 If I could just address first the comment you made about your honor, about domestic cases and about people who have the jobs that involve collaboration and talking to families and counseling of family law, it seems to me is one of the areas that's so hard hit by the budget cuts and those are the first jobs to go. So because there are too few judges in family law, because those kinds of people are the first to go with the budget cuts, those kinds of services, I'm afraid, may not be available anymore even though they are so valued and so important. Which would justify or maybe give greater credence to this collaborative law approach where they're not in the court system, they're dealing outside of the court system and solving their own problems. The reason the concept materialized is to avoid the tension and the negativity that you find when you enter into the court system for a dissolution of a marital relationship. But if you're saying that California especially is experiencing a diminution of availability of court personnel, it would stand to reason that these alternative means of dealing with a dissolution of a family would maybe get greater traction and can that be a model than for some of the other disputes that present themselves to courts and find that they're not getting the attention that they need. Yeah, although I think once again the problem will be money who pays for that. But I agree with everything that you said about certainty, predictability, that's what business clients say to you, that's what business clients say to me, that is what they want from the courts. And if complex courts are what we're calling specialty courts, then complex courts are really a good and viable alternative for business and business clients seem to appreciate them. That said at least in California and I expect in other states as well that have complex courts we don't know how many of those complex divisions will be able to keep open. So when we talk about the idea of specialty courts, health courts as you mentioned for example or anything along those lines, I have to ask myself even though it sounds great for not only business but for plaintiffs, where do we, how do we do that, how do we get to there, what is the way to there with the kind of budget constraints that we have and maybe that's something we can talk about in our solution discussion either today or tomorrow but I hope so. And then lastly ADR, it's a great thing, 90% of the cases at least on the civil side should probably settle at some point but the 10% that need to go to trial should be able to get through the system and be tried civilly and so ADR is a great tool but I don't see it as a real solution. I applaud each one of these ideas but as some panelists said, one size doesn't fit at all and I've had experience in the specialty courts that have been both good and extremely bad. I tried a case recently in Florida where they have a business court, they have one judge in that division because they can't afford other judges. That judge is notorious for having decisions about a year after you make a try something in front of him or even a motion. You then have that judge telling you that unless you can try the case in three weeks, now mind you, it's a complex litigation that he'll declare a mistrial and you have to start over again, okay? So in effect you have to waive a jury trial so that he can take a piecemeal. This is a horrible situation. I had an experience in another Florida court in complex litigation which is very positive so I'm not saying that it's one way or the other. But I think unfortunately we're getting lost a little bit in the weeds and not really talking about the real issue and the real issue is the underfunding of the courts and whether you put the money into more specialty courts or into more judges or more alternative dispute resolution in Florida, we have retired judges, senior judges who can come in and try cases at $100 a day but we ran out of money that each would like to put on their financial statement to create something called jobs and new technology resources but they can't do it because we don't have judges. We don't have courtrooms. We don't have a fully functioning court system. Now all these ideas have their place and the more efficient we can be the better off we are and I've heard from people in the domestic area who believe the collaborative system is impossible and they have started talking out against it because they're saying husbands and wives have very different legal rights and it's all great until somebody realizes that their rights weren't protected. Now I'm in favor of trying the collaborative approach but at the end of the day the real issue and what we have to be talking about is a way of funding the courts and I know we have a solution part of this agenda but one thing the dean talked a little bit about is how awkward it is for the courts who will ultimately have to rule on these issues. We are at a litigation point. We are at a tipping point in this whole discussion and we can discuss that further as the day goes on but one of the ways we can avoid some of those problems is what they do and believe it's Washington now what Judge Lipman in the New York litigation solution was and that's have a citizens panel that is constructed to determine what are the needs of the judiciary. So you remove it from the legislative branch, you remove it from the court system, you separate it but you talk about what is really necessary and then unless the legislature affirmatively vetoes that and the executive affirmatively vetoes that that becomes the judicial budget of the state. Those are the kind of things that we need to have in place so that business can have a fully functioning court system. We have to remember that