Bill Girdner

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Bill Girdner

In the fall of 2004, on the 12th floor of the government building in Minneapolis, a court administrator brought a reporter into her office and, during a conversation, said words to the effect, “We support the press here.”She then took the reporter for Courthouse News across the hall and into a docketing room where new civil pleadings were piled in a stack on a small table that stood in a walkway between sectioned-off workspaces.

1 month ago | editorandpublisher.com | Bill Girdner

Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2025 9:40 am In the fall of 2004, on the 12th floor of the government building in Minneapolis, a court administrator brought a reporter into her office and, during a conversation, said words to the effect, “We support the press here.” She then took the reporter for Courthouse News across the hall and into a docketing room where new civil pleadings were piled in a stack on a small table that stood in a walkway between sectioned-off workspaces. The stack was from that...

1 month ago | editorandpublisher.com | Bill Girdner

Posted Monday, April 14, 2025 10:01 am In a powerful example of how state courts can improve public access, the courts of Kansas opened a public website Thursday that allows press and public to see new court pleadings as they come across the virtual counter.

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Bill Girdner

Kansas Chief Justice Marla Luckert has moved quickly and decisively to bring back prompt access to new court pleadings, a longtime tradition in the courts of America. In a powerful example of how state courts can improve public access, the courts of Kansas opened a public website Thursday that allows press and public to see new court pleadings as they come across the virtual counter.

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Bill Girdner

Moments of enlightenment come at odd times, like when waiting for a burger and fries at a Jack in the Box in southern Oregon. The manager was local, young and happy to talk. I told him back in college days I had worked in the woods setting chokers, gizmos made of a bell and knob that hung from a cable allowing an engine to pull enormous logs down the mountain. Looking back on it, those logs, some of them 14 feet in diameter, were from sequoias and redwoods that had to be hundreds of years old.