Limited English Proficient Speakers Access to Courts

I recently was on the phone talking with a client of my about how her family court hearing went (we were not able to represent in that matter). And her description of the hearing brought me back to a hearing I sat in a couple of months ago that really reflected the issues that non-English speakers come across when trying to access our court services.

The hearing I observed a couple of months ago was in front of one of the Assistant Family Court Commissioners and both parties had attorneys plus there was a g.a.l. The court appointed interpreter sat between the petitioner and respondent putting them in close proximity which I would imagine would be uncomfortable for a victim of domestic violence. Most of the hearing was in English between the three attorneys in the room and the Commissioner. The court appointed interpreter was good about interpreting anything that the petitioner or responded said but often fell into silence as the attorneys negotiated and he even got lazy about translating the Commissioner's findings and orders. So our client walked out of that hearing having missed so much information. Fortunately she had an attorney with an interpreter (me) to explain what happened after the fact.

The client I recently spoke to had to go it alone and then when the hearing was done she was handed a copy of the orders in English of course.

Limited English Proficient

Click on the title of this post for a link to the letter written by Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez of the U.S. Department of Justice. In this letter Attorney Perez outlines the federal requirements of courts when working with individuals who are limited English proficient.

Although, Milwaukee County does provide court certified interpreters for hearings, I have found that they still have a ways to go. Several Judges have a tendency to hold lengthy conversations off the record and do not provide interpreters for anything that is not on the record. Additionally, our attorneys have encountered gal's who include in their fees, their costs for using an interpreter.

And for some reason lately, court commissioners are asking individuals like me (who are not certified) to interpret when an injunction hearing is going to be adjourned for no service or when the opposing party does not show up even though he/she has been served. Their calendars are booked and they don't want to wait until the court interpreter shows up and there is often a very long wait for the interpreter who has to be in many places at once. But these individuals deserve a qualified, trained interpreter to ensure that they completely understand their case and have access to the courts.

Wisconsin Serving Victims of Crime Conference

I recently attended the Wisconsin Serving Victims of Crime Conference and have been meaning to blog about it. It was a three day conference held in Appleton, WI that attracted a wide variety of professionals (prosecutors, police officers, victim advocates, shelter workers, victim crisis responders, social workers, parole agents, etc.) and it sounds like it was the first of what will be an annual conference so for those of you who didn't attend this one, you will have a chance next year.

One session that I found especially helpful was a session on working with people who have cognitive disabilities presented by Mark Sweet, PhD, a Trainer & Consultant for Disability Rights Wisconsin (who also is a former teacher). Some points he made were that this is a group of people that have the most supervision yet are more likely to become victims of violence. The reason for this is that it is often those caring for them that are abusing them. So especially in cases where the victim is not able to communicate his/herself and we are speaking to someone else, we need to make sure we try and get at the perspective of the victim which is often very different than those around the victim. A victims actions may really be reactions to something that others don't realize they are doing. As I sat through this session I really wished that I had attended a presentation like this while I was still teaching because it likely would have affected the way I worked with students with disabilities.

Some other practical tips, I gained from this session that really apply to anyone you are talking to include giving time for the victim to process your questions and their answers. The presenter stressed that you are not helping someone if you jump in with more specific questions. The victim needs time to process especially someone with a disability and waiting patiently is something that is difficult for many of us. Also, direct eye contact can be intimidating (something I've noticed in working with certain clients). Dr. Sweet suggested having a different focus point like a drawing the victim drew right before speaking with you or court documents, anything that would help in not forcing the victim to make direct eye contact if she/he isn't comfortable with it. Additionally, if a victim is not comfortable looking at you while they talk, they likely aren't comfortable with you starting at them while you listen.

Perceptions of people

Last week, we received a referral for a case where when I was doing the conflict check I realized that I knew the opposing party. It really made me think about how we perceive people in public compared to who they are in the private of their own home.

