Posted by Lili Daniel on Wed, May 16, 2012 @ 11:01 AM
Due to state budget cuts, the reduction of court reporters is one of the areas that will be affected in Los Angeles Superior Courts. Effective May 15, 2012, there will be no more official court reporters available for civil trials, but official court reporters will normally be available for general jurisdiction morning calendar matters until June 15, 2012.
Parties have the ability to arrange to hire personal certified shorthand reporters to be the official court reporter where an official court reporter is not normally unavailable by stipulation and order. You can obtain the Court Approved Stipulation and order form post in the LASC website and available in the clerk’s office.
Also, parties have the ability to privately hire a court reporter through the Court approved official court reporter list without a stipulation. The names and contact information for the list of Court approved reporters will be available on or about July 1, 2012.
To see more information about court reporter availability in Los Angeles Superior Court please visit:
http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/courtreporter/ui/
Posted by Eric Winkler on Mon, May 14, 2012 @ 03:35 PM
Is this the fatal blow to the California Judicial Branch and access to justice for the state's citizens? The chief justice and other judicial branch leaders say it just might be.
In an effort to address the state's $15 billion budget deficit, California Governor Jerry Brown is proposing that another $544 million be trimmed from the Judicial Branch's budget for fiscal year 2012-2013. This has spurred a strong and unified reaction from judicial branch leaders and other members of the legal community in a statement released by the Judicial Branch of California today.
Photo Credit: Nick Papakyriazis
"The entire civil justice system as we know it is in peril," said Jon Streeter, President of the State Bar of California.
"(The cuts) will seriously compromise the public's access to their courts and our ability to provide equal access to justice throughout the state," said Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who is calling for an emergency meeting of the Judicial Council in three days to "analyze what this means for the branch and how we can go forward together in preventing the harm these cuts will bring to our residents."
"I respect the challenges faced by the Governor and the Legislature during this Great Recession, but the Judicial Branch is a co-equal branch of our government and must receive an adequate level of funding to do our job," said Judge David Rosenburg, Judicial Council member and Chair of the Trial Court Presiding Judges Executive Committee. "Trial courts have taken four straight years of cutbacks. We simply cannot sustain another year of cuts without erosion of our ability to provide timely and full access to the public."
"Our state judiciary is being economically starved to death," said Joseph Dunn, Executive Director of the State Bar of California. "We're at a point where it's reasonable to ask whether recovery is even possible."
"The Governor's massive cuts to our state court budget threatens to shut the lights out on hundreds of courtrooms, locking out Californians from our justice system and eliminating the safest place for citizens to resolve their disputes," said Paul R. Kiesel, attorney and Co-Chair of the Open Courts Coalition.
So there you have it. Many of the heavyweights in the California legal community have raised their hands and said "Too Much!" The question is whether they will be heard outside of legal industry blogs like this one. Does California's media and citizens care that the state's courts are in critical condition and about to get worse?
Posted by Lili Daniel on Mon, May 14, 2012 @ 12:13 PM
Last Thursday night, I was fortunate to attend the Beverly Hills/Culver City Legal Secretaries Association installation meeting. The honorable Lee Smalley Edmon, the presiding judge of Los Angeles in Central District court, spoke about the changes in Los Angeles Superior Courts due to the California budget crisis. She started off with a funny slide before being the bearer of bad news:
This year, due to more state cuts, the court had to deal with cutting 30 million dollars from their budget. Judge Edmon gave a break down on what areas will be affected:
1) Laying off Court reporters (10.2 million dollars)
2) Reduction of Juvenile Program (4.8 million dollars)
3) Reduction of Courtroom staffing (6.8 million dollars)
4) Reduction of Non-courtroom staffing (8.2 million dollars)
Also, Judge Edmon gave important dates to note:
- May 15th: There will be no more court reporters available in civil trials in LASC. The Glendale courthouse will be converted to a settlement court, its case inventory will be distributed.
- June 1st: The Pasadena Courthouse will be converted to a settlement court and its case inventory distributed to the Burbank and Glendale courthouses. All class actions in the Stanley Mosk courthouse will be moved to the Central Civil West courthouse.
- July 1st: There will be a closure of 10% of the courtrooms: 24 criminal, 24 civil, 3 family, 1 probate, and 4 juvenile courtroom.
Judge Edmon ended with a piece of advice during these chaotic times: Be patient and always check http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/ for updates and news.
Posted by Eric Winkler on Fri, May 11, 2012 @ 10:50 AM
Having spent more than two decades in marketing, I have a pet peeve. That peeve is companies that try and hide their prices, or only disclose part of their prices.
