Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, October 14, 2006 10:50:41 PM
Last week I stumbled on to former Colorado State Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis' new law reform institute:
The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. Now isn't that a mouthful? It doesn't even make a decent acronym.
I plan to be a cheerleader for that organization, but I am very much aware that, in some circles, I could do more damage than good unless I take the time to explain our exact relationship. So here goes:
We have no relationship. We do share some of the same goals, but we differ mightily in how to approach them. Her's is the nice, soft, gentile, lady-like, go slow approach, and mine is the Dragon flying over the countryside burning targets of opportunity approach. I am trying to embarrass the system into change, and if that doesn't work, I am very willing to put an initiative together and use the power of the ballot to force change.
I sent Justice Kourlis an introductory email and she sent a polite reply. She did know of Not Legal Roadkill Yet, but didn't know my identity. My identity isn't a secret from anyone but the readers of this blog, and only then to avoid contaminating, or being accused of contaminating a jury pool. She is free to reveal it.
She provided me with the name of what the military would call her operations officer. I sent him an email proposing a study, expecting that it would be turned down. It was, and quickly! I am politically astute enough to understand why. Any association with me would be poison to someone trying to work strictly within the system. Even so, I wanted to signal what I had in mind in the way of reform. Justice Kourlis and her organization are free to talk about that in any forum, either favorably, or as I expect, disparagingly.
While I was invited to send things of interest along, I doubt that we will communicate again except through this blog. I plan to be critical of her institute's work where it needs criticism, but VERY supportive of her Institute's goals and quick to recognize its good work. I expect it to produce much good work, as its first study indicates it can. The study, "Shared Expectations:
Judicial Accountability in Context," is
available free online. It is 128 pages long and filled with footnotes.
She can be the Lady. I'll be the Dragon.
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And if I decide to start my own institute (not likely) it won't have a name 10 words long, but it will be memorable. How about
The Scorched Earth Institute?