Coincidence?

I'll try not to mention American Gladiators again for awhile after this (maybe), but I found out today that Ms. Jennifer Blum of the New York Sharks football team and recent Gladiators victory fame is a lawyer. And after hearing her pre-competition comments detailing the injuries she's sustained playing football, I hope she is the sort of lawyer who has really good health insurance coverage. That might be one way that we differ (apart from my never having carried the ball in a game vs. her being the scoring leader for her team, and her being on Gladiators vs. my watching her on Gladiators).

If you want to see her in action but would rather not suffer through the ads and first couple minutes of the show, her bit first comes up at about 08:11 on the counter for this video. Unfortunately the show is just a little too silly to be very interesting for more than two minutes or so. But I liked the fight with the giant Nerf gun.

Released from Civic Duties

Got summoned to appear for jury duty yesterday. It was a very special "Juror Appreciation Day" which means that they offered free cookies, coffee and pens in addition to having the chief Court Clerk and a couple judges come in to the assembly room to express their appreciation. They were selecting the jury for a murder trial. The Deputy D.A. prosecuting the case smiled at me when I entered the courtroom (we were both in the women's triathlon training group for awhile); smiled as if to say, in a friendly way, 'Hi Emily, Bye Emily...' but it turns out she was able to use her peremptory challenges on some other suspected bleeding heart liberal(s) because the trial schedule conflicted with FOOTBALL. The judge had everyone with a "hardship" stand up and say so. In between, "Your Honor, I run a ___________ business and we'll go under if I'm gone this week," and "Your Honor, my son is getting married on Saturday" (trial on Friday in addition to the other days) there was, "Your Honor, uh, I'm a starting wide receiver for the Redding Rage professional women's football team and we leave for an away game in Seattle on Friday morning." The judge clarified that I was playing for Redding and then asked if Chico had a team. I said no. Good thing, he said, because if I were a rival of any Chico team he would not grant the "hardship." Fortunately there was a large pool of possible jurors and only one trial to select for. The judge granted everyone's request to be excused due to "hardship." I may never know what he really thought of mine, and I suppose he's heard both stranger and more frivolous excuses. I'm sorry to miss what opportunity I may have had to watch the trial--but the odds of my being seated were probably comparable to my odds of being put in the game as a Center or Nose Guard. Not so likely.

Feeling stretched...like butter over too much bread...

Looks like we have a supply & demand problem here.

From a recent report by the California Commission on Access to Justice:

* In 2005, only 754 California lawyers worked as legal aid attorneys. That translates into one legal aid lawyer for every 8,361 low income Californians. On the other hand, there is one private attorney for every 250 Californians.
* Two of three eligible low-income clients with meritorious cases are turned away.
* IOLTA (Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts) funding, which serves as the underpinning for many legal aid programs, declined by $14.6 million between 1993 and 2005, a 59 percent drop.
* Although core funding for legal services (from IOLTA, the Legal Services Corp. and California's Equal Access Fund) increased by $7 million from 1993 to 2005, when adjusted for inflation, the 2005 money actually represented a decline in funding.
* Self-help centers are helping to fill the gap in county courthouses, but the courts need $44 million to fully achieve self-help assistance. Current funding provides $8.7 million statewide.