LEADERSHIP

Leadership Approach to the Fiscal Crisis in the Courts



Leadership Approach to the Fiscal Crisis in the Courts

With the economic downturn, the availability of civil legal assistance in California has never been more threatened. The state's leading funding source in this area, IOLA, has seen its revenues plummet to less than a quarter of what they were just a few years ago -- from $36 million to $8 million. This critical situation led us to put $15 million in rescue funding in the judiciary's current budget for civil legal services -- something we had never done before but which was absolutely necessary as a moral obligation of our judiciary and our profession, and in order to keep legal service providers in business -- but we now know that it was little more than a band-aid on a gaping wound (JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF CALIFORNIA, 2009).

On December 1st, on the strength of the statewide hearings and the Task Force's comprehensive findings and recommendations that showed that California is at best meeting only 20% of the civil legal services needs in the state, and a Judiciary budget submitted for the coming fiscal year that requests $25 million dollars in funding for civil legal services. As with the IOLA funding last year, I have put these monies in the Judiciary budget because that is where they belong - civil legal services for the poor is every bit as much a part of meeting the Judiciary's responsibilities as keeping the doors of our courthouses open. It is that fundamental! This $25 million in funding is to be the first installment in a series of annual increases, leading eventually to an increase of $100 million in annual funding for civil legal services over the next four years. It is highly unusual for a State Judiciary and its Chief Judge to take such a prominent and active leadership role on a policy issue of this kind - convening hearings, making recommendations that affect the fiscal crises, and basically driving the overall debate within the State. Judges and courts in their legal opinions should not be advancing their personal social or political agendas at the expense of the constitution or the laws enacted by our democratically elected representatives. However, I believe that the judiciary, as an institution, has a very important and very appropriate part to play in promoting reforms that are essential to our constitutional mission ...