The Hanging Shad has clarified his original post regarding a 38% increase in judicial branch employees over the past 10 years.
Colin McEnroe has written about the “reverse funnel effect” in the blogosphere. For the most part the blogosphere is a giant echo chamber comprised of persons with broadband access commenting on the work of others. Sometimes, the blogosphere breaks a story that gets picked up on by traditional media.
Last week, the Shad’s story on the increase in legislative employees got picked up by several traditional news outlets and resulted in editorials.
When I saw his original post about the Judicial Branch numbers – I nearly fell out of my chair. They didn’t seem right to me at all.
So I did what bloggers normally do – I wrote a post commenting on the work of another blogger. Echo chamber indeed.
Normally, I don’t care about such things. I’m not some sort of cop on the blogosphere beat.
But these numbers were different.
The most frustrating part of my job is doing a great job for a client but not being able to do it fast enough for reasons beyond my control.
As an attorney I’m stuck explaining to a landlord why it takes 3 weeks for an eviction to get set down for a mediation and another 6 weeks for a trial date to be set. When a landlord isn’t being paid that amount of time can feel like an eternity. Even if we win at trial, my client will have lost.
Or try explaining to a parent going through a divorce that it’s going to take Family Relations about 5 months to complete a family study while conflict and uncertainty abounds.
Or why we have to wait for hours in a hallway waiting for the next available mediator.
Or the next available slot for a jury trial is 16 months out when your client is struggling to make ends meet.
The Judicial Branch employees do an excellent job in the face of overwhelming demands.
Justice delayed is justice denied. If citizens of Connecticut believe that the Judicial Branch is flush with employees and their cases still aren’t moving fast enough it adds another level of frustration to what is often an already frustrating process.