This practice seems to be fairly common in our little space of the legal industry. Companies that do court filing either don't have their pricing on their websites or they have partial pricing that leaves out charges for advancing fees or things like "finance fees" or "check charges" that appear on their invoices.
Why do customers accept this behavior? If Amazon.com handled pricing this way, this is how one of my favorite books would be displayed:
Now who in their right mind would click the "Buy" button with pricing described like that? I know I wouldn't. Of course, that's not how Amazon actually lists their prices. That's just a little mock-up I did.
We recently changed our pricing and we'd like you to take some time out of your busy day to look at our prices. Are they hard to find? Not at all. Our prices are up on our website, where they've been for years.
Some of the changes we made were based on your feedback. We hope you'll notice:
- We've eliminated the 7% funds advance fee we used to charge you when we paid statutory fees on your behalf. Of course we still advance fees. We just don't charge for it anymore.
- We've eliminated the $49.95 Urgent fee we used to charge during the last hour before deadline for California Court Filing. Urgent service is still available during the day and after deadline, but it's not required to file before deadline.
- We've lowered the base price for a 1-15 page California Court Filing from $39.95 to $37.95. That's a 5% savings on 80% of your transactions with us.
So, though it's not the most exciting part of our website and doesn't contain those cool graphics that us marketing folks like, please visit the pricing section of our website by clicking here. We think you'll be impressed by what you see.
Posted by Mark Schwartz on Wed, May 09, 2012 @ 02:01 PM
Last Saturday, I was one of the guest speakers at the Marin County Legal Professional Association's educational event in San Rafael. I presented our MCLE course "Saving Trees & Time - eFiling & eService in California" along with our "Adobe Acrobat - Tips and Tricks" how-to class.
The Acrobat class includes a section on digital signatures, including how to set them up and how to use them. One of the participants brought up the fact that even though a signature can be password protected that doesn't necessarily mean it's secure. Hypothetically, she said, she could easily give that password to her boss, for example, and let him or her apply her signature. The discussion then morphed into one on security and the use of secured applications.
What if a legal secretary or paralegal shared their credentials with other members of the firm so as to allow someone else to place an order, or pay an invoice, on her behalf? And, what if that person then did something devious with that knowledge? What if, in the "digital signature scenario" I mentioned earlier, someone wanted to prove that it was not the user that applied her signature, but someone else? I pointed out to the group that information like IP addresses, date and time stamps and so on, could certainly be obtained and so someone could ascertain the real identity of the signer. I posited that if nothing else, I believe the new Electronic Discovery Act would allow for such discovery. Admittedly, I am not an expert in this area. Far from it. However, it was such an interesting discussion that we all figured others must have similar concerns. So, I offered to do this blog post with the hopes of generating some answers from you experts out there, or at the very least, get some of us talking about it.
Are you concerned? What do you, or your firm do, to address these issues? We'd love to hear from you!
Posted by Eric Winkler on Wed, May 02, 2012 @ 11:55 AM
Administrative Presiding Judge Judith McConnel announced yesterday that Divisions One and Two of the Fourth Appellate District began accepting eFiling on May 1, 2012.
In a statement from The Judicial Branch of California, Judge McConnell said, "This marks the court's initial steps into electronic filing. As we evaluate its success, we anticipate expanding the program to include more documents and areas of litigation to make the courts more accessible."
Photo Credit: Shakeel Akbar
The Judicial Branch states the list of documents that may be eFiled initially includes routine clerical filings such as change of address, dismissals and stipulations for extension of time. A complete list of documents eligible for eFiling can be found here.
Posted by Mark Schwartz on Wed, Apr 25, 2012 @ 06:17 PM
We've recently updated our page with items for Lassen, Los Angeles, Tehama and Ventura Superior courts. Click here to take a look, especially if you have a court filing for one of these jurisdictions!
Photo credit: Jordon
Posted by Eric Winkler on Tue, Apr 24, 2012 @ 11:12 AM
One of our nation’s pizza chains has recently started a campaign that repeats “Oh Yes, We Did!” as it announces to customers and competitors alike that it has improved its product. It is almost defiantly raising the bar for its industry. Well, with the pricing changes and fee eliminations we are implementing next week, we believe it’s our turn to say to customers and competitors, “Yes, we did.”
