 Great. Let's talk a little bit about space for the media. That is the press room, what we mentioned before. Do you think having a press room helps? Well, as I sat in the one in the Dirksen Courthouse for three years as a member of the Chicago Sun Times, so yes, I have a feeling that it does work and it's very helpful. I think it's very important. I have advised others throughout the system if they have an opportunity to create a press room, please do so. Because if for no other reason, it gives the media a place to go and it keeps them out of the court clerk's hair. They've got a place to go, they feel at home, and they feel that the court itself takes them seriously by giving them a place to have a desk, provides them with a phone line, provide them with an opportunity for internet access and a place that they can store their valuables. It's a natural place for people. We have six people who work full-time at the Dirksen Courthouse in Chicago, and there's room for several others that come and go on a regular basis. I think it's a critical ingredient in dealing with the media. Great. Cam. I agree with everything Dan said. It's a great opportunity to have a space for the media. Even in a rural district, it's not used that much, so you can use it for other things, but when it is needed, it's there and they have opportunity to use internet access. You can put a copy machine in there, phone access. I think it is very helpful to them. I think with the federal court's orientation, a customer service, we need to look at the media as another customer. A customer like a member of the bar or a member of the public that comes in and wants information from the clerk's office, and I think if we use that as our guiding principle, it will serve us well. Have any of you ever had a situation where reporters have gone directly, this is on the day-to-day basis, to judges and sort of bypassing a system that you may have set up, and how have you handled that, Cam? If they do that, hopefully, most of the secretaries will forward those calls down to my office. In fact, I'd be the one, and most instances, to call them back, so the reporters know that the judges are just not going to be able to talk to them during the penance of a case. Great. It's handled in a very similar way in Arizona. When they do get calls in chambers, they're generally referred down to my office, and then we deal with them from that point forward. Jim, what about in Denver? It's the same. We handle all those calls here, and the secretaries and staff are, they follow it religiously. So they know that they're going to refer them all right to you folks. Dan. Well, maybe it's slightly different in Chicago, given its history of just a different place. There are judges that do, because of the working relationships that they develop with these six people that are permanently assigned 40 hours a week to the courthouse, they do accept their calls. It doesn't mean that they comment on the case, and I'm not about to tell an Article III of the Constitution judge, no, you can't do that. But it is suggested, and they have received, they do know that if they need help or assistance, they refer the calls to me, and I'm also served then as a very, as an easy way to duck if you want to. Oh, I'm sorry, I can't answer that question. You have to go to the public information officer. We're just a few minutes away from opening this up to questions by fax and also push to talk. So think of a question that you would like addressed or a comment that you'd like to make relating to dealing with the media on a daily basis, and we'll try to answer that. Cam, let me turn to you. Just why do you, if you could give us, so just a good reason why you think these outreach efforts with the media are so important? Nurturing those relationships are a great source for positive public relations with the court. We find after we do the media orientations, we get better coverage on routine kinds of programs for the court, attorney and mission, naturalization, those kind of programs. So, and also it gives them an opportunity to call us anytime. So I think that's been very helpful in building, not only building that relationship, but educating the public and the media about what it is that we do. Rick, you want to add to that? It was mentioned in the early segment, but as the most misunderstood of the three branches of the federal government, I think we have a real professional responsibility to do what we can to educate the public about what the federal judiciary does and what it's all about. Chief Judge Aspen in Chicago in the opening film pointed that out, that we can't ignore the fact that we have a duty to promote trust and confidence in the court system. And you do that in a variety of ways through letters to the editor, through columns submitted by the judges, by editorial board visits. Those are all in addition to the day in, day out relations that you have with the beat reporters assigned to the building. That gives you then an honest, legitimate entree to decision makers and people who influence public opinion when matters come up that are of great interest to the court system such as our annual budget. Jim Mann speaking, do you want to add anything to that? Just that education is very important. You would have been amazed how early on how many of some of the reporters that showed up thought that the judge worked for the justice department, things like that. So anything we can do to give a little civics lesson now and then is good. We've just received the facts relating to how often, what's an optimum time, if