching projects in Arizona, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Chapter V presents guidelines for citizen court watching groups, including establishing goals and objectives, managing and administering programs, recruiting and training citizens, using the media, communicating with the judiciary, and evaluating programs. The booklet concludes with the statement that court watching projects should be viewed as vehicles for improvement in court procedure and as a means of raising public consciousness on criminal justice issues. Data from the Illinois and New York case studies are presented in the appendix. (Author/DB)