Justice Melissa Hart on Wednesday warned a gathering of attorneys about the numerous barriers people face in accessing the justice system in Colorado, only some of which the courts can solve without the aid of others from inside and outside the legal profession.
“A number of our courts are in places where people have to take two or three or four buses to get to a court appearance. And that can take several hours and lead to people missing court appearances,” she said. “The compounding consequences of that are enormous.”
Hart stressed the importance of inviting local leaders to weigh in on access-to-justice hurdles, and to avoid relying on legal solutions for fundamentally non-legal problems.
“We, sitting here in this room, will not be able to figure out what’s the best way to get someone to a courthouse in Alamosa. It’s not gonna happen,” she said.
Hart was the keynote speaker at the awards luncheon for the Colorado Lawyers Committee, a collective of law firms that volunteer in the areas of civil rights, children’s rights and immigration, among other projects.
Although her address primarily focused on the barriers people face when participating in the civil justice system, where parties are largely not entitled to legal representation, Hart also unveiled a new vision statement for Colorado’s Judicial Department. She said the document was the product of a statewide process.
“We commit to acting with integrity, fairness and transparency. And we commit to being inclusive, collaborative and innovative,” she said, adding that the judicial branch knows it is “not there yet.”
“But we will use those values to benchmark our policy choices. And I encourage you to tell us when we’re missing the mark,” Hart continued. “We’re using these to hold ourselves accountable but we’re also asking you to hold us accountable.”
Recently, Colorado’s judicial branch has attempted to make certain aspects of the legal system more accessible. Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright issued a directive in June to promote greater uniformity statewide in the use of virtual appearances in the trial courts — a drastic change in procedure necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another directive signed in April addressed the live streaming of criminal proceedings to the public. Both policies had their detractors, with critics pointing out trial judges retain wide discretion to disallow virtual appearances, and the live streaming policy could have incorporated stronger guarantees of public access.
In contrast, the reaction was broadly positive to the Supreme Court’s decision to create a new occupation — licensed legal paraprofessionals — to assist unrepresented litigants in certain domestic relations proceedings at lower cost than attorneys.
Hart described ongoing efforts in the judiciary to improve the experience of those who are involved in the justice system, including the use of interpreters for non-English-speaking litigants, creating standardized and plain English court forms, and revisiting the circumstances under which litigants do not have to pay filing fees.
The work was informed, in part, by a statewide “listen-and-learn” tour the Colorado Access to Justice Commission held in 2021. Hart was a member of the commission prior to her appointment, and she remains the Supreme Court’s liaison to the organization. The commission’s report highlighted the lack of legal aid, unreliable broadband access and confusing legal procedures as concerns local leaders raised during the listening tour.
“We have created a legal system that is, both as a matter of substantive law and the processes that people need to go through, incredibly complex. Unnecessarily complex,” Hart said. “We make our courts very imposing. We want to appear ‘above’ in many ways. We don’t build our courts the way you would build a daycare center. We’re not trying to be inviting.”
“We should probably think about that,” she added.
Justice Melissa Hart speaks at the Sept. 27, 2023 Colorado Lawyers Committee awards luncheon at The Ritz-Carlton in Denver.
Whatever problems exist around urban areas, Hart described the needs as “exponentially worse” in rural Colorado. During listening sessions in the San Luis Valley, participants did not have the bandwidth to join using both audio and video. If a litigant must physically go to a faraway courthouse or else join virtually without being seen, that is not an ideal choice, Hart said.
Then there is the fear of the legal system in general.
“Everyone in this room knows the difference between civil law and criminal law. Most people don’t,” she told the audience. “If you have a family members or a friend or an acquaintance who has had a bad experience with the criminal justice system, the idea of going to ask for help with a civil legal problem doesn’t quite make sense.”
Hart praised the access to justice commission’s executive director, Elisa Overall, for advocating to the General Assembly to improve the experiences of civil litigants. She also gave a shout-out to Magistrate Andrea Paprzycki in the Fourth Judicial District of El Paso and Teller counties, who recently secured a $309,357 grant to provide alternate resolution to eviction disputes and help evicted tenants find housing stability.
The luncheon at The Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Denver also featured awards to multiple groups of volunteer attorneys:
• Denver Legal Night won the “Team of the Year Award” for assisting nearly 32,000 clients since 2006 who could not otherwise afford legal services
• Ballard Spahr was named “Law Firm of the Year” for providing 535 hours of donated time to legal projects in 2022
• The Colorado Afghan Asylum Project received a special recognition award for filing more than 600 asylum applications for refugees in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021
• David W. Stark won the “Legal Legacy Award” for promoting pro bono work during his career
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
