Judges

Marin County Superior Court on ‘losing end’ of budget reallocations

November 7, 2013 By CCM Staff

Photo: Marin Independent Journal as part of their report on 10/25/13 “Marin court employees, raiseless for five years, rally for better pay”

According to a report by Gary Klien of Marin Independent Journal, dozens of court employees in Marin County, with representatives of their union, SEIU Local 1021, rallied outside the courthouse late last month to campaign for better pay, benefits and dispute resolution after five years of frozen wages.

Doesn’t look like this will be resolved anytime soon…Court employees are seeking a $4,000 one-time payment, while Marin Superior Court, which is run by the state judicial branch, is offering a one-time payment of $725.

According to the Marin IJ report, Kim Turner, the court’s chief executive officer, said the entire state judiciary has been underfunded for years and that things are not going to get easier in the next five years. Turner explained that it is because the state has adopted a new allocation process that will send more of the limited resources to courts that are perceived, based on caseload calculations, to be needier.

“Marin is on the losing end of that bargain,” Turner said. Read or view the story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california court cuts, frozen wages, Judges, SEIU, unions, wage dispute

Chief Justice Notices ‘Two-Tiered’ Court System

October 30, 2013 By CCM Staff

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Photo: California Courts)

Anyone seeking evidence that California has created a two-tier system that denies justice to lower income residents can just ask the state’s chief justice. Echoing a host of earlier comments, Tani Cantil-Sakauye told KQED News that “The truth is, those who can will use other, private alternatives… but those of us who need to go to the court, who don’t have those resources, find ourselves frankly getting a second system of justice.”

The report also included that “… the Chief said severe state budget cuts had created a ‘two-tier system of justice’ in California, where shuttered courthouses and shorter courtroom hours are ‘basically denying justice across the state.'” The comment continue a consistent message from state court managers that the system is broken and that the losers include lower and moderate income people who need the courts.

See video and read more about this particular interview, which includes that the chief justice self-identified as a Republican, here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, California Superior Court, Judges, Justice Rationing, Legal news, Tani Cantil-Sakauye

‘Gold Rush’ On For Court Technologies

October 29, 2013 By CCM Staff

California may not have enough money to keep community courthouses open, but it has plenty for the next wave of tech upgrades in the wake of that half-billion-dollar failure Court Case Management System failure. In fact, Maria Dinezo at the Courthouse News Service writes that “… a new gold rush has come to California, with the state’s massive legal system open for mining as courts and lawyers move to new technology.”

The report notes that gold rushers “… are scrambling for a mother lode of multimillion-dollar contracts for software and licensing, vast additional sums for upkeep, and the right to set up a toll booth on Court Road for 38 million people.” Some clear winners are identified, as “… a group of judges, tech staff and administrators wrote a model contract and selected three top bidders: New Mexico-based Justice Systems Inc., Texas-based Tyler Technologies and Pennsylvania-based LT-Tech owned by Thompson Reuters formerly West Publishing.”

Included in the model contract: The right to charge lawyers a fee for every document electronically filed, perhaps around $5. Dinezo does some math: “In one big Southern California court, for example, about 750,000 documents are projected to be filed this year. That’s in Orange County’s civil section alone. Multiplied by a $5 fee, the flow of money would amount to $3 million a year. Extrapolating based on population, total income from the per-document fees could easily rise to $40 million a year throughout the state, paid by California’s lawyers.”

And that’s just for civil litigation and does not include separate fees for stuff like installation and upkeep. Follow more of the money here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, California Superior Court, court rationing, gold rush, Judges, Legal news

Top Clerk Says Cuts May Hinder Cost-Saving Efforts

October 22, 2013 By CCM Staff

Ironically, recent budget-cutting staff reductions may actually hinder efforts to save money by shifting to e-filing or other programs, according to Contra Costa Presiding Judge Barry Goods. In a story announcing a new head clerk, Judge Good noted that “… given our limited resources, and the uncertainty of next year’s budget situation, it’s a question of balancing the expense of e-filing versus other expenses.”