No More Funds Advanced Fees
We are eliminating our Funds Advanced Fee, which is the 7% we used to charge for advancing statutory fees for our customers. We made this business decision even though it is an industry-wide practice. In fact, most other attorney services charge more than we used to charge and we expect them to continue that practice. We will continue to advance fees on your behalf, but this service will now be complimentary.
Lower Prices for Most Court Filings Effective May 1st
On May 1st, we'll revise all of our prices; some are going up and some are coming down. However, about 80% of your court filings will reflect a price reduction!! That's because we have lowered our price for the basic service of 1-15 pages which represents most of our transactions. The prices for larger documents will go up but if those documents also have a court filing fee, the elimination of our Funds Advanced Fee will mean a lower invoice for those documents as well. Click here to learn how you'll save more. (Pricing for eFiling and eService remains unchanged.)
No More Last Hour Urgent Service Surcharge
When we introduced our Urgent Service during the last hour before deadline, some customers found the deadlines confusing. The team over at one San Francisco law firm even called me into their office to berate me for having a "real deadline" and a "fake deadline." Ouch! Effective May 1st, there's only one deadline. You can request guaranteed Urgent Service anytime during the day, which tells our branch, "Go now!," but you no longer have to worry about that last hour before deadline.
To summarize in bold print instead of fine print: No more funds advanced fee, no more Urgent Service fee the last hour before deadline…and…we’ve lowered our base price for California Court Filing from $39.95 to $37.95 effective May 1st. Yes We Did.
Posted by Eric Winkler on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 @ 04:33 PM
Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon announced today that by June 30, 2012 the court will reduce its staff by nearly 350 workers, close 56 courtrooms, reduce its use of court reporters and eliminate the Informal Juvenile Traffic Courts.
To really grasp just how extensive these cuts will be, one only has to consider that most Superior Courts in the state don't even have 56 courtrooms.
Photo Credit: Pamela Schreckengost
"Staffing reductions due to budget cuts over the past 10 years have forced our court to reduce staffing by 24%, while case filings continue to increase," said Judge Edmon. "This has created incredible pressures on our court to keep up with our work. We cannot endure these pressures much longer."
"This year, the state cuts are forcing us to reduce our spending by an additional $30 million - on top of the $70 million in reductions we have already made," added the presiding judge. "There will be as many as 350 dedicated, skilled court workers who will no longer be serving the residents of Los Angeles County. When we lose those people, we will no longer be able to shield the core work of the court - the courtroom - from the budget crisis."
In an announcement released by the court today, the court said the courtrooms being closed include 24 civil, 24 criminal, 3 family, 1 probate and 4 juvenile delinquency courts. The court said that as of May 15 it will no longer provide court reporters for civil trials. The court also noted it is making significant reductions to its non-courtroom staff.
"Our judges and staff have shown incredible dedication and commitment in keeping the court running during these past two years," said Judge Edmon. "But, these new reductions will not allow it to be business as usual. There will be longer lines at the clerk's windows across the county and slower responses to the public's needs across the court."
Posted by Mark Schwartz on Fri, Apr 13, 2012 @ 12:45 PM
As the assault advisor for CALSPro I often assist members, or their contractors, who have been assaulted in the line of duty. Lately, it seems, I have been getting more reports than usual. In my humble opinion there is a lot of frustration, anxiety and anger due to the the lasting effects of the great recession and I believe this has a lot to do with the uptick.
Those of you who have attended our MCLE course: "Who's at the Door? Successfully Serving Summonses & Subpoenas" have heard me say that process serving is the most important job in the legal field. After all, without that server providing notice, courts would have no jurisdiction over the person, property or witness. No jurisdiction=no judgment, no deposition, no trial.
Photo credit: whyswomen
Process serving, for the most part, is not a dangerous job. However, like some professions, it can be. Two cases have been in the news lately and I've posted the links here for you. The first involves a server in Auburn, CA and the second involves a deputy sheriff in Modesto, CA. Thankfully, the server in Auburn seems to be doing ok. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the deputy in Modesto. He was killed while attempting to execute an eviction, as was a civilian who was assisting him. My heartfelt condolences go out to both of their families.
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/process-server-assaulted/1d0b7tejf
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012/04/12/breaking-stanislaus-county-deputy-reportedly-shot-in-modesto/
I write this post in order to shine a light on what process servers face every day, everytime they knock on that door. So, I ask that you be sure to give your server all of the information you have about a particular subject so they can be as informed as possible. Most importantly, though, thank your server for the job they do. Let them know how important they are to you, and the legal system, and keep in mind that without them, the legal system in this country would grind to a halt.