today we're in a global economy and we're in a global profession. Data businesses, all major businesses, none of them have to be part of the US justice system. They can go to England or France or anywhere else they want to do it in different ways than we have. If they feel they can get their problems resolved they're not going to come to an environment where the rule of law doesn't exist and the rule of law begins with one word, it's access. It's no more or less than one word. This whole meeting is about one word, it's access and without sufficient funding there's just no access. I think that puts the problem in perhaps too dark a perspective. The very serious problem, but I'm not sure it's the only problem, is the case where the courts have done everything they can possibly do to be efficient with the resources that they have and the legislature still under funds them to the point where they've got to turn off the lights and fire half their employees. We need to talk about that, there's no question about it. But I also think that part of the problem is in the gray area where you have courts that are having shrinking resources, that are shrinking resources from the legislature and need to find ways to use that maximally, that is as efficiently as possible. And there is some room I think for discussion. Let me just make one point on that and then we can go back to yours. In our state, you know, we ran into that problem in connection with the Court of Chancery which is I think with the nation's first specialized business court, although it wasn't created for that and although it does a lot more than business law. They needed another judge but they knew that that was going to encounter legislative resistance and it also threatened the collegiality of the court because the more judges you have, the harder it is for everybody to talk to each other. The solution they arrived at with and the bargain they made with the legislature was for the existing judges to get one extra law clerk to help them do their caseload and that solved that problem and it was a lot cheaper than adding another judge. One last point, excuse me, we also have both in the court of law and in the court of equity, masters and commissioners which are judicial officers but they have a limited jurisdiction. They're not full what we call article three judges. They decide cases either of lesser magnitude or they make recommendations which the judges themselves can either adopt or not and convert into judgments. Those are also budget savers but they increase the manpower of the court. But if you're talking about turning off the lights, I think the dean said there are really only two recourses that we have and I think there'll be others that are going to talk about it. One is you can litigate and the other is you've got to find a political solution. We've had some experience with judges litigating over their own salaries and it's been very unpleasant and very disruptive and I think that may be in the long run of losing battle. So my own view and I hope we'll hear from others is how do you make it politically attractive. Well John was a great speaker of the house but unfortunately it was 20 years ago when Florida, even though we're called the sunshine state, we're a lot darker than you are in Delaware because only 0.7% of 1% goes to a judiciary number one and the solution legislature was to get rid of the pension funds for the judges and to make them take salary cuts. We're in a much different environment I think your honor than you may be and I think unfortunately most states are in the Florida side of that equation but John you had to deal with it when you were speaker. Well I was just going to mention that both those issues are capacity issues either you're reducing capacity or you're trying to find ways to enhance capacity which responds to the business problem of both certainty and timeliness. So that is a matter of making the case. You know what is the case for expanding that extra judge and if you have the business community come to the legislature and say this is going to help us because judges it's difficult for judges to lobby and to deal with the legislature because they might have a different logic system perhaps. So the the ability to say we are doing everything we can which means you're doing this efficiently and to have a formula and to be able to make the case and then say we're going to actually improve your economy and save you resources. We're going to use dispute resolution and we're going to use effective courts because business will tell you that makes it faster more certain and more effective. So it's bringing those together it seems to be the ADR thing and the business issue deals with two opposite ends of the spectrum both of which need help which is the legally less complex which ought not to be in court even though it may be emotionally complex and there might be a right way to do that and the highly complex legally which is going to if you don't have specialty courts will sap resources that are otherwise doing normal or more regular civil litigation and criminal litigation. So as a strategy combining all these things but making the case that we're here to save you money legislature. What role do you think the bar plays in this dilemma that the courts find themselves in? The delay for example is that calculated? Is it you know oftentimes yes you have the complaint that the judges don't rule or the judges are lax in their rulings and they're not keeping you know the bars the attorney's feet to the fire and and they're allowing for too many continuances and that's just a clog and a drain on the system. So what is the responsibility of the bar when you're in a system like this? The bar has an absolute responsibility. Judges