you will, to hold media orientation sessions. You want to handle that one, Cam? We try to do them annually, although it slips a little bit. We try to at least have one contact with the media in our southern division and Boise once year. Same thing in eastern Idaho and northern. I think one time a year for the formal orientations that would supplement your day-to-day contacts. I think that's a slow news day. It's the best time to do it, whatever that is throughout the year. You definitely want to do it before their deadlines. Let's just go one more time around the table than any final thoughts in terms of dealing with the media. Rick? I can't think of anything to add to what's already been said. I think if clerks of court and court administrators keep those tenets in mind, I think they'll be well served. Sit down with your judges, your board of judges, the chief judge in particular, and find out what it is that they want. Have a checklist, have a procedural order in hand, and use experts like Rick or elder statesmen that really know and have been around the block a few times. They know how to handle those situations. Except the fact that the media is going to be there, they're going to be present, they're going to ask questions. Again, we've said it before, treat them as a customer. Bring them into the process of understanding and educating the public about what we do and what we don't do. Once again, Jim, I'm giving you the last word. Okay, well, I incorporate everything that's been said. Fairness, I can't stress that enough that they all get access to the same stuff at the same time. And, Cam, what is this elder stuff? You'll know Cam is the only grey-haired member of the panel. I'm going to leave that question out of it, but it's time now to take some of your questions by fax again or by push to talk. So let's just open it up for a few seconds, push to talk. Okay, it's time for our break, but I wanted to mention a newly published resource from the AO's Office of Public Affairs, and that's high profile cases in appellate court, how to work with the media. While it's tired audience as appellate court staff, this short brochure covers many of the topics we just have been talking about, and it's certainly worth a look. It's apropos to both district and the bankruptcy courts. You may contact the AO's Office of Public Affairs for more information relating to this publication. Now, as we take a short break, we'll leave you with a few points to remember for developing productive relationships with the press. We'll be back in five minutes. Welcome back. Now we're going to focus our attention on community outreach. Canberra and Dan Layman are still here as part of our panel, and joining us now we have Rebecca Fanning, the National Community and Educational Outreach Manager for the AO's Office of Public Affairs, and Dick Wasco, Clerk of Court for the District of Vermont. Welcome everybody. As we did with media relations, let's first turn to the video monitors and watch a clip on community outreach. In 1999, the Northern District of Illinois hosted its first Honorable James Benton Parsons Day to celebrate the life of the first African-American appointed to a federal district court, and later the first to serve as a chief judge. I really stand before you because of Jim Parsons in part, because he's the one that broke the ground that allowed people like me to follow. Now an annual event, the court invites area junior high and high school students to visit the court and learn about Judge Parsons and the federal court system. We had an opportunity to explain to the kids what the federal courts are all about. Hopefully they got the impression that it's a friendly environment. It's an important part of our system, and perhaps it inspired some of them to become part of the system someday. Through lecture and demonstrations, judges and lawyers volunteered to show students what our federal court system means. We come into a courtroom we call the courtroom of the United States District Court to resolve our disputes according to law. Afterwards, judges met students during a reception, providing some students the best experience of all. When you think of a judge, you always think of them as such high standards, but you see that they're kind of just down to earth and they're on your level, and they're not just to be, as they say, judge you, but they're just trying to actually help people too. It's really good for me to see because that just makes me want to be a lawyer even more. Around the country other courts also reach out to the community, whether it's through tours. We have a docent program. We have 25 volunteer docent that are virtually experts on the building. It's a historical building built at the turn of the century, and we offer public tours twice a month. They're free of charge for anybody who wants to come. Tutoring students. Children from the neighborhood come in through an after-school program, and work with court staff volunteers once a week for about an hour. Or tutoring attorneys. Our federal practice program is an attempt to reach out to attorneys and impart skills, trial skills to them so that they are as effective as possible in our court. The goal is for the courts to become actively involved in their communities. Our employees are energized and inspired by reaching out. They desire to have a good relationship with the public, and after all our employees are on the phone and in contact with the public their entire work day. Methods of outreach depend on the individual needs of each court. It starts maybe in the development