Equal access: a losing war?
Is it a coincidence that the January 2004 issues of the bar journals of California,
Texas and Washington all contain articles lamenting the lack of funding for
our courts and legal aid? While we are fighting to establish equal access to
justice in Iraq, we may be losing it at home, if these three states are representative
(and I believe they are).
Clydia J. Cuykendall
Frisco, Texas
Congrats on 10 years
Ten years of great Bar Journal publications. Thank you and the entire staff.
I always look forward to my copy and I know my fellow attorneys here at Bingham
McCutchen echo also my sincerest thanks for a job well done. Keep up the great
work.
Dan Curtin
Walnut Creek
Protect the lawyers
I read with interest your front page article in the January issue of the California
Bar Journal, entitled "Plan to Help Unrepresented Litigants Sparks Board Debate."
There is no mention of malpractice insurance. Who is going to pay the malpractice
insurance premiums for the attorneys who enlist to perform those services? Knowing
pro pers, the first thing they will do, if they are dissatisfied, is turn around
and file a malpractice action.
I would hope that the board considers that factor before they make any decisions.
Sanford M. Ehrmann
Beverly Hills
Lousy accounting
In answer to Robert J. Hill (Letters, January): No, you cannot have
your hour of MCLE credit yet. First, send in your $20.
It takes someone almost a minute to check your answers. It takes someone else
almost a minute to record your score. It takes someone else almost a minute
to mail your certificate of compliance, and the bar has to pay postage.
Round all of these up to the next minute, and you will see that the State Bar
can only process 20 tests per payroll hour. At the rate of $400 per hour, you
can see the necessity of charging $20 per test.
Consider it a deal, since they absorb the cost of postage; you should be paying
$20.37.
Kurtiss A. Jacobs
Martinez
Misleading article
The article on the board of governors vote on the plan to help unrepresented
pro pers is misleading. From reading the article, one might think James Heiting
voted against the proposal. He did not.
Also, although I was one of the no votes, my reasons had nothing to do with
any philosophical disagreement with the plan to assist pro pers embodied in
the resolution, but rather with the fuzzy language in the preamble. Had the
preamble, with its factually unsupported "whereas" clauses and its gross generalizations
about the lack of legal services of pro pers, either been clarified or eliminated,
I would have voted for the resolution.
David M. Marcus
Board of Governors, District 7
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