June 2007

SJI News SJI News

The Voice of the State Justice Institute Vol. 17, No. 7

Center for Access to Justice & Technology 

Receives 2006 Howell Heflin Award

Each year the SJI Board of

Directors selects a product

for the Howell Heflin Award.

This award is given in recognition

of an innovative Institute-supported

project that has a likelihood of significantly improving the quality of

justice in State courts across the

nation. This past spring the 2006

award (the eleventh) was presented

by SJI Board member Judge

Tommy Jewell to Ron Staudt, from

the Illinois Institute of Technology,

Center for Access to Justice &

Technology, for its project

“Meeting the Needs of SelfRepresented Litigants: A Consumer Based Approach.” The

award was presented at the National

Legal Aid and Defenders Association 2007 Equal Justice Conference in Denver, Colorado. This

project has been a collaboration

between the Chicago-Kent College

of Law and the Center for

Computer Aided Legal Instruction,

and has resulted in the development

of a software program that enables

courts and legal service providers to

build user friendly court document

assembly and electronic filing for

use by the public. 

The partners for this project worked

closely with the California Administrative Office of the Courts and

courts in Illinois to invent and test

the authoring tool that builds A2J

Guided Interviews for specific

types of cases. These A2J Guided

Interviews graphically “walk” a

self-represented litigant down a

road to the courthouse passing signposts, such as “Do You Qualify?”

and “Spouses Information.” At the

end of the road, the software uses

the answers gathered in the A2J

Interview to generate the final legal

document ready to file with the

court system. This tool has been

successfully used in a number of

courts and agencies during the project period. Courts in Washington,

New York City civil courts, Legal

Assistance of the Finger Lakes,

Atlanta Legal Aid Society, and the

North Penn Legal Services are

building the A2J Guided Interviews, and more courts are signing

up to use the software. The A2J

Author is available for free to interested courts, legal service organizations, and members of HotDocs

development community for noncommercial use. As a result of

these efforts, the products are significantly improving access to justice in courts and legal service

agencies across the country. SJI is

proud to have supported these

efforts. New York City civil courts,

Legal Assistance of the Finger

Lakes, Atlanta Legal Aid Society,

and the North Penn Legal Services

are building the A2J Guided

Interviews, and more courts are

signing up to use the software. The

A2J Author is available for free to

interested courts, legal service

organizations, and members of

HotDocs development community

for non-commercial use. As a result

of these efforts, the products are

significantly improving access to

justice in courts and legal service

agencies across the country. SJI is

proud to have supported these

efforts.

SJI Board Member Tommy Jewell (pictured left) presents the Heflin Award.

What’s Inside

Imperial County, CA, Superior Court

Borderland Justice Field-Guide.........2

Guest Editorial................................2-3

Status of FY 2008 Funds....................3

Mark Your Calendars.........................4
On March 29, 2007, the Imperial County

Superior Court submitted its final report entitled, “Field Guide to Justice Improvement for

Communities Along the United States and Mexico

Border” (SJI-05-T-158). This field guide

was a result of a 24-month initiative

sponsored by SJI and the California

Administrative Office of the Courts to:

clarify the strategic direction of the

Imperial County Superior Court in

light of its rapidly changing community; develop a regional court service

delivery strategy and network; develop and

implement culturally appropriate services; and

document project results for use in other Southwest

border jurisdictions. 

Recent immigration growth is having a significant

impact on State and local courts. Courts along the

Southwest Border and other areas of the United States

with large immigrant populations are contending with

issues such as how to provide culturally appropriate

services, increases in gang-crime cases involving immigrants, and the impact of Federal and

state immigration policies on court operations. The Imperial County Superior Court’s

field guide examined some of these issues,

and offers practical tools for improving court

and justice services along the Southwest border. 

SJI is interested in further exploring the impact of

immigration on State and local courts. We welcome

your input on this critical issue, so please feel free to

contact us with any feedback you may have. 

Imperial County, California, Superior Court

Announces Borderland Justice Field-Guide

A study of another region’s legal

system is an excellent opportunity

to reflect on the values that we protect in our own system. 

I recently attended a conference in

Kosovo, where the National Center

for State Courts is working with the

Kosovo judicial system under the

auspices of the U.S. Agency for

International Development. I was a

member of a team of state and federal judges and court administrators

who discussed how an effective

judicial system operates. The

keynote speaker, who appeared by

video, was John Roberts, chief justice of the United States.

Kosovo is part of the former

Yugoslavia. The vast majority of its

people are ethnic Albanians. Serbia,

its neighbor, claims Kosovo is part

of its territory. The conflict resulted

in war in the 1990s, which ended

after the United States and its allies

bombed Serbia and took further

military action. Troops from various nations around the world

enforce a truce under the auspices

of NATO.

Kosovo now is under the supervision of the United Nations, which is

expected to resolve the status of

Kosovo soon. The Kosovars seek to

have a sovereign democratic nation.

The model to which their leaders

look is the United States system

separating powers into three

branches of government: executive,

legislative and judicial.

For the courts, the goal is to be a

separate branch of government – to

make decisions based on the law,

independent of undue political

influence from the executive or legislative branches. At the same time,

courts are dependent on the other

branches for resources and for the

means of enforcing their judgments. 

This is the delicately balanced

interdependent system we Americans have been experiencing, and

testing, for more than 200 years.

The people of Kosovo, however,

are trying to get it right in a matter

of a few short years.

One obstacle, expressed to us by a

Kosovo legislator, is the function of

the judiciary under the former communist regime. During that time,

courts existed solely as an instruLaw Matters: War-torn Country Seeks Measure of Stability 

By Establishing Fair, Impartial Courts

continued on next page

The following is a reprint from “Law Matters,” a series of columns distributed in Missouri.

