Rebuilding Justice: Civil Courts in Jeopardy and Why You Should Care
By Rebecca Love Kourlis and Dirk Olin
Fulcrum Publishing, 2011
“The court system lies at the heart of our democracy, and it is in jeopardy.” That’s the conclusion of Rebecca Love Kourlis, founder and executive director of the University of Denver Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. According to Kourlis and Olin, the selection of judges has become a political free-for-all, ill suited to achieving an impartial bench. The civil justice process is expensive, time-consuming, and hidden — dealing jury trials out of the mix and eroding public trust and confidence. In the context of family cases, the system polarizes and penalizes parties seeking resolution of their disputes. But, they say, these problems have solutions, and the courts have problem solvers, some of which speak out in this book. With a foreward from former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Rebuilding Justice is a call to action for citizens and civil servants alike to take the steps necessary to fix, support and protect “this cornerstone of American democracy.” Kourlis served for 11 years as a justice of the Colorado Supreme Court and eight years as a trial court judge in northwestern Colorado. Dirk Olin is the editor and publisher of Corporate Responsibility Magazine and the former national editor of The American Lawyer magazine.
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