of a long-range plan where everybody gets together and say this is one of our organizational goals. Once you have that commitment, there's a lot of energy that it results from that. One result in the district of Idaho is a program aimed at grade schools. Students can participate in the Three Bears versus Goldilocks, or the Kingdom versus Jack Spriggins. They serve as jurors, prosecutors, defense attorney, witness, judge, and bailiff, and the other actors in the criminal justice system. And the kids actually come in and try the case. We give them the materials which are available over the internet. They're very good. These are fifth and sixth grade kids that are trying a case and they're passionate advocates for their clients. And we hope that they're learning the lesson about the third branch of government. Courts don't have to develop outreach activities on their own. Like many courts, the district of Idaho also participates in national outreach initiatives sponsored by the AO's Office of Public Affairs. These include activities like Law Day and Teacher Institutes. This is a national production sponsored by the United States courts through the district of Idaho, which organized our participation here today. We touch the public. We have a tremendous impact on the public and I think in return we need to reach out to the public and make them or help them to be more informed about what we as an institution do. There are pragmatic reasons why we have to have an outreach program. We often are involved in controversial decisions. Whether it's a public housing case, whether it's a case involving the supervision of the jails. And it's important that the public view those decisions in a fair minded way. So we have to reach out. We have to have that credibility with the public. We have to be able to have the support of leaders in the community, whether they're in government or outside of government, when there is a matter that the courts either need their tacit support in the case of some legislation or we need the support on a broad base level when it comes to a controversial decision of the court. But the only thing that makes our system work is the credibility of the courts. And unless you have witnesses and jurors who come into the court system and believe in it and respect it and think it's on the up and up and know you're trying to do a good job, the system's not going to work. Let's start off this discussion with a definition. Rebecca, you're responsible for the national initiatives dealing with the community outreach. And we heard a little bit about community outreach in our earlier interview with David Sellers. But would you please provide us with kind of a working definition of community outreach? Well, first I'd like to acknowledge that the federal courts have been doing outreach long before I joined the system about two and a half years ago from the Minnesota Supreme Court. But if I were to summarize what I've learned over the years about outreach, I would describe it as a series of initiatives that evolve over time that are a core part of the court's function that help to advance the court's mission that are effective in creating meaningful interaction between the courts and the publics that they serve, that they're specific to particular constituencies, and that they match their needs and interests between the courts and the public. Talk to us a little bit about what you see as the main criteria for community outreach programs. Well, as you know, with outreach there's no shortage of good ideas. And so the real effort is to focus, to focus our thinking and focus our efforts in limited resources. So what we've found to be effective is to use four criteria, knowledge, understanding, investment, and involvement. So when we're talking about knowledge, that's the operations, the structure, and the function of the courts, then understanding puts the human face on the judiciary, and you're going to see examples of programs people at this table have put together where that rapport and that human face comes forth. And then investment is convincing law-abiding citizens that they have an investment in a well-run judicial system, and last of all, involvement. Making sure that citizens feel comfortable enough in the courthouse so that they will respond to jury duty and will get involved and be critical thinkers of the system and feel that they can make a change. As you mentioned, there are so many ideas out there. That encompasses really a wide area of possible programs and activities. Tell us a little bit about some of the programs on the national initiative and how do you define success in those programs? Well, we have about eight national initiatives that we've launched in the past two and a half years, and most of them are ongoing. I think the flagship program in these first two years has been La Day, and Dick really was at the forefront of developing a very creative approach to that program, and even went so far as to contact the media in his community and live to tell about it, and so I certainly hope he will do that. And then now we are developing a national initiative that will be creating a niche for federal judges, and we're calling it Open Doors of Justice, the Bill of Rights in Your Life, to describe the relationship of the federal courts with the federal court system, the relationship of the Bill of Rights with the federal courts, and that is going to be launched October 24th and 25th. Information is on the JNET, so we can follow up with that or you can call me for more information. We also have a series of lesson plans