cannot speak for themselves. They are the worst a matter of fact it's a person you get out there speaking. I mean the bars performance in the courtroom in the in this system themselves not advocating for the before the legislature because you know we understand that role and business and other facts that you know can come before the legislature and say you know this is a story but actually sometimes you know the the trial tactics the discovery tactics things like that get in the way of the efficiencies of the courts. We just changed our oath of office last month in Florida to add civility into the code. It only it only took us a couple hundred years but we're we're right at the at the point of the parade and I discussed that also at the at the ABA opening assembly. Civility is clearly an issue that in today's world with cable the cable networks even making it worse than it was before people saying you know we grew up with the statement that I don't agree with what you're saying but I'll defend to your death you're right to say it. Today it's I don't agree with what you were saying I hate you if you say it and if you say it I will raise my voice as loud as I can so you can't be heard. I mean we have really gone in the opposite direction lost our way unfortunately some of that has seeped into our profession we're a very visible profession and the public assumes that all lawyers act that way and unfortunately enough of them do that it gives some credence to that issue but the abuses in discovery again are among the things that we have to fix but it if there wasn't a single abuse in discovery if you don't have a judge to rule on a case you still have our justice system at risk and that's why I say that each of these issues are important are solvable and we have an obligation to solve them but without the resources and the political solution that your honor talked about that john talked about I think it'd be a disaster for a judge to file a lawsuit that they're not getting enough money for example that's not the issue the issue is whether the justice system in the state is a functioning justice system I know in florida we have in our constitution article two says for every wrong there has to be a remedy it's in our constitution well you can't have a remedy if you don't have a courtroom and a judge to hear your case listen well uh you know I agree the problem is under funding and you have to address that but I would also say and there are solutions and the politics is obviously a part of it I've spent my entire career in washington which i'm proud to say um where i've been dealing with advocacy and you have to have a constituency in order to make it in order to make a case for a solution to a legislature and I do think the business community can play a very vital role in that um you have to reach out I don't think it's just the the bar that plays the role I think it's the companies themselves and to use your state and local chambers and the US chamber and other business groups to make them understand which will play a part in what the impact is to go to the legislatures and do that lobbying but that said I think the other issues that we're discussing um specialized courts or ADR or do you change venue laws they're all a part of the puzzle because you're not going to wave a magic wand right and fix the problem overnight so how do you put together a package of measures or promote as the ABA some of these ideas um you certainly discuss them really well in in the commission's report um you asked Justice O'Connor about the um role what role does the bar play and kind of getting rid of some of the problems that were that we're focusing on and I would tell you I think a very real part civility is is obviously a piece of it but um a couple of of examples that I can tell you when we have moved as the Institute for Legal Reform in states to try to pass some legal reforms or get some changes that might make things more efficient um we don't necessarily always have the plaintiff's bar opposed to us a lot of the time we do but um the defense bar and and I'm sorry if people want to shoot the messenger that's okay but the defense bar sits on its hands because that's where you get your business so we have a hard time oftentimes getting the people who are representing the companies to get out there and push for some of these reforms and it's the God's honest truth I've had it happen in many states or I've seen it happen in many states and we've had to go back to the companies and say did you know that your counsel is fighting us um and so it is I do think there is a responsibility to do that and then I also think there's a responsibility on the part of the companies not to just sit there and settle every single case because if you do more I find more and more litigation starts to pile up it's what happened in asbestos and it's happening in other areas and so if they feel that they have been wronged or that there's going to continue to be a problem area then they need to try the case and see if they can make some of the problem go away with regard to the to the litigation well I just think what what I'm hearing what I hope is part of the solution and what I think the report on the ABA's report addresses is organized communication and collaboration and what we really I think need to focus on is how do we or really get organized and I think that means that we have to get outside ourselves as a profession to business to legislators to to because we've been preaching to the choir for so very long but also the bar can help with the present problems first of all the bar is more than happy to help if any court asks it to secondly one thing we started to do in california that seems to be working extremely well because there are so many of