In the Modern Court, It's Not "Business" as Usual

The notion of efficient justice is a discomforting one. Unlike a business, a court's obligation is to provide a just result without having to worry about costs, shareholder value, or time pressures. In a recent article in the American Bar Association's The Judges' Journal, entitled "Keeping Courtrooms Open in Times of Steep Budget Cuts," Judge Lee Smalley Edmon, the presiding judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, points out that "...justice is not a luxury...[and] the opportunity to plead for the government to right a wrong is not to be funded through user fees." Judge Edmon further notes that the significance of the judicial branch's work is far out of proportion to its "paltry" funding level.