California Access to Justice Commission

- We released a report about the current challenges California litigants face because too few court reporters are employed by trial courts.(https://calatj.org/publications/a2r ) One million Superior Court hearings a year are conducted without providing an official transcript. The report described the rights and interests at stake, the harms this causes, and options for addressing it. It has been widely quoted in submissions to the ongoing writ proceeding on the issue in the California Supreme Court, FVAP v. Superior Courts, S288176, and in submissions to the Legislature regarding a bill to allow greater use of electronic recording subject to conditions. - LRS/Nonprofit Collaborations Last year, CalATJ supported the proposed amendments to Business and Professions Code Section 6155. The amendments permit nonprofits to participate in lawyer referrals, under a new exception to the prohibition against an entity that is not a Certified Lawyer Referral Service (LRS) from making referrals to specific lawyers. CalATJ has provided the State Bar with a report that provides suggested regulations, as well as suggestions, and questions for further consideration on ways for LRSs to enhance access to justice for Californians through nonprofit collaborations, and we discussed enhancements that do not depend on such collaborations.- Approximately 15 other programmatic activities plus roughly 40 committee meetings. See https://calatj.org/news/read-the-california-access-to-justice-commissions-2024-annual-report

With a grant from the California Lawyers Foundation, we have developed a project, Your Life, Your Plan, to connect individuals with serious health conditions referred by health care providers to County Law Librarians, and then to pro bono and affordable lawyers to locate and complete the following documents (as needed): Advance Health-care Directive, Psychiatric Advance Directive, Statutory Will, Simple Revocable Trust, Power of Attorney.