these cases that are not complex that should be off the docket and that are reasonably easy to clear we had something that we call the crash program and we did it by subject areas and employment was one of them and we had volunteers from the plaintiff and the defense side from all across the community come into the court for a week and all the judges cleared their calendars for a week and for each lawyer committed to spend one or two days and each defense lawyer had a plaintiff's lawyer partner and i'm not sure what the total number of cases that we moved off the docket in that one week was but i can tell you that it was significant and in the cases that i was involved with we settled all of the cases so i think one way to help is to lessen the load of the court and the bar can be enlisted to help with that at least as a temporary measure you know we ought to take moment just for your last word collaboration whenever last year i didn't build those right now goes to a defense bar association the first thing they'll tell you is the a b a is run by plaintiff's lawyers when you go to the plaintiff's bar they'll tell you it's run by defense lawyers uh it never fails i promise you but when have we ever had a collaboration that existed between the a b a the federalist society a boda the conference of chief justice the american chamber we're all saying the same thing if we really believe it why can't we collaborate in a way that makes a statement that this is a societal problem that goes to the very heart of our of our justice system you know when you mentioned sander dale connor i think she has the best quote of anybody who's ever dealt with any of these issues and she says that in every society there has to be a safe place and in a democracy that safe place must be the court system there's nothing better that can summarize everything we're talking about and that safe place we've all determined by sitting up here and by coming to this conference is in jeopardy so how do we collaborate going to your question is bar associations and bar leaders in different organizations to make this a statement that this is a universal problem and it's not you know the rich against the poor the big against the small whatever any kind of divisions that people want to put in play how do we do that that's a good good way to end our portion of the discussion and maybe open it up to some questions from the audience that can generate some additional discussion i think that what i'm hearing from our conversation here is that it's a multifaceted problem obviously that there is a push an initiative that must be a collaborative effort in order to preserve the integrity of the court system and the access of its citizens to the court system but there's also a responsibility of the courts to demonstrate efficiencies and demonstrate that they have the innovation and the foresight and the vision and the integrity and the industry to do what they can to be good stewards of the monies that are allocated and and to provide the service and if that if those two initiatives come together i think we will serve the business climate as well as the you know the average citizen that comes to the court for you know your slip and fall or or whatever else they're trying to access the courts in order to resolve it's going to take a collaboration again from the courts and the bar association the legislatures but uh i'm optimistic that it can be done i'm not i'm not very pessimistic and i don't like to use the word dark when we're talking about the situation because i think that there there are ways we're we're in a good place to affect a good good solution here so i would like to open the discussion further to the folks that are sitting out there and i remind you there are microphones available don't all rush we couldn't have done that good a job yeah really we didn't cover the waterfront here all right bill weisenberg my question is to john millis and let me just a couple of weeks ago i called you and i asked you a question and you remember this the question was pretty simple when you were speaker of the house on how many occasions did a group of constituents ever come to talk with you about court funding never okay the question is let's fast forward now 20 years and your speaker of the house today because we're talking about collaboration and let's be honest we'll talk about lobbying if i were going to call if i set a meeting up with you who would you want me to bring to talk with you and who would influence you and make a difference with regard to front this issue i'm your i'm the lobbyist who would you suggest i bring with me beside the two people beside lisa in the chamber and aboda who else who else should i have with me there because it's isn't it doesn't come down to who the constituency is and who comes to visit with you and the and the and uh and who they represent sure you'd want to have corporate representatives civic group representatives people that could explain something out even outside of their direct interest they have a community interest and and judges but when you and i had this conversation before we also said then the average individual legislator knows that there are 20 judges in his district and there are 50 000 parents and school teachers and the judges don't lobby that much you can't but i mean bill's uh and one of the things bill is doing for the task force this year that is continuing steve's work is to figure out how we do that i mean it's a communication issue and a lobbying issue but in particularly also in response to what you said that the uh you have to show you're efficient if you're going to ask for something um one of the first questions should be what have you done right how to make a good system even better is always you