that support this booklet, Understanding the Federal Courts, it's a 42-page booklet and we have five lesson plans that meet all the criteria that teachers have told us they need in order to be able to use these lesson plans. And so I'll be brief here and move into evaluation. We go back to the criteria that we have for selecting the programs that we use, but really evaluation comes from the participants. So we start the process of selecting a program by talking to judges, teachers, students, and other participants. So all of our programs are driven by them and then they tell us how they feel about it and how it was received. And we do written evaluations by everyone who participated, and we also do videotaped exit interviews. And we always feed that information back into the programs and you're going to see differences each year because of that. That's great. Just a reminder that we've included in your reference materials a link to the AO's outreach website and one of them is called Courts to Classes, the Federal Judiciary's home page for educators. And now that we've provided a definition and we've heard a little bit about the National Initiative, what does community outreach mean in your court? What are the benefits? Dick, Roscoe, let's start with you. Okay, Bob, for us educational outreach really in Vermont is kind of composed of two program parts. We have a kind of an informal program and also a formal program. On the informal side of the house we're very receptive to bringing in student groups and classes into our court to see our court operations and we'll generally give them a brief overview of what we're doing and that's the informal side of our program. On the formal side of our program, of course as most courts do, we have a formal jury program, but we also rely on the National Initiatives that Rebecca's office is planning with. Law Day 2000 last year and also the Bill of Rights this year. And we're fairly successful in our Law Day program last year and I think for three important reasons. First, our judges took an active interest in the program and that's kind of key. It turns out that all of our judges, myself included, have a spouse that's affiliated with our local school groups. So my wife is a teacher and a couple of our judges, one is a school administrator and one is a guidance counselor. So we kind of have a key link with the educational system and I think that's important. Secondly, we tried to make it fun. We had a lot of promotional items that we used. We had a pretty good quality golf shirt that we superimposed, a logo of the Law Day 2000 logo on. It was in color. We handed them, we had a mug, we had some pocket constitution, pencils and pens and we all wrapped that up with a tote bag which also had the logo. So they had something tangible to relate to with the program which they actually had when they left and that was given to both the presenters and the participants. And lastly, we kind of had a media angle that we used and that was we had a regional Associated Press news correspondent that we selected as our program moderator and facilitator and that worked for us. It kind of gave a little bit of legitimacy to our program from the media perspective and I did go out and actively solicit the media to come and take a look at the event and they did and it worked out real well. Great. Cam, tell us about these programs in Idaho and the impact. First I wanted to commend to you the programs that are done on a national level. They're excellent. They develop the curriculum and it takes very little on the local courts part because they already have done a lot of the hard work at the national level. Community outreach to us is educating our customers in a manner to promote public trust and confidence in the judiciary. We all read that the judiciary is the least understood of the branches of the government. I happen to believe that we should do everything we can to educate the bar public and our stakeholders about the role of the government. In Idaho we have a four part program. We reach out to schools. We reach out to the bar and the community. We also include outreach to members of Congress and the media as well. That's great. These are all great ideas and certainly there are so many programs for outreach. A basic question I'm sure is how do you do this with limited resources? Cam? Well you want to get a good group of judges and volunteers within your own court. Then you can also partner with the bar and develop speakers bureaus. But the easiest way to do it I think on limited resources is to share programs with the state bar. It might be the ends of court. It might be the county bar association. It might be any number of those kind of things. We do interpreter training as a shared program. Attorney CLE's annual CLE's and new attorney orientations all partnering with the state bar. Rebecca what would you recommend? Well I would say that my major theme is low investment high profile programming. So that's where we start at the national level. Here's an example of how we've done that. We took our law day program and made it, we edited it and repackaged it and made it teachers institute. So we brought teachers into the local courthouses and then sent them away with a videotape and lesson plans so that they can use those over the next years to reach students in their classrooms. And I happen to be in Boise helping with the teachers institute there and we got a really positive response. That's great. Dick what would you add? Bob there's a lot of excellent publications that are out there available to the federal