When the judiciary knocks at the door: situational analysis of the internal quality of service in a university attorney's office in Alagoas

Abstract

Federal public institutions often figure as part of judicialized conflicts (litigation) being defended by the Attorney General's Office. At the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL), in 2021 alone, 453 lawsuits were filed, which move internal services to support the institution's defense role and compliance with court decisions. These same services, in turn, are affected in their quality by administrative complications that generate delays or obstacles to their proper functioning, giving rise to successive reiterations and risks to the public entity. The objective of the study was to investigate the internal quality of the service provided by the UFAL attorney's office in the demands of judicial litigation. This is a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study, based on the model of the Inter-American Development Bank from the dimensions process, user relationship, management and regulation, resources and IT. The same dimensions guided the data collection instruments (interviews and questionnaire), with analysis carried out through source triangulation. The results showed that the internal quality of the prosecution is mainly influenced by the non-standardization of workflows, insufficient staff, lack of training and lack of understanding of legal language. It was concluded that the mitigation of these factors can favor the reduction of UFAL's judicial litigation.

Keywords: Judicial litigation in the public service; Judicial dynamics in higher education institutions; Internal quality management.