Judge Goode was quoted in The Courthouse News coverage of Stephen Nash, who was finance director for the Administrative Office of the Courts for four years and is headed back to the Bay Area to become head administrator for the Contra Costa Superior Court.

The report also noted that an upcoming decision on court reserve funds will likely impact how the justice system is operated. Programs like e-filing are going to fall by the wayside, says Judge Goode, if reserves cannot be counted on to help pay costs. Read the Courthouse News report here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: AFSCME, California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, court rationing, electronic records, Judges, Justice Rationing

New Group Will Advocate For California Courts

October 18, 2013 By CCM Staff

A new non-profit group has been formed to, in the words of its press release this week, “… increase awareness about the relationship between adequate state funding for the administration of justice – at the state and local level – and the ability to deliver equal access to justice for all.” The “Foundation for Democracy and Justice” also says it plans to educate the public about the branches of government, with particular attention paid to the role of the judiciary.

In the wake of cutting a billion dollars from the courts budget over the last half-decade, many critics of the cuts have noted that some lawmakers have forgotten that the judiciary is an equal branch of government. The new organization’s initial membership seems to include fairly prominent civic leaders and some high-profile attorneys.

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and state Attorney General Kamala Harris were announced as “honorary directors” of the group. The Sacramento Bee has a story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california court cuts, California State Budget, court rationing, Judges, justice, justice denied, Justice Rationing, Kamala Harris

Judge Says Court Closures May Bring Violence

October 11, 2013 By CCM Staff

Reduced access to civil courts will mean that people take the law into their own hands, including using violence in their disputes, according to a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. Phil Mautino, who is the supervising judge for the Los Padrinos Juvenile Court, told a Republican Lincoln Club group that personal injury cases are going to take five years to get to trial while for traffic court “there’s a line that circles around the building.”

“It means if you’re not going to court, you settle (the issue privately). It means violence. It’s like the old days of vengeance where if you kill my brother, I’ll kill your sister,” the judge told the Whittier Daily News in a recent report. “If you‘re willing to stand in line for a day or two, the officer may not show up [and] if you’re retired and plead not guilty, you have might have a good chance of getting off.”

The Whittier courthouse was among the eight closed this year while two others have very limited services. All traffic court cases now are heard at the downtown Los Angeles and Beverly Hills court houses, small claims is limited to five courts (Downey for the Whittier area), and landlord-tenant evictions are divided between four courthouses.

See the story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California Corrections, california court cuts, california courts, court rationing, court safety, court violence, domestic violence, Gov. Jerry Brown, Judges, justice denied, Justice Rationing, violence

Sacramento County Superior Court faces ‘tremendous challenges’ according to newly elected Presiding Judge

October 7, 2013 By CCM Staff

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Robert C. Hight. (Photo credit: SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, COURT BULLETIN)

The Sacramento Bee reports that Sacramento Superior Court Judge Robert C. Hight has been elected as the court’s presiding judge, replacing the outgoing Presiding Judge Laurie M. Earl. The two-year term begins on January 1, 2014.

“Our court faces tremendous challenges,” Hight said in a news release. “Over the past four years, the Legislature reduced funding for the Judicial Branch by $1 billion. For our Sacramento County Superior Court, this was a reduction of almost 25 percent, resulting in the loss of almost 200 staff positions. Unless next year has projected budget changes, we face further cuts. Our judges and dedicated staff have been asked to do more with less. Our challenge is to continue providing the citizens of Sacramento with access to justice that is fair, timely and open to all.”

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California Corrections, california court cuts, california courts, court rationing, Judges, justice denied, Justice Rationing, Superior Court

Litigation Rush Brings Another Firm To L.A.

September 18, 2013 By CCM Staff

The delays and backups in California civil courts might be hitting families and small-claims litigants hard, but the big boys continue to find the state a welcoming venue. The latest is DOAR Litigation Consulting, a complex-case consulting firm which announced that it both acquired a Houston-based firm and opened an office in downtown L.A.

