YOLO COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION

Newsletter February 2003

www.yolobar.com

FEBRUARY BAR MEETING

February 20, 2003 Meeting, Carrousel Restaurant at 12 noon

(417 Main Street, Woodland):

"Pro Bono and the Court Self-Help Center"

Our MCLE program for this month will feature Karen Blank, Court Counsel, Kathlyn Lamour, Court Administrative Assistant, and John Gianola, Director of Yolo County Legal Aide. They will be discussing options for a new legal self-help center. Yolo County Superior Court and the Yolo County Law Library are working together to develop the self-help center for folks who are in pro per, or "self-represented litigants." The Court has received grant funds for this purpose. The center would help pro pers for 20 minutes or so without charge, and would have a copier, dissomaster, forms and a computer.

The Yolo County Bar Association has been approved as a provider of Minimum Continuing Legal Education by the State Bar of California. This program will provide one (1) hour of the important and coveted, hard-to-get ethics MCLE credit!

Advance reservations are greatly appreciated. You may RSVP right back from this newsletter for the meeting to Lisa Lance by email (another great benefit for having your newsletter delivered via email), or you may mail a check in the appropriate amount ($15) to Jim Nolan C/O Yolo County Bar Association, P.O. Box 1903, Woodland, CA 95776. Alternatively, you may phone Jim Nolan at (530) 662-2859 or you may register at the door.

The cost for the lunch is $15.

President DeKristie Adams' Message:

As one of my first official duties as the President of the Yolo County Bar Association, I thank all of the judges who were able to attend our annual January 'Meet the Judges' meeting. It was a pleasure to hear the news from each department. The biggest change is that Judge Fall will no longer be hearing family law cases. Judge Fall made it very clear that while he enjoyed working with the family law bar, he was quite happy to be giving up his judicial role in deciding family law cases.

As perhaps one of my last official duties as the chair of the Family Law bar, I would like to thank Judge Fall for his year of service as our family law judge. Even though we know how difficult it was for him to serve in this role, I think I can speak for all of the family law attorneys when I say that we all really appreciated his ability to move through a calendar. Judge Fall was able to make the hard decisions that helped families achieve the finality they needed to start the process of rebuilding their lives. Thank you Judge Fall. You will be missed!

I am also pleased to have the opportunity to welcome the maverick Judge Warriner back to the family law bench. I am sure we will all appreciate his pragmatic approach to resolving difficult family law matters as well as his wry wit and warm, patient judicial style. Please join us at our first meeting of 2003 on February 13 at noon in Department 7 to meet with Judge Warriner. Bring your lunch and brilliant ideas to deal with the direct affect that the lack of money and judicial resources have on family law cases in general, and specifically, the problem of getting more than two half days for a family law trial.

This lack of judicial resources has been a source of consternation for the attorneys, court staff, litigants and judges whose workload has gone from bad to worse. I am sure by now most of us who practice in Yolo County have received several notices of possible judicial candidates. While this is a good sign that there might be some relief in sight, we will not get two new judges any time in the near future. Therefore, I've been thinking and talking with colleagues about what can be done to reduce the huge strain that being two judges short places on an already overloaded court system.

A few ideas have come to mind. The first is for the Bar to initiate a letter writing campaign to the governor to impress upon him and his staff as to how bad things are in this county.

The second idea is far more difficult to articulate and spearhead, but it is worth thinking about. We each have a role in the legal system and we each can help in our own ways to reduce the litigation and thus reduce the strain on the courts. Judges have the unique power to "encourage" settlements through their own methods of persuasion, or through the effective use of sanctions. Attorneys have a great deal of control over cases and clients. There are many ways that we can minimize the amount of litigation through the use of professional courtesy, early and reasonable settlement offers, encourage clients to use alternative models for dispute resolution such as mediation, arbitration, rent a judges, etc., requesting sanctions against unreasonable parties or attorneys, and most important, exhausting all options to resolve issues informally before filing motions. For the most part, I think most Yolo County attorneys already practice this way. However, there is always room for improvement.

I've raised some issues and I certainly haven't solved them. Please feel free to email me your comments to dekristi@omsoft.com and perhaps my nascent thoughts might begin to blossom into actual solutions.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS

(Please submit information to Lisa Lance no later than the first Friday of the month)

The Judicial Council of California has released a substantial number of proposed revisions to criminal and civil jury instructions for public comment. The materials are available online at www.courtinfo.ca.gov.

The California Law Revision Commission seeks public comment on its tentative recommendation relating to the jurisdictional limits for small claims cases and limited civil cases. Basically, the Commission proposes to increase the jurisdictional limit for a small claims case from $5,000 to $10,000, to adjust for inflation and improve access to justice. Similarly, the Commission proposes to increase the jurisdictional limit for a limited civil case from $25,000 to $50,000. To receive timely consideration, comments should be submitted by March 31, 2003 to www.clrc.ca.gov

YCBA 2003 MEETING SCHEDULE

Mark your schedules for the entire year. Normally, the YCBA Meetings are at Noon on the third Thursday of each month. Here are the upcoming dates:

March 20, noon @ Carrousel: "Pro Bono and the Court Self-Help Center"

April 17, noon @ Carrousel, Woodland: TBA

May 1, noon: LAW DAY

June 19, noon @ Carrousel, Woodland: TBA

July and August: no Meetings

September 18, noon @ Carrousel, Woodland: TBA

October 16, noon @Carrousel, Woodland: TBA

November 21, noon @ Carrousel, Woodland: TBA

December 19, noon @ TBA

Your 2003 YCBA Officers:

DeKristie Adams, President (530) 750-1919 or dekristi@mother.com

Barry Melton, Vice President (530) 666-8165 or bmelton@yolocounty.org

Jim Nolan, Treasurer (530) 662-2859 or jvnolan@yololaw.com

Lisa Lance, Secretary (530) 666-8165 or llance@yolocounty.org

Please contact Lisa Lance if you have not submitted your 2003 Renewal/Membership Application and paid your dues and she will send out an application to your office. This is the first newsletter sent out in email format. If you have any problems with reading this newsletter, please contact Lisa as well. Thank you for assisting your bar association with this changeover.