Equal Access Newsletter

logo

Volume 2 January 30, 2008

Welcome to our second Equal Access newsletter! This newsletter, intended for members of California's self-help community, is intended to keep you updated on the Equal Access Project and California Courts' Online Self-Help Center websites.

News on the Equal Access Project
/programs/equalaccess/

The Equal Access Project has materials available for courts, court-based self-help programs, and other nonprofit providers of legal self-help services.

Since our first newsletter, we have added three new sections to the Equal Access Project website:

Staff Resources

Staff Training Materials, including online courses, benchguides, broadcasts and written information on:

Appeals

Civil Procedure

Conservatorships

Consumer/Small Claims

Evictions

Family Law

General Judicial Branch Information

Guardianships

Traffic
Tools for Working with SRLs

General Communication Tools
Working with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations
Working with Litigants with Disabilities
Dealing with Mental Health Issues

Guidelines and Ethical Issues for Self-Help Center Staff
Staff Hiring/Recruitment Tools
Staff Development

Education Requirements

Manager and Supervisor Training

Skills Development

Pro bono - this new section explores two primary aspects of pro bono:

Volunteers in Self-Help Centers, providing resources and training materials for self-help center volunteers, both substantive and procedural, used by courts to prepare their volunteers and new staff to serve self-represented litigants.
Encouragement of Pro Bono by Judicial Officers, which provides resources for judicial officers, including speeches from the California Supreme Court Chief Justice, to encourage pro bono in their communities.

Law Libraries Activities, providing links to newsletter reporting activities of law libraries throughout the state to serve self-represented litigants.

News on the California Courts' Online Self-Help Center
/selfhelp/

The Online Self-Help Center is a public website with over 1,000 pages of legal information on various areas of law as well as legal resources at courthouses and community agencies.

We have recently expanded five key areas of the self-help site:

Guardianship

Tutela (Spanish)

Evictions

Desalojo (Spanish)

Name changes and Gender changes

Cambio de nombre y genero (Spanish)

Enforcement of Family Law Judgments (Spanish translation in progress)
Enhancements to custody and visitation information (Spanish translation in progress)
Adoption (Spanish translation in progress)
Glossary updates, with added cross-referencing of English terms in the Spanish Glosario

Equal Access Listserv Update: Thank you for taking advantage of this newly created listserv to communicate with your colleagues regarding upcoming trainings, relating questions and concerns regarding your services and sharing information.

Please make note that, when replying to listserv emails, you should change the subject line of your email to reflect the nature or overall topic of your email.

We are keeping a log of emails and topics, so the subject lines will help us to do that more accurately. Also, it will help other listserv participants to easily identify the emails by subject matter.

To start a new conversation, send your email to equalaccess@listserve.com and it will be forwarded to the entire group. The message, including attachments, must be smaller than 64 KB or else it will be rejected (you will be notified if this happens).

If you want replies to come only to you as opposed to the entire group, blind copy (bcc) the aforementioned e-mail address.

Thank you for your support. To add or remove a recipient from our listserv, please send an e-mail to equalaccess@jud.ca.gov with your request.

Please submit any comments, updates regarding your programs and local courts, and any other information you would like shared in this newsletter by sending an e-mail to bonnie.hough@jud.ca.gov

In addition, please review the materials posted on the Equal Access Project /programs/equalaccess/ credited to your program or court and let us know if you have updated or new materials you would like us to post as tools for other programs.

Finally, if there are any materials you would like assistance in developing or translating, or if you want to find out what other courts have done and can not find the information on these sites, please feel free to contact bonnie.hough@jud.ca.gov.