{"id":4583,"date":"2003-09-12T13:37:19","date_gmt":"2003-09-12T17:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/09\/12\/courting-the-public\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:40","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:40","slug":"courting-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/09\/12\/courting-the-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Courting the Public"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name=\"a261\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">That rascal <a href=\"http:\/\/ernieattorney.typepad.com\/ernie_the_attorney\/2003\/09\/should_the_cour.html\">Ernie the Attorney<\/a> is <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">asking a provocative question today: &#8220;Shouldn&#8217;t the Courts Serve the Public Interest?&#8221; (09-12-03)\u00a0\u00a0 He highlights an excellent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abanet.org\/lpm\/magazine\/articles\/v29is5an13.shtml\">article<\/a> <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">(Turning the Courts into Public Servants, Law Practice Management Magazine, July\/Aug 2003) in which Wendy Leibowitz notes that courts don&#8217;t seem to know who it is they serve &#8212; judges, lawyers, court staff, or clients?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frankly, to most users of courthouses, it feels\u00a0that the courts have been organized to serve the judges first, the lawyers and court staff next, and then the lowly litigant.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial\"> <\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Call us all troublemakers, but Ernie, Wendy and I agree that the courts should &#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">become obsessed with being public servants.&#8221;\u00a0 We also agree that\u00a0technology and smart spending\u00a0could greatly increase access to the courts by the public &#8212; through &#8220;education, communication, more efficient handling of public concerns and reliable, affordable mediation of ordinary disputes&#8221;.\u00a0 This would not only increase the stature of the courts, but it would make it far easier\u00a0for courts\u00a0to perform their primary task &#8212; &#8220;the effective resolution of disputes to the satisfaction of the parties.&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Leibowitz is a realist,\u00a0and she notes:<\/span><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&#8220;Change in the legal profession usually comes from the top down, and that means that it&#8217;s driven by the courts..\u00a0 . .\u00a0If the courts really took the lead in changing the profession, by, say, implementing technology to streamline processes, the profession would follow suit.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">The problem, however, is that the priorities of judges and courts &#8220;frequently don&#8217;t coincide with the priorities of those who use the courts.&#8221; <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">How do we change the minds of judges and court administrators?\u00a0 Leibowitz suggests that &#8220;The blogosphere &#8212; voices of ordinary lawyers on Web logs opining on their experiences in every fora &#8212; may be our hope for changing the court system&#8217;s focus from placating the judges to serving the public.&#8221; <\/span><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\"> <\/span><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">I&#8217;m not sure that a large percentage of judges is taking the time to read\u00a0blawgs.\u00a0\u00a0 Most judges that do are probably trying to stay current on legal issues and court decisions, rather than checking to see what policy-oriented bloggers are saying about reforming the legal system.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It seems to me, though, that\u00a0a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">cadre of blogger judges<\/span> (including retired jurists, who may be able to be more frank) could really make a difference and draw judicial attention.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Using their unique experience and perspectives, blogging judges could spark a debate and\/or forge a consensus on issues such as accessibility, efficiency,\u00a0and the role of the modern court.\u00a0\u00a0 They would see firsthand the power of technology to instruct and to spread ideas.\u00a0 They could\u00a0point the way to making our courts serve the public, not the judges, or the administrators, or the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nolo.com\/democracy_corner\/article.cfm\/objectid\/B7684ABE-1A2A-4BC6-86120E24059220F4\">lawyers<\/a>. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Before leaving this topic, let me make two more observations:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">(1) Necessity rather than principle or virtue appears to be the main impetus for\u00a0the considerable progress that has already been made in\u00a0several states.\u00a0 Courts facing chaos or gridlock due to\u00a0a great increase in\u00a0<em>pro <\/em>se litigants have led the way in finding solutions, often using computer technology as the centerpiece of their projects.\u00a0\u00a0(See our postings from <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/07\/08\">July 8<\/a>, 2003\u00a0<span style=\"font-family: Arial\">and <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/06\/05\">June 5<\/a>, 2003. for examples and links to\u00a0relevant programs and materials.) <\/span> Pointing out the crisis, and the existence of\u00a0working solutions, will surely prove far more effective in achieving change than will attempting to make\u00a0ideological or virtue-based conversions among our judges, lawyers or politicians. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/files\/2006\/01\/tinyRedCheck.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11077\" title=\"tiny Red Check\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/files\/2006\/01\/tinyRedCheck.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"18\" height=\"15\" \/><\/a> (2) Interested judges and court administrators do not have to re-invent the wheel.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajs.org\/prose\/home.asp\">Pro Se Forum of the American Judicature Society<\/a> facilitates discussion on <em>pro se<\/em> issues among court administrators, judges, lawyers and others.\u00a0 Online, you can find a March 2002 update to the 1998 AJS publication, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajs.org\/prose\/pdfs\/Policy%20Recom.pdf\">Meeting the Challenge of Pro Se Litigation<\/a> &#8211; &#8211; A Report and Guidebook for Judges and Court Managers<\/em><span style=\"font-family: Arial\"><span>, by Jona Goldschmidt. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\"><span>As we&#8217;ve pointed out before, although most parties representing themselves at court are poor, projects aimed at helping the <em>pro se <\/em>litigant end up assisting <em>all<\/em> members of the public &#8212; bringing self-help and unbundling options to every American regardless of financial status. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>p.s. Update<\/strong>: For a court with an admirable attitude see our posting &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2004\/02\/09\/nh-report-recommends-strong-program-for-pro-se-litigants\/\">NH Report Recommends Strong Program for Pro Se Litigants<\/a>&#8221; (Feb. 9, 2004)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That rascal Ernie the Attorney is asking a provocative question today: &#8220;Shouldn&#8217;t the Courts Serve the Public Interest?&#8221; (09-12-03)\u00a0\u00a0 He highlights an excellent article (Turning the Courts into Public Servants, Law Practice Management Magazine, July\/Aug 2003) in which Wendy Leibowitz notes that courts don&#8217;t seem to know who it is they serve &#8212; judges, lawyers, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1bV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4583"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14137,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583\/revisions\/14137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}