I-CAN!™ Awards Recieved

Judicial Council of California: News Release. Public Information Office (415) 865-7740.
Release Date: December 13, 2002 Release Number:  89 

Ten California Courts Win Top Awards

Chief Justice Honors Innovative Projects Today in San Francisco

San Francisco- A night court for child support cases, a Spanish self-help center, courthouse seminars for teachers, and a statewide public education program that reached thousands of high school students are among the innovative court programs to be honored today at the California Judicial Administration Conference (CJAC) in San Francisco.

Chief Justice Ronald M. George will present 10 California courts with the 2003 Ralph N. Kleps Award for Improvement in Administration of the Courts for their winning programs to improve the California judicial branch.  The awards will be presented at a luncheon from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel, 55 Cyril Magnin Way.

Created in 1991 in honor of Ralph N. Kleps, the first administrative director of the California courts, the awards are given in five categories based on the numbers of authorized judicial positions (AJPs) in the courts.  Programs nominated must be innovative, transferable to other courts, and in operation for at least one year.

In addition, programs must improve the administration of justice and reflect one of the long-range goals of the Judicial Council: access, fairness, and diversity; independence and accountability; modernization; quality of justice and service to the public; education; and technology.

Summaries of the winning programs follow.
 

2003 Kleps Award Winners

Category 1 (2-6 AJPs)

Night Court for Child Support Calendar: Superior Court of Inyo County
This unique court combines a dedicated child support calendar in a night-court setting that allows working parents to attend court without losing pay.  The efficiency and effectiveness of the court are enhanced by parents' increased participation and by the availability of additional resources, such as the Family Law Facilitator.

Visual Guides to the Courts: Superior Court of Siskiyou County
The court produced visual storytelling brochures that walk litigants through eight subject areas of the legal system.  To design the brochures so that they incorporate the public's perspective, the court organized seven public forums around the county, collaborated with other agencies and stakeholders in the justice system, and met with representatives of different cultures in the community.  The court distributed the guides at courthouses, family resource centers, public health and mental health organizations, hospitals and clinics, schools, nonprofit social service agencies, public libraries, law libraries, law enforcement agencies, and the local bar association as well as in Native American tribal communities. Six of the guides have been translated into Spanish.

Category 2 (7-19 AJPs)

Guardianship Facilitation and Outreach: Superior Court of Yolo County
This guardianship clinic, facilitated by a court staff attorney, assists pro per grandparents and other caretakers in the guardianship process.  The goals of the program are to provide permanency for children and their caregivers, prevent parental abuse and neglect, and reduce the trauma and expense of dependency proceedings.  The staff attorney and Judge Donna M. Petre, co-presiding judge of Yolo County's Unified Family Court, publicize the guardianship program to government agencies, child protection groups, grandparents' advocates, and other interested organizations.  Guardianship petitions have increased by more than 100 percent since the program began in 1999.

Category 3 (20-49 AJPs)

Spanish Self-Help Center: Superior Court of Fresno County
Since 1990, the number of Hispanic residents in Fresno County has increased by 48.6 percent, and this group now represents 44 percent of the county's total population.  In an effort to provide equal access to all residents, the court's self-help center assists the underserved Spanish pro per litigant population by offering educational information and language assistance. Centro de Recursos Legales provides:

EZLegalFile Service Bureau: Superior Court of San Mateo County
The EZLegalFile Service Bureau is an Internet-based, interactive program that allows litigants to complete Judicial Council forms in family law, small claims, and unlawful detainer cases.  The San Mateo court developed the bureau, which is available to any trial court in the state, in response to requests from other courts that wanted to provide the same access to citizens in their counties.  To date, 12 superior courts representing more than 20 percent of the state's population have joined the EZLegalFile Service Bureau.  As of June 2002, more than 15,000 litigants throughout California have completed their forms using EZLegalFile.  In addition, the AOC recently awarded the San Mateo court a grant to expand the number of EZLegalFile partner courts to 24.

Tip of the Day Radio Program: Superior Court of Ventura County
The Tip of the Day program consists of five-minute live public-service radio announcements in Spanish Monday through Friday at 10:30 a.m. on KOXR, a Spanish-language radio station.  The court started the program in mid 2002 as a way to promote the court's no-cost self-help legal access centers.  Topics are chosen from questions that have previously been raised by people seeking help at the centers.  Each tip is intended to provide general information to the community while also informing citizens of the wide range of services and programs offered by the court. Since the program was implemented, the number of people seeking assistance at the self-help legal access center in La Colonia, the predominately Spanish-speaking neighborhood of Oxnard, has more than doubled.

Category 4 (50+ AJP)

Teachers' Courthouse Seminar: Superior Court of Los Angeles County
The Teachers' Courthouse Seminar brings high school government teachers to a local courthouse for a one-day, interactive observation of the criminal justice system.  The seminar provides teachers with accurate information about the trial courts and about their function in the criminal justice system.  The program also provides educational materials about the courts that teachers can use in their classrooms.  These include an interactive CD-ROM, titled The Court in Action: Spotlight on the Criminal Justice Process, which helps high school teachers explain the work of the criminal courts to their government classes.

Interactive Community Assistance Network (I-CAN!): Superior Court of Orange County
The project, implemented in 2000 in partnership with the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, is a network of Web-based legal services and interactive kiosks that assist self-represented litigants.  I-CAN!'s multilingual, interactive, and tutorial modules enable self-represented litigants to create properly formatted pleadings and complete legal forms
using a touchscreen or Web interface. Users are able to obtain immediate technical assistance from Legal Aid staff by using Internet phone technology that has been integrated into the system. Currently, the Orange County court has 13 modules that are available in English and Spanish and 5 that offer instruction in Vietnamese.  The I-CAN! system is used in nine other counties and is proposed for use in seven others.

Category 5 (Appellate Courts)

Step by Step Civil Appellate Manual: Court of Appeal, Fourth District
The manual instructs self-represented litigants who are undertaking an appeal in how to proceed in the Fourth Appellate District, Division One.  In addition, the appendix provides a wealth of forms and samples.  The manual is being used as text in a course on appellate practice given by the San Diego County Public Law Library.  It is available in a print version, free of charge, and is on the court's Web site.

The Courts as Curriculum: Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District
In an unprecedented outreach effort, the Fifth Appellate District combined its program "The Courts as Curriculum" with the California Supreme Court's special session of its oral argument calendar held in Fresno.  More than 100 students were able to attend the session held at the appellate court, and it was broadcast live on television, giving thousands of individuals an opportunity to see the court in action.  Days before the Supreme Court's October 8-9, 2002, session, justices from the Fifth Appellate District participated in a panel discussion with high school students about the judicial process. That discussion was videotaped and made available to Central Valley high schools to prepare for the special Supreme Court session.