In his first ever State of the Judiciary speech last night at the John Adams Courthouse, Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants proposed doing away with mandatory drug sentences and streamlining the state’s civil courts.

Gants said he wants to create a system that allows judges to dole out “individualized, evidence-based sentencing” in drug cases, and he challenged the Legislature to review current sentencing guidelines and come up with a smarter way to deal with drug-related crime.

“Who would support a sentencing system that ignores the circumstances of the crime, the role of the offender in the commission of the crime, and the background of the defendant?” he said to a room full of judges, lawyers and other legal bigwigs.

Gants’ stance may seem controversial to some, but to most prosecutors and defenses lawyers, it’s a long overdue reform. Under the current system, assistant DAs are dealt the unenviable hand of stepping in for judges and creating a-la-carte sentences through plea deals. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, are forced to take deals that are often not in their clients’ best interest.

On the civil side, Gants wants to create “a menu of options … that will ensure litigants the opportunity to have a cost-effective means to resolve their dispute in a court of law.” That means turning Bay State courts into a one-stop shop for all litigation — from complex corporate disputes to fender-bender feuds.

You can tell Gants feels a real sense of urgency. That’s because big-money litigants are choosing to go to arbitration rather than litigate, which means important questions of law aren’t being brought before Massachusetts judges. It also means those cases are being tried behind closed doors by arbitrators, not by judges. Arbitrators can’t create a new precedent that refines the law, only judges can.

Of course, Gants also wants to expand his growing access-to-justice campaign, which gives low-income people a fairer shake.

“In a commonwealth dedicated to equal justice in our courts, it is not enough to establish legal rights,” Gants said. “We need our residents to know their rights, to know how to invoke them, and to know how to find the legal assistance that can help them to do so.”

He also vowed to work with the all-powerful Massachusetts Bar Association on the jury-selection process, “which means we will give attorneys a meaningful role in the selection of a fair and impartial jury, protect the privacy and dignity of our jurors, and complete voir dire within a time frame that allows for the efficient management of our case load.”

Gants summed up the future of Massachusetts jurisprudence in just over 20 minutes. There was no politicking and no fake excitement about what he proposed.

He quietly laid down the law, and people listened.