{"id":225,"date":"2006-10-24T15:30:37","date_gmt":"2006-10-24T19:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/10\/24\/a-little-international-judicial-irony\/"},"modified":"2006-10-24T15:39:14","modified_gmt":"2006-10-24T19:39:14","slug":"a-little-international-judicial-irony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/10\/24\/a-little-international-judicial-irony\/","title":{"rendered":"a little international judicial irony"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\"CanadaFlagG\"\u00a0 Given <\/font>our post<\/font><\/a> on Saturday praising the assistance Canadian judges are allowed to give self-represented litigants, it is ironic that Monday’s Law Times<\/em> of Canada had an op\/ed piece in which an Ontario\u00a0justice opines: “Self-represented litigants, and lawyers of lesser quality than Ms. Curtis [a lawyer critical of Family Court judges], often provide the court with inadequate and incomplete evidence. Poor submissions and advocacy can leave a judge with far too little grist for the decision-making mill.”\u00a0 (Law Times<\/em>, by Justice Robert Spence, ” <\/font>‘Harmful’ decisions often from poorly presented cases<\/font><\/a>,” Oct. 23, 2006).\u00a0 Justice Spence also added: “The court is not an investigative body. Accordingly, judges are forced to contend only with the evidence they receive and make the best decision possible, based on that evidence.”<\/font><\/div>\n
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Meanwhile, SelfHelpSupport.org<\/a> pointed yesterday to a piece in the Wisconsin Law Journal<\/em> Judges Directory that spotlights Madison (WI) municipal court judge Daniel P. Koval<\/a>, and his efforts to better serve the self-represented.\u00a0 The article notes that “Koval has spent a good deal of time off the bench, updating and\/or creating forms, brochures and other documents that explain municipal court procedures: how to get a police report, for example, or an explanation of plea options.”\u00a0 It ends with a telling quote and a plea:<\/font><\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n
“[Pro se\u00a0litigants]\u00a0make more work for Koval; yet he is sincerely determined that each and every one of them leaves his courtroom feeling satisfied that justice was served: ‘I want them to come away from the experience feeling that, while they might not agree with my ruling, at least they were given a fair shot to present their side of the story.’<\/font><\/div>\n
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“Attorneys, please assist him in that endeavor.”<\/font><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0 Given our post on Saturday praising the assistance Canadian judges are allowed to give self-represented litigants, it is ironic that Monday’s Law Times of Canada had an op\/ed piece in which an Ontario\u00a0justice opines: “Self-represented litigants, and lawyers of lesser quality than Ms. Curtis [a lawyer critical of Family Court judges], often provide the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[991],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-items"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}