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Lawyers Journal
By Robert L. Holloway Jr.
The poet and classics scholar Rolfe Humphries graduated from
Amherst College in 1915, taught secondary school Latin for about 32
years, and then returned to his (and my) alma mater in
1959 to teach English. Humphries, well regarded as a poet, mentored
many poets over the years, including Theodore Roethke. Humphries
was lauded by the poet W.H. Auden for Humphries' translation of
Virgil's "Aeneid," which Auden called "a service for which no
public reward could be too great." Humphries recognized the
inestimable value of mentoring and teaching in all its forms. When
Humphries retired from Amherst in 1966, he wrote a poem in tribute
to Jim Ostendarp, Amherst's head football coach from 1959 to 1991.
The poem, in its entirety, is well worth reading, but I quote just
the following excerpt:
By Christina P. O’Neill
Probate and Family Court maps strategy to improve
delivery of justice
The Massachusetts Probate and Family Court has been persistently
cross-cut in recent years by an increase in pro se
litigants and a decrease in legal representation, piled on top of
staff and budget cuts. It's the worst possible combination for a
court in which litigants are more likely to come into the court
process already highly stressed, inexperienced in the legal
process, and short on funds to hire an attorney.
While the increase in pro se litigants is out of the
court's control, one of the underlying causes of this rise is
rooted in skyrocketing costs of court litigation. Costs are rising
to due to the structural inefficiencies in court processes
themselves which lead to excessive waiting time for attorneys and
litigants - which in turn run the legal clock.
These root causes are what Probate and Family Court Chief Justice
Paula M. Carey has set out to address. She is concerned about the
quality of information judges receive due to the dearth of legal
representation in the court, and also about the rising costs of
litigation stemming in part from the court system's structural
inefficiencies.
Find out who will receive the 2013 Access to Justice Awards at
the May 9 MBA Annual Dinner.