Can't Get a Court Date? Don't Blame Your Attorney

Any good attorney knows that there are few things that will get him or her fired or brought before the Florida Bar on a complaint quicker than missing a deadline or not returning your phone calls or emails. 

However, even the most ethical attorneys are confronted every day with upset clients because we cannot get a hearing or a trial in front of a judge fast enough to please our clients. A mother decides she is not going to allow a father to see their children anymore, and it takes a month or longer to have a judge rule on the issue. A landlord wants to evict a tenant, and the landlord has to wait another two months before a judge will have a trial. A bank wants to foreclose on a piece of property and has to wait, on average, 18 months to get a judgment. 

Attorneys are, unfortunately, used to these timelines. Clients are not.  This is especially true in a world where instant gratification is the norm. Sometimes it is the attorney’s fault. Most of the time it's not, and it's out of his or her control.

In a day where the public expects instant results, but the government does not have the resources to provide services to the public, it is not the court’s fault and usually not your attorney’s fault. 

Your local Clerk of Court is understaffed and overworked. The employees that used to make the judicial system operate at a respectable speed have been taken away. I can assure you that I have practiced in Pinellas County, and your Clerk of the Circuit Court, the Honorable Ken Burke, is working hard to do what he can with the resources he has. 

I have personally met Burke, and he is diligently trying to implement and improve programs so citizens can have a better and more efficient experience in the court system.

Unfortunately, the access to and efficiency of the court system will not improve until our elected officials appropriate the necessary funds to the court to allow this essential branch of government to operate effectively. In fact, in 2010, the Florida Supreme Court affirmatively acknowledged that the present economic situation has hindered our Justice system.

I quote directly from the Supreme Court:

"In order to comply with the legislative request to reduce its budget, Florida’s court system over the last three budget years has lost or eliminated 103.25 case managers, 23.75 magistrates and associated administrative staff, 38.5 law clerks, 18.5 due process positions (i.e., court reporters, court interpreters, and expert witnesses), and 106.5 positions from court administration, appellate clerks’ offices, and appellate marshals’ offices. Of the 290.5 total positions lost in the judicial branch, 249 trial court positions have been eliminated throughout the state. 

To this end, the first obvious person you want to complain to and blame for an underfunded court system is your attorney. I may be alone in this, but I have lost clients because I cannot get a hearing or trial date in a timely manner only because the court does not have the resources or time (as a result of lost resources) to give me a trial date sooner rather than later. 

The second obvious person to blame is your judge. One judge said after a trial that he spends his Saturday and Sunday personal time to write his judgments and study his cases because he doesn’t have the resources he used to during the week. He warned us that even after trial, we would not get a judgment for more than three months.

Let us look at a third area to explore (but not blame). The State Legislature and the executive branch must recognize the judicial branch as an essential piece of our government that needs the resources to do its job. It may be the only branch of government where the common citizen can simply walk in and seek the “justice” of the government without having to go through representation. In fact, on a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I was only allowed into the United States Supreme Court courthouse because of our right to access to the court system.

The delay in your case with your trusted attorney is not likely the result of your attorney’s efforts. It is most certainly not the fault of the judge who works overtime without the necessary resources and works overtime to try to remedy the budget shortfalls to try his or her best to bring you the justice (whether good or bad) that your sought. 

However, I again ask, does your elected official know your position?