courts specifically. Rebecca had mentioned understanding the federal courts. The one that we rely on to our classes coming in is welcome to the federal court and I think there's another one out there federal courts and what they do. So they're excellent resources and a lot of courts also have available to them non-appropriated funds which they can actually use to fund educational items which could be of use. And I'd like to mention too the public affairs videotapes all of our programs and we have lesson plans and other materials that support them and those are all free to teachers and to judges and court staff. And then we have the website that I mentioned that has the lesson plans that support the understanding the federal courts. Let's talk about the important role that judges play in all of this. We've seen Judge Aspen in fact as part of our role in taking a very active role in these community outreach efforts. Rebecca let's start with you in terms of judge participation. Okay well we know from a 1999 Hearst survey that 75% of the respondents said that they want to learn more about the courts from judges. So we see that as a real opportunity and I know that when I went to Boise to be part of the Teachers Institute and when I've participated in Dan's programs I can see that. It's not just the students who light up, the adults light up and the judges really are very warm and receptive and friendly and it makes such a difference. It really does put that human face on the judiciary. I agree. They play a leadership role certainly but they also can promote it within your own outreach efforts. We found that the kids always ask if the judge isn't part of our program where's the judge? They really want to hear from the judge and it's a rare opportunity where the judge can talk one-on-one with members of the community. We also mentioned partnering with other groups that is those groups that may have space or money or what have you to help but Dan you've done a lot of programs as I understand it with the Bar Association why don't you tell us a little bit about them? Sure. We've gone out of our way in the Northern District of Illinois to try to find programs for every one of the Bar Associations that operate in the city, the county and in the state and it's been successful to date. And just briefly some of those that we've done we've partnered with the Federal Bar Association for an annual award for pro bono and public service public interest service law which has also proven to be somewhat successful in gaining attention because in the mainstream media because it's not just law related but it's it's there's a much broader interest because it's you're dealing with the poor. Secondly we've worked with the as videotape showed the annual James Benton Parsons Day we've gone with the hooked up with the Cook County Bar Association which is the nation's oldest African American law bar group and we've had hundreds and hundreds of students show up for that program over the last two three times we've done it. And there are several more but not to be overlooked are resources that are in every courthouse in the country and that is partnership with the FBI, the US Attorney's Office, the United States Marshall Service we have a program in Chicago that we bring in students from public schools who are sophomores and juniors interested in law and law related education careers and they get a half day presentation first for me and then from representatives of the law enforcement agencies to give them an idea that there are opportunities within the judiciary and within the judicial system for career advancement and it's a great target and to target for diversity which is what we also make a point at with each one of these activities. And they also get to see the larger context if you will of what groups constitute the judiciary. Correct. To just keep talking a little bit about partnering I know you do a lot of partnering with the state bar particularly on the citizens law academy explain a little bit about that. Our Chief Judge's administrative assistant has done an incredible job. It's part of the Idaho Law Foundation and it's a program that's not unlike a college class. It's 11 weeks, 22 hours where citizens apply and become accepted into this program. They learn about the role of the courts, the constitution, separation of powers, police enforcement, the role of the juror. And what we find is that these citizens come back really excited about the judiciary. They become ambassadors for the court and the community. We have two examples of training new attorneys. We have with us on push to talk from the southern district of Texas, Michael Millby, the clerk of court there in Houston. Mike, you have a rather formal method of working with new attorneys. Tell us a little bit about the program that you've implemented. Just as a school children don't understand the third branch of government that a lot of attorneys don't understand the third branch of government. So we implemented a new attorney training program. It's been going on as they knew about a decade now and it's a real formal class. They get CLA credit for it and in that program they get to hear from just about every agency that they'll have any dealings with the federal court. They hear from my office, from the public defender, the United States attorney, probation, pre-trial, United States trustee's office. All of us basically give them a small amount of information about how they can interface with our offices and where to go, phone numbers, those types of things. One of the neat parts of it is we