From the company’s press release: “‘Lawsuits of major significance are being adjudicated in California and Texas,’ says Paul Neale, chief executive officer of DOAR. For instance, citing a 2013 Fulbright & Jaworski Litigation Trends Survey, Mr. Neale says 56% of U.S. technology companies faced at least one $20 million-plus lawsuit in 2012, a steep rise from only 18% in 2011. These firms are heavily concentrated in California’s Silicon Valley as well as in Austin, Texas. Across all industries, the number of companies facing at least one lawsuit where more than $20 million was at stake rose from 23% in 2011 to 31% in 2012, according to the Fulbright & Jaworski survey. The study also points out that the number of oil and gas companies reporting that 50 or more lawsuits have been filed against them over the past year has doubled to 27% since 2011.”

The company has other stats about California and Texas lawsuits, noting that area “… also popular venues for patent litigation filings. Nationally, the number of patent cases filed in 2012 soared 29% to a record 5,189 cases, according to PwC’s 2013 Patent Litigation Study, with Texas and California courts accounting for nearly 40% of them. The Texas Eastern Federal District Court in particular is perceived as “plaintiff-friendly,” and because patent holders are able to “shop” for favorable venues, despite efforts to deter the practice, it was the venue for 22% of all patent-related suits filed in the U.S. in 2012.”

For anyone waiting more than a year for fairly basic civil litigation to find a day in court, we can welcome DOAR to the waiting room. Find their press release here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, california court cuts, Judges, Legal news, patent litigation, Silicon Valley

California Courts Monitor ‘Special Report’ Update now on stands and available for download

September 16, 2013 By CCM Staff

When we published our printed “Special Report” earlier this year, it detailed a court crisis facing a difficult season. Sometimes, it seemed that the looming cuts, coming after years of cuts, were mostly positioning for the ongoing state budget battle. In addition to our daily online offerings, we promised to update the print report at the end of summer, so that’s what we did, and it is now available in local coffee shops and newsstands or you can download it by clicking here.

The takeaway? It was as bad, and sometimes worse, than expected. An environment of fear and insecurity only became more so. And we marveled at the number of people who would talk about courts issues, but only on condition we never name them. Think of that. These are people who are mostly afraid that judges — judges! — will actually punish them for voicing opposition. And some of those fearing retribution are lawyers.

In this Update, we have included more new material than we intended and highlighted one of our judicial profiles in a blatant attempt to show relevancy to a new audience — the national civil courts community. You can access the original here on our website or contact us directly at scw@californiacourtsmonitor.com for a printed copy.

And let us also say Thank You for the warm reception and backroom briefings prompted by our coverage. Our pledge is to get better and that our mistakes will be those of the head, not the heart.

Filed Under: Courts Budget Tagged With: California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, California State Budget, Civil Courts, court rationing, investigative report, Judges, Justice Rationing, transparency

Gov. Brown Hires For Superior Court Positions

September 3, 2013 By CCM Staff

A few new people will be coming to work for the state’s superior court system soon, but as regular readers have no doubt realized it’s not support staff. Announced is another round of judicial hires for the state-mandated $178,789-per-year jobs. Notable among this round of appointments is Sunil R. Kulkarni, who the South Asian Bar Association identifies as the first South Asian American judge ever appointed in Northern California, and an actual Republican for the San Diego Superior Court bench (most Brown-selected judges are Democrats).

California actually elects its judges. But typical judicial careers begin with an appointment by the governor to fill an open bench. Those chosen rarely face election challenges. The Republican judge in the San Diego court has served as a deputy public defender at the San Diego County Public Defender’s Office, Office of the Primary Public Defender since 1994 and has been an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law since 2003.

Details and background from the new judges abounds at the California Newswire.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, california court cuts, California Superior Court, Gov. Jerry Brown, Judges, judicial appointments, justice