July 1, 2014
From the Alliance of California Judges…. In a bizarre move, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye opened Friday’s meeting of the Judicial Council by announcing her intention to “retire, remove, take away, eliminate the name ‘Administrative Office of the Courts.’” Friday’s published meeting agenda contained no reference whatsoever to the planned action. The Chief Justice directed […]
June 11, 2014
This is the contents of an email from the Alliance of California Judges to their members. The first paragraph demonstrates how the AOC misses the mark by about a thousand miles. After all, the AOC burned taxpayer money to stock up on iPads and passed out swag bags with electronic tablets in them to legislators, […]
March 4, 2014
Trying to get information out of the AOC can seem like playing Go Fish with a temperamental child. You have to ask for exactly the right thing in exactly the right way, and even then you might not get it. Often, the AOC claims that it doesn’t keep the kinds of records you’re looking for. […]
February 3, 2014
In the aftermath of the CCMS debacle — a $500 million waste of taxpayer money that ranks among the costliest IT failures in American history — how should the judicial branch go about restoring its credibility with the Legislature and the Governor? One way would be to acknowledge the CCMS failure immediately; hold accountable those […]
January 16, 2014
The Chief Justice recently released the AOC’s three year blueprint for California’s judicial branch. I say it is the AOC’s three year blueprint because the chief herself credits the AOC for all of the hard work they did in coming up with this plan. Incredibly short on specifics, the three year blueprint outlines the desire […]
December 26, 2013
Released just before Christmas is a new audit report on the AOC’s compliance with judicial branch contracting law that can be found here. The summary of conclusions follows along with some notes from the JCW team. Judicial Branch Procurement: Semiannual Reports to the Legislature Are of Limited Usefulness, Information Systems Have Weak Controls, and Certain Improvements […]
December 15, 2012
Jon Streeter is the President of the State Bar of California. Earlier this year Mr. Streeter drafted a compelling comment regarding the Administrative Office of the Courts and AOC management in particular. His recommendations comments regarding AOC management and the parallel to state bar management have been echoed far and wide and represent what should […]
November 29, 2012
It appears that more than a few courts out there fear an AOC takeover of their management. With reserves dwindling down to a mere 1%, that equates to a 1% margin of error in budgeting. By any stretch when you’re dealing with an annual budget of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, a 1% […]
November 9, 2012
Is it just us or does this character live on another planet? ___________________________________________ AOC Colleagues: Today will complete my first month as Administrative Director. I wanted to take this opportunity to check in and share information with you on a number of ongoing activities for our organization and for the judicial branch. Judicial Council […]
September 30, 2012
In a recent email composed to AOC employees, Jodi Patel opines that after top leadership switches deck chairs on the titanic while the Judicial Council band plays on that it will take 12-18 months to reposition all of the other deck chairs. Meanwhile, while many of us weren’t looking, the Judicial Council and the AOC […]
June 2, 2012
You remember those two twin censors (tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum) in the movie Good Morning Vietnam? As we’ve been trying to tell you, they now work for Phil Carrizosa and Peter Allen. _____________________________________________________ June 1, 2012 Dear Members and Others, We attach two pieces for you that you will not read in the AOC E-News. The […]
May 25, 2012
As far as getting the media’s attention goes, usually 500 local signatures on a local petition gets some attention. Make the issue a matter of a statewide petition and the numbers increase to get that same media coverage. Several thousand people a day read judicial council watcher and we’re guessing that only a small percentage […]
May 16, 2012
May 15, 2012 Dear Members and Others, Alliance Director Judge David Lampe has penned a compelling and articulate editorial that ran in the Courthouse News late yesterday. We strongly encourage you to send this along to all of your fellow judges. We also want to alert you that Alliance Director Steve White will address the […]
March 25, 2012
Enclosed is a report to the Judicial Council on California Case Management System Deployment Options. Prepared by the Administrative Office of the Courts IT Director Mark Dusman, it is being submitted as an option list of recommendations of the CCMS Internal Committee (One of the five committees – though this committee is staffed by muppets….) It […]
November 14, 2014
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