actually have judges speak and they'll talk a little bit about differences in practice between federal court and state court. There's some unique things in Texas state court that are different here than federal court and there's also a session on ethics that we have at the very last. Thanks Michael. We also have with us Laura Briggs, clerk of the court for the Southern District of Indiana. Laura, you have what's called a young attorney seminar. Tell us a little bit about it and how did you ensure judge participation? Our program is actually somewhat similar to the program put out in the Southern District of Texas and we have a sort of a more nuts and bolts approach. We go through matters such as how cases are assigned to certain judges, how emergency motions are handled, what is the division of work between district and magistrate judges. We give the new attorneys a list of resources, local rules, review the attorney handbook, tell them about our web page and we also review some important local rules regarding formatting of documents, local practice like never filing documents with chambers and we review some more legal matters. We go over ex parte communication and we also review courtroom decorum, how jurors are selected and the digital evidence presentation system is reviewed. We have judges participate in the program to talk about primarily courtroom decorum and even matters such as legal style and questioning witnesses, some things, particular judges don't like to hear. We have a judge who hates it when attorneys say to a witness, isn't it true that? We give the judges an opportunity to have their own voice heard and their preferences made known and by giving the judges the opportunity to give that kind of input to new attorneys, we've had excellent participation by the judges here. Laura, just as a follow up if you could give us one or two sentences, what do you think is the real value to the court if you will in terms of the young attorney seminar? I think the real value to the court is that it allows young attorneys to have an opportunity to learn what the differences are between state and federal practice like in Texas and Indiana actually state practice is very different than federal practice so it gives the attorneys an opportunity to come in and be more prepared to appear before a judge and to comply with our local rules and procedures and make the judges happier overall. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much Laura. So we're educating the bar programs now for other programs for educating public particularly for school kids. Dick, what do you have? Well, I guess the key component or idea would be to try to establish and develop a very, very good working relationship with your local schools and your educators and we do that. Again, we welcome the students into our court and our operation we're very receptive to that. We try to link it with a proceeding if we have a court proceeding the kids like to watch that whether it's a motion hearing or a trial so that's kind of a key component. Our judges always take time out too after the proceeding to visit with the students. They have an active interest in that and that really builds a supporting relationship and if we have time we'll give them a tour especially sometimes of the U.S. Marshals Service and give them some gadgets up there and the kids like to see that so anything that we can do to acquaint and educate the public is what we're trying to accomplish. I've seen a lot of creativity in the courts. When we launched our law day programs, for example, some courts have added a job fair others have added tours of their electronic court rooms it's been very interesting to see that they look at this as a court program but they don't stop there. They add to it and so it's really interesting and that's where I think we're working on having a presence on the JNIT where court personnel and judges can go to this JNIT and kind of look at it as a catalog to see what other jurisdictions are doing and exchange information. So they add to it and give that local flavor. Yes. I can bear witness to that. I blatantly stole a program from the First Circuit in Boston very much along the lines of what you just heard described in Southern Indiana and in Texas but at the law school level we have seven law schools in the Northern District of Illinois. They're all invited in one at a time and then they're given a presentation by an Article 3 Magistrate bankruptcy judge. No problem getting those people to do that. Those judges involve because they are drawn from the alum, their alums are the school that's there that day. And then a short break and then a presentation from the U.S. Attorney, an assistant U.S. Attorney the federal defender and then someone from either probation or pretrial services takes an afternoon and as we found out from the exits reviews of people leaving that the majority of those students had never, even though they're in law school, they've never been inside a courthouse of any kind, anywhere. So you can never start this too early. And again, it's an intentional effort at an early stop in the development of a lawyer to again try to bring other people before the federal bar, more women, more minorities, etc. Right. And you know Dan, your comment reminds me that you were really on the cutting edge in this two-year pilot program that was mentioned earlier in the show and we had four jurisdictions that participated in that and in two years they launched 48 original programs that reached people in elder hostels all the way through elementary schools. And