Child abuse

One of the toughest parts of my job is hearing the stories of child abuse and the effect of violence on children. It's one of those things I don't think I will ever get immune to (at least I hope not). And incidents of child abuse seem to be on the rise or reporting them at least seems to be on the rise. As I got a referral for a 3 child abuse injunctions late last week, I thought about what I had been told by one of the attorneys when I did my first one a number of months ago. She said that child abuse injunctions are rare and that we usually only see a couple year at the most. Well, in the 6 months I've been here I have done intake on 5 different referrals that involved child abuse injunctions and my colleague has done 3 or 4. And each of them have been just as heartbreaking as the last.

I don't know if it is the economy which brings additional financial stress to families, stress that some seem to take out on their significant others and/or children. I don't know if it is something that the community is doing a better job of speaking up that it isn't right and so it has become more accepted to report it. I don't know. But I really wish people would see how much the violence affects their children and care enough to do something about it.

Extracurriculars may be required to graduate

The title of this post is linked to an article from www.newberlinnow.com about a school district which is considering requiring extracurricular activities for graduation.

I am all for encouraging participation in extracurriculars and believe that they have a very positive impact on many students. However, forcing a student to participate in them is not the answer.

Building a Better Teacher

The title to this post is a link to an article published by the New York Times titled, "Building a Better Teacher." It highlights a few researchers who have been trying to get down to the essentials of what makes a great teacher. It's encouraging that they are finding good teachers are not born but instead they learn specific techniques that increase student learning and are seeing incredible results. It also discusses how merit pay does little to improve student learning because teachers don't know how to improve learning so the competition only frustrates them. Though merit pay with the proper support and training could attract and hold onto better qualified teachers.

"Supreme Court Remains Divided Over Gun Control"

This title to this post is linked to the New York Times article titled "Supreme Court Remains Divided Over Gun Control."

This pending Supreme Court decision has popped up in discussions around my office as it could directly affect our clients. Currently felons are barred from owning a gun and domestic abuse injunctions bar respondents from owning a gun during the course of the injunction. Allowing these groups of people legal access to guns could prove deadly.

Don't think you can do everyone else's job better

As a teacher, I would regularly get parents at teacher's conferences telling me how to teach. I remember one parent saying that her son could only learn through song and acting and so I was suppose to conduct my class only using songs and acting. In Spanish, I actually did do some of this but I wonder how his math teacher responded to that demand. These comments always came from parents who had no teaching experience nor experience learning a second language. And the comments were always unsolicited without getting any background information on what was actually occurring in the classroom. So they were far from realistic and far from useful. So many times I wanted to tell parents that I don't tell them how to do their jobs, so what makes them think they can tell me how to do mine.

So last night in the middle of the surprise snow storm, I was reminded of this sentiment. We were on the bus going no where because traffic was that backed up when a guy a few rows back started complaining about how the driver was stupid and criticizing his every move. Then my husband turns to me and tells me how we should have taken interstate because it has now dropped down to 30 minutes (compared with an hour and 9 minutes when we left). I really felt that this was another case of people trying to tell someone how to do their job without any background information or understanding of the decisions that were made.

And so it got me thinking of a client we had who always tried to tell the lawyers what they should be doing without any understanding of what was allowed by law and what would actually help their case. Another case of someone who thought he knew better than the person with experience and training in their line of work.

Failings of the system

In working with victims of domestic violence over the last few months, my eyes have really been opened to things I never realized existed. But what has bothered me most is not the violence, but the way our system has failed so many individuals, allowing the violence to continue.

I am horrified at how just about every individual I speak with has lost confidence in the police and the job they do and has lost confidence in the criminal system to charge criminals. In cases where there is clear evidence and clearly a crime has been committed the DA's office will choose not to charge for reasons unknown to the rest of us. When individuals call 911, an officer does not always come out. At times when a clear domestic abuse has taken place that likely included violence, police will not even always remove one of the two from the property. And in times where a male is a victim, the police will often separate the victim from his children.