know a theme that i that i discuss i i find it you know maybe i'm naive on this but i'm i find it disconcerting that you've got to come and and plead a case with lobbyists no offense bill but but to get uh you know to get this issue uh resolved into to identify and have a legislature realize the importance of the third branch of government is a pretty sad commentary on the legislative conscience if and and psyche if they don't realize that the third branch of government is every bit as equal and powerful and essential to our society um i think maybe the fault lies with the quality of the legislator if they're not going to recognize that that is you know inherent in in our checks and balances system is just so um you know it that's hard but but you always have to make your case you always have to identify what you've done to help yourself to improve your institution and if you can do that um the the uh you know the results should be there oh no i don't normally impune the intelligence of legislators uh there i'm not talking about their intelligence i'm just talking about maybe their perspective their knowledge and skill level of the united states constitution in their own uh well there i i think you have to say there are examples of the legislature constantly and referring to the uh the judiciary as an agency and not understanding it's a separate branch or not treating it as a separate branch and even doing cutbacks um that are uh saying well we'll just do a proportional cutback to all the agencies and that's uh so there is an education issue there is an issue of um judges inviting legislators into their courtrooms and uh just elevating the level of of the conversation because uh i i don't think you can assume you know the aba has the aba day on the hill which we do every year bring about 500 lawyers to washington we do we have three of all our resolutions we designate three is the ones we're gonna focus on because that's all you can do at any one time and we meet with the individual legislators both leadership the house the senate and we've had some pretty good success uh legal services corporation as poorly funded as it is wouldn't exist today at all if it wasn't for those aba days there was a 125 million dollar cut that was proposed we eliminated it to 17 million not not what we wanted but still not 125 million we need to do that state by state and we have a what's called at least in the uh it's an organization called national conference of bar presidents that meets at the same time as the aba they have resources to go to their state legislatures i mean what tim o'neill said all politics is local uh and i think a lot of people said it before him so going back to bill's question we've got to get people who are on their election committee or on their campaign you know who they've gone time and again to be elected who they have that they think they're supposed to have some interest in what they think so i do think that we need to be better organized to go back to your honor you know what the bar can do i think we can do more i i see part of the problem not the whole problem but a significant part of it is that the average citizen does not know the importance of the courts in our society they are ill informed in their education about the three branches of government and the checks and balances and then when you think about kids today youth and how they're exposed to the courts it's they get their information from television and i say this more than once that they come home from school they turn on the television and those ridiculous judge shows are on in the afternoon and they think that judges are you know snippy disrespectful ugly people and so why do they want to have a judge you know the courts preserve you go down to the the evening shows and judges are portrayed as permudgins buffoons incompetence corrupt and lawyers don't fare much better in the evening shows either i always say that you know there's no Atticus Finches around you know in evening tv in the american uh entertainment world uh so we need to do a better job as lawyers and judges and go into the communities and the schools and really reteach or teach for the first time an emphasis on the importance of the judiciary and how we are protectors of your rights every right that you get from the constitution every right that you think you have and you know that's the first thing you hear out of people i have a right to do this well you know how do you know you know and it's part of our responsibility as judges and and lawyers to fill that void there's plenty of great models great educational uh programs that have been developed by bar associations and uh that are just fabulous opportunities they do it but not to the extent i think that it is necessary a little commercial for the aba our civics commission this year that sander day o'connor is actually the person most responsible for and very active with it uh has online today any one of you who want to go online to the aba and get civic plans to go into any high school or junior high school and teach the civics course if you'd like to uh justice uh o'connor and justice suitor and justice briar have particularly been speaking out about this justice the latest poll says that uh two out of every three high school graduates say the three branches of government are democrat republican and independent oh that's that that's the last poll that's really bad and uh it's very scary uh 75 percent of all americans don't know that the first amendment protects religious freedom and newsweek about three months ago i don't know if you recall had a cover sheet said why is the their cover said why is america failing civics and that uh they quoted that more americans can name one judge on american idol than any judge