now we have a total of six jurisdictions involved and so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they develop. Cam, in our role into this particular segment, we heard a little bit about the Goldilocks trial in Jack and the Beanstalk. Tell us a little bit more about this. Well, it's a very rewarding part of the our outreach program. We probably go through 800 to 1,000 kids per year. I think we had 301 week. But Goldilocks is accused of a heinous crime. She broke into the bearer's cabin. She broke property and there was destruction of property as well. And so the kids do a great job putting that on. They try it. They serve as the attorneys. They aggressively defend the rights of their clients and the rest of the Clascus to serve as jurors. A lot of times they try to change the facts of the case not unlike what attorneys try to do. So we give them a little counseling. But it's always interesting to see the verdict is never the same. It's never the same on the verdict because and then there's a learning lesson there. We have the kids describe why it is that they reached the verdict that they did. So we assume then that Jack in the Beanstalk is a capital offense? You bet. Jack in the Beanstalk murdered the giant by cutting the Beanstalk down. Rebecca, anything to add on? Yes. One of the most rewarding things for me has been developing a very strong network across the country with social studies teachers. Middle school and high school teachers. So I go to national and regional social studies conferences and every year our exhibit that we put together is seen by more than 6,000 teachers. And we have targeted juniors and seniors in high school because those are the students who are closest to getting into the jury pool and we want them to feel comfortable coming into the courthouse so that when they get their jury summons they'll feel they want to respond. Let's go off site to another one of our push to talk sites. Jim Gilmour, Chief Deputy of Northern California. Your court works with the community at large and I know you have an intern program in San Francisco but it's one that employs disadvantaged kids. Tell us just a little bit about that program. Well Bob, we've been lucky recently to get hooked up to a program run by the Center for Youth Development through law at the University of California. This is a 10 week program for kids that are identified by high school teachers in some of the inner city schools in the East Bay as having aptitude and interest in law or legal administration. They send them here to us to work with us to learn how to work and to learn how the court works. We put them to work seven hours a day, four days a week, one day a week they're in school and we send them through the entire organization as much as we can and let them do useful work and also let them observe what goes on. This is a program that's been very interesting for us. Great, thanks so much Jim. We're going to be opening up the lines for Push to Talk shortly. If any of the sites out there have programs they'd like to highlight, we'd sure like to hear about them. It's a good way of sharing information across our, for everybody else. Let's move now from schools and students to a really important part of community outreach and that is dealing with jurors. For many citizens that's the first contact with the federal courts. Dick, how have you worked with jurors? Exactly Bob, jurors represent a very high large percentage of our clientele that we deal with and we take our jury program pretty serious. And I think the cornerstone of that, our program rests upon feedback after every civil trial is completed and the parties are dismissed, the judges meet with the jurors individually again they're interested in feedback and a response from the jurors. We also have a very detailed exit questionnaire that we utilize and the judges look at this religiously and some of the things that we're asking them are, was their stay at the jury facilities, are they adequate? Do they have any suggestions or comments for improvement of our program? Did we make effective use of their time? Was the jury orientation effective? And on and on and again the judges are very very involved in this and very active and sometimes we shift our operations accordingly. And the last point I'd like to make is that it helps very much if you have a very personable and outgoing jury administrator. And we do. Cam, what would you say? I would echo that some and have a great jury administrator that spoils the jurors from the first time they come in the door. We do much the same thing I think the jurors really appreciate hearing from the judges after the trial. But we also use the web for some information directions to the courthouse, frequently asked questions and even the jury guide is available so that they can be prepared before they come to the courthouse. That's great. We did receive a fax and I thank the court for sending this fax. Here's the question. How much lead time should you have when you're going to start some of these programs? For example, Judge Parsons Day, how long did it take to set up what about other programs like student mock trials? Lead time, it depends. If you're going to involve anything involving school students, you have to factor in the summer break or the semester break or quarter breaks, whatever system the high school, grade school or college university happens to be on. Parsons event took the first time through, probably took off and on the better part of two months. Not obviously 40 hours a week, but it took two months to get it all lined up, thought