In one case a Spanish speaker said that the first time she called the police they told her that her address did not exist so they couldn't come out to help her. And on the second occasion that she called, the police stated that no one spoke Spanish and again could not help her.

I also am dismayed when I sit through restraining order hearings and the Commissioner denies the restraining order just because the police were never called even if the abuser admits to something. Lack of police involvement is in no way an indication of lack of violence. Remember, as I stated in the previous paragraphs, many individuals have lost confidence in police who never did anything on previous occasions when they called and so feel like it is a waste of time to call the police. And in a system, where the woman is always portrayed as the victim, male victims know that it is a waste of time to contact police for help.

And all this was really driven home this weekend, as I saw on the news a story of an individual who had been murdered and the suspect is her ex-boyfriend. Upon looking at open records online, I saw that this victim had attempted to get a restraining order against him recently and was denied it even though there were pending charges for the abuser of domestic abuse against this same victim. Would a restraining order have saved this young girl's life? Maybe not. But maybe, the victim would have had a chance to contact the police the second the abuser showed up instead of having to wait for violence to occur at a point when it was too late.

Quality ranking determines state funding of day-cares

An article in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled "Day-care providers to be paid based on quality under Doyle plan" caught my eye. It explains Governor Doyle's plan to create a ranking system based on quality of care that will determine how much state funding day-cares get. The ranking would be based on "the education level of the staff, the learning environment in the center as well as business practices, and the health and well-being of children."

I have two issues with this concept.

1. True quality of care can't be measured objectively. Educational level of staff does not necessary equate with quality care-givers. And things like the health and well-being of children can't be measured. Plus a certain type of learning environment with one set of children may not be appropriate at all for a different set of children.

2. This type of plan allows rich day-cares to get richer and poor day-cares to get poorer. If we cut funding significantly to a day-care that can't hire teachers with a master's degree, how can we expect them to find the money to find teachers with more education. We will be seeing this same thing in schools that are not meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind. Eventually funding will get cut, and the schools will only get worse.

Instead let's deal with the real issue here: fraud. Instead of focusing on quality and spending money to do so in such a poor economy, we need to just focus on enforcing the expectations that come with state funding of day-cares. And let parents set expecations of quality by choosing where they send their children.

Issues affecting non-English speakers

I attended a hearing with a Spanish-speaking client today (my first client where I have been the translator). We lost unfortunately. Although all of the attorneys that I work with lost in front of this Commissioner this week in cases where we should have won. So I'm not sure what was up this week.

But what I was most frustrated with was the disadvantages non-English speaking clients face in our court system. In addition to the issues associated with having a translator that I spoke about in this post, today the translator didn't keep up with the translation and left out pieces, sometimes critical pieces, when translating into English. Usually this is a very good translator so it surprised me a bit. But then I realized that the Commissioner was fluent in Spanish so for the purpose of today's hearing, it really didn't matter how much the translator translated. But as we discussed the de novo review process with our client afterwards, I realized that the transcript of today's hearing would not very accurately reflect what the petitioner and respondent had actually said, which could be a huge hindrance to a fair de novo review.

Law School Case Briefs

I recently found this website with case briefs related to many typical law school courses. It may be useful to those in law school now and something I want to check back on when I attend law school.

Mayoral control of MPS

Governor Doyle and his supporters are proposing a change to WI public schools that would give the Mayor of Milwaukee line item veto power of the Milwaukee Public School's budget as well as other control. There was an article in today's Milwauke Journal Sentinel. What just doesn't make sense to me about this proposal is why anyone would think we could improve public schools by giving someone with no education background or understanding basically sole control of the school system. To me that sounds like setting us up for bigger failures.

Yes, we need reform. And yes, that may mean brining in some from outside of the education field to give a different perspective. But to give sole control to one man with little to no knowledge of best practices in education?