on the u.s supreme court i mean it's just a parade of horribles and what happened is about 20 years ago when we started focusing on teaching science and math we stopped testing on civics so civics is now a uh is not mandatory in many of not most high schools in the in the united states you can graduate uh from a high school in the united states never having had a single day of civics and uh the florida bar for example the ncbp national conference of bar presidents asked every state to go to the legislature and make civics mandatory in their high schools the florida bar did that and got the legislature actually to pass that so i mean there's things we can do a lot of people think one of the best things we could do is go have a civics course for a legislature matter of fact it's maybe one reason that the recent poll shows that only 15 percent of americans had any respect for their congressmen and women is the lowest it's ever been since it's been recorded in history and part of it has to do with this failure to understand the respective roles of government any other questions from the audience sir i'm martin brinkley i'm the president of the north carolina bar association and one of the reasons that i came to this conference was to gain what i hope will be some practical suggestions about how we invest the business community with interest in our court system and so i'm here because i'll direct that to lisa but i would love to have four or five practical suggestions about how you interest the business community in this problem and sustain that interest over a period of time such that it can actually affect funding decisions in the legislature thank you for the question in case everyone didn't hear that his request is that we can identify some motivating factors for the business community to become engaged in this issue of funding for the courts and the importance of the courts why they should be involved and how to get them involved well i think the important part here is that they need to be asked in a manner you know who who are general councils of corporation corporations going to be most responsive to well they're going to be most responsive to the judiciary if if the ask is made if people are brought in if you go to certain conferences there are many different groups of general councils the american corporate council and i mean there's there's three or four different ones and if there's discussion held there and there's outreach directly from from the judiciary to them asking them to engage and making the case i do think but i look everybody they have a lot on their plate i think you can't ask for a solution or ask people do things i think of both the legislature and the business community without good arguments and without a plan to say this is how we're fix it we're not going to just pour money in and you know turn on more lights in some different courthouses we actually in this state have a plan where we're going to create a more efficient court system and so i think there is some responsibility on you know on both sides that there has to be an argument made to bring them in that word that really is going to make a difference if we get full funding i i agree with that just one thought i mean one good starting place for them to become involved is with the general council committee of the national center for state courts which is a really great opportunity for them to become involved with the chief justices and to become involved with discussions about this issue in fact i can't think of a better place so hopefully you'll mention that to them if you have the opportunity i think another avenue for contact with the business community and allowing them to be really on the ground floor of fashioning solutions and and maybe messages without with about this problem is for the supreme courts to create these task force task forces on court funding and and you know problems in court funding alternatives to court fundings whatever you want to call it and make sure that your task force is bipartisan that it all the stakeholders are represented and that you ask the business community to give you volunteers to be on these committees that are people that are willing to attend the meetings to be creative to be thoughtful and then we'll make good messengers back to their constituents and and you know you bring them down to the supreme court and that's where you hold your meetings and the chief justice is there starting the meetings off and and interacting and it it's a very effective way to interact with the stakeholders on any topic not just funding but we have we have quite a few commissions and task force and advisory committees in Ohio and they're invaluable to giving us advice and productivity and solutions and and become ambassadors for the message it's it's a great way of doing it in in support of that there are series of ideas that are actually in this task force report that Steve appointed and it was that task force was appointed a very bipartisan way I guess that it had been mentioned that David Boyz and Ted Olson were the two chairman and there are a series of ideas about collaboration there's also one I wanted to mention on schools at a New Hampshire I talked to a public school teacher who held what she called law school in fourth grade and they loved it and part of their job was to explain the constitution to their parents and they had to certify that they had done that so that's a way to have a multiplier effect on on kids and there are the series of those ideas in the report as well great I think we're over our time if I'm reading your watch upside down correctly unless there's some other questions are there any other questions I don't mean to cut anybody off okay well I want to thank my panel members and