through the program developed, speakers lined up. The second time took a couple weeks because you don't reinvent that wheel again. You've already got the template laid out of how to go about it. And that's true with almost every program that we've done in the Northern District of Illinois. Cam relating to the program on Goldilocks and Jack, how long did it take for you to prepare that program? Well, like Dan, we stole something that was created in the Cook County Superior Court years ago. It was actually a play. And we turned the play into a script so that the kids could actually try the case instead of the actors trying the case. That took about 30 days. But again, now that the script and the curriculum is done, if a school calls up today this morning we could do it this afternoon if we have available. We just need one person in the clerk's office to help them through the trial and rule on objections and help the students along the way. If I can add, by doing multiple programs like this, it builds confidence to do more. Once you've done one successfully, you know you're going to do it successfully the next time with that program and most likely on a different program. So it encourages you to go out and be, if you've met with success once, you feel you're going to be successful in the future in other attempts. And I think it's important to have the attitude of approaching it with lessons learned. So that when you do your evaluation, which I know we spend a lot of time evaluating the national program both within our office and again seeking out very candid opinions. And I just so appreciate that from judges and court staff that we take that as our lessons learned and then that allows us to look forward to next year and how we can improve. Great. Let me throw this open now for the push to talk sites out there. We'd love to find out any of the other kinds of programs that are done locally in the courts that anyone would like to share. Now's the time to do it. Okay. We've reached, just about reached the end of our time here today on this subject and for the program. So let me just ask one question. One last question. What's really the bottom line here in terms of developing an outreach program? What do you think is the key? Rebecca, let's start with you. Well, I would say to identify and use your resources. There are so many resources out there and I would hope that my phone number would be at the top of your list because if we don't have that particular resource that will meet the needs of a particular audience, we can help you find those resources. And then the second thing is to look at this outreach effort as a long term sustained commitment because you're not going to get change overnight. And I think that we've all found that the programs get better and have a greater impact the longer that we do them. Great. Cam? Well, you want to get the commitment from the Board of Judges and the commitment from the staff. In our district we have a training coordinator that also doubles as the outreach coordinator and does a tremendous job. But if you're just starting out start small gain some enthusiasm and your program will build from there. Finally, incorporate into your long range plan. If you're serious about this, it's got to be in the mission and your long range plan so that you can meet the goals of serving the public. Great. Dick? Very similar to Cam. I think you have to have an active approach, a proactive approach. You have to solicit input and listen to that input and adjust accordingly. Last word, Dan? The last word is it's stated over and over. It's no longer an option. It's something that must be done. And at least on an annual basis the chief judge and the clerk of court need to sit down and assess where are we and where are we going. That about does it for this broadcast. Before I come back with some final thoughts here are a few more points to remember about community outreach. Today we've taken a look at the important role the clerk performs in helping to manage the public information and outreach activities. And some of the challenges and practices proven to be effective for our panelists and push to talk participants. I hope you found this broadcast to be informative and directly related to what you do on the job. Let me remind you to please complete an evaluation. That was part of your downloadable materials on the DCN. As always we appreciate your feedback. Also we invite you to access the court operations exchange on the FJC home page. There you find information that courts have posted and are sharing with colleagues throughout the federal court system. It's a great resource. Before closing I'd also like to thank our panelists and all of our push to talk participants for their willingness to share their experiences in this important subject area. You know that's really a vital part of the learning process. And a special thanks goes to David Sellers and the staff of the administrative office public affairs office for partnering with us in this effort. In closing a lot of what we've talked about today deals with communicating effectively. In his work on leadership wisdom Larry Liberty notes that communication is more than just speaking and being understood. It's about clarity of thinking, willingness to listen and the desire to see what someone else sees exactly the way they see things. It rests upon generosity and courage as much as skill. Thank you for joining us today. Keep an eye on the FJT Yen bulletin for other upcoming programs of interest to all court staff. We'll see you on our next FJT Yen broadcast.