Page 2 SJI News - Vol. 17, No.7
LAW MATTERS (continued from page 2)

ment of the all-powerful executive and were, the legislator said, considered instrucment so of oppression.

With that history, it is difficult for the courts to be seen

immediately as protectors of the people’s legal and

constitutional rights.

The key, in Kosovo as in the United States during our

own history, is for courts to be guided by the law, not

by the personal preferences of judges or the preferences of politicians currently in power. That is what we

Americans call the rule of law, expressed by John

Adams, who in 1780 wrote these words as part of the

constitution of the Common-wealth of Massachusetts: 

“The legislative department shall never exercise the

executive and judicial powers or either of them: the

executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never

exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either

of them: to the end that it may be a government of laws

and not of men.”

What are the stakes for a society whose government is

being developed? Because of the recent war, Kosovo

has lost half of its 4 million population; many were

killed, and many others have fled to other countries and

have not returned. About 60 percent of those still living

in Kosovo are unemployed, and the country is in great

need of capital investment.

But therein lies the need for a strong court system.

Those who have capital will not invest if there are no

effective means for assuring that the contracts under

which their investments are made will be enforced. The

rule of law protects not just the constitutional rights of

citizens but also the contractual rights of businesses

and investors. Economic development is all but impossible unless there is a judiciary sufficiently trained,

independent of political influence and able to follow

the law in enforcing the arrangements that are made to

bring economic progress.

Those of us who traveled to Kosovo hope its leaders

are able to forge a strong government that will be able

to protect its citizens and businesses in a way heretofore not seen there. We know it will be a struggle to

instill trust and confidence in those courts, but for those

of us here in America, where we continue to struggle to

preserve the fairness and impartiality of our courts, we

know the struggle is well worth it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael A. Wolff is Chief Justice

of the Missouri Supreme Court. In

September 2005, he launched a

series of columns, which are distributed to newspapers throughout

the state by the Missouri Press

Association. The columns, entitled, “Law Matters: Reflections of

Chief Justice Michael A. Wolff,” discuss a range of

issues related to Missouri's courts and the legal system.

SJI thanks Chief Justice Wolff for his permission to

reprint this article in the E-SJI Newsletter. 

Status of FY 2008 Appropriations

SJI is eagerly awaiting both the House and Senate Commerce, Justice,

Science (CJS) Appropriations Committee marks for FY 2008. The

Senate Appropriations Committee is marking up the CJS bill on June 28,

2007, and the House may mark up the bill in July. SJI anticipates that

the July e-SJI Newsletter will have more information on FY 2008

Appropriations.

Page 3 SJI News - Vol. 17, No.7
Page 4 SJI News - Vol. 17, No.7

SJI News is published by the 

State Justice Institute, 1650 King Street, Suite 600, Alexandria, VA 22314 

(703) 684-6100 Fax: (703) 684-7618 Web site address: http://www.statejustice.org

Editors

Janice Munsterman

Jonathan Mattiello

Design/Layout

Candice Jackson

Contributors

Chief Justice Michael A. Wolff

Missouri Supreme Court

Board of Directors

Chairman

Robert A. Miller

Chief Justice (Ret.)

Supreme Court of South Dakota

Pierre, SD

Vice Chairman

Joseph F. Baca

Chief Justice (Ret.)

New Mexico Supreme Court

Santa Fe, NM

Secretary

Sandra A. O’Connor

States Attorney of Baltimore County (Ret.)

Towson, MD

Executive Committee Member

Keith McNamara, Esq.

McNamara & McNamara

Columbus, OH

Terrence B. Adamson, Esq.

Executive Vice-President

The National Geographic Society

Robert N. Baldwin

Executive Vice President and 

General Counsel

National Center for State Courts

Carlos R. Garza, Esq.

Administrative Judge (Ret.)

Round Rock, TX

Sophia H. Hall

Administrative Presiding Judge

Circuit Court of Cook County

Chicago, IL

Tommy Jewell

Presiding Children’s Court Judge (Ret.)

Second Judicial District Court

Albuquerque, NM

Arthur A. McGiverin

Chief Justice (Ret.)

Supreme Court of Iowa

Des Moines, IA

Janice Munsterman

Executive Director

Jonathan Mattiello

Deputy Director

Van Debrick

Finance Director

The State Justice Institute is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Congress

in 1984 to provide financial support for

projects to improve the quality of justice in

State courts. SJI is governed by a Board of

Directors appointed by the President and

confimed by the Senate.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

NEXT APPLICATIONS ARE DUE FOR BOARD 

CONSIDERATION NO LATER THAN 

AUGUST 1, 2007

Project Grants Applications - Applications will be accepted on a rolling

basis. Applications received less than 30 days before a quarterly Board meeting will be considered at the next Board meeting.

Technical Assistance Applications - Applications will be accepted on a

rolling basis. Applications received less than 30 days before a quarterly Board

meeting will be considered at the next Board meeting.

Curriculum Adaptation and Training Applications - Applications will be

accepted on a rolling basis. Applications received less than 30 days before a

quarterly Board meeting will be considered at the next Board meeting.

Requests for curriculum adaptations should be submitted at least 120 days

before the date of the proposed program.

Scholarships - July 2 - August 24, 2007 for programs beginning between

October 1 - December 31, 2007

October 1 - November 30, 2007 for programs beginning between January 1 -

March 31, 2008 (tentatively)

The next SJI Board of Directors meeting is scheduled for

September 20, 2007.