I received an email today from OneSource regarding California Court news and would like to pass some of it along to you, my paralegal friends.

Steve Vann, the Director of California Fulfillment with OneLegal, LLC, sent this information on to Mark Schwartz of OneLegal, in which Mark thought highlights very well how the unfortunate trend in the California courts reduction of personnel is affecting OneLegal, we in the legal profession as well as the courts.

Oakland [Superior] is telling OneLegal they will be holding on to orders longer and will be requiring that they drop off more orders in the coming days. Oakland is not the only court as this is also what was heard from Nicole yesterday about LA [Superior].  Sonoma [Superior] is also another court where we are seeing caption pages [a.k.a. filed-endorsed copies] delayed.

This is a trend that he feels will continue into the foreseeable future. With the increased lay-offs and growing order volume the court clerks are simply not able to keep up with the volume.

These orders are all being stamped as accepted the same day they drop them off, but it is taking longer to get the caption pages back. This also means that OneLegal and we paralegals, will be delayed in getting news of rejected documents.

This is concerning to all of us especially when we all just learned as reported by the Daily News, the Los Angeles Superior Court is laying off 329 of their staff and closing 17 Los Angeles area court rooms.  Troy Anderson, Staff Writer for the Daily News, wrote, “Presiding Judge Charles W. “Tim: McCoy, Jr., said another 1800 layoffs are possible, 34 percent of the court work force, and 180 courtrooms and nine courthouses could be shuttered by 2013 if the system doesn’t get more state funding.” 

To read more, click here. You can also click here to read the court’s news release.

Chief Justice Ronald George recently said that CA court closures must not continue into the next fiscal year. Click here to read his comments.

Related articles by Zemanta

• And Justice for Some: L.A.’s Shrinking Court System (time.com)