I recommend “When the Doctor.’s Wife Has Cancer” (NYT Feb 22, 2011).  It is about the different experience of being a patient (or here a patient relative), compared to working at the institution.

Key para:

“I was hyperaware of my surroundings, as if I were a first-time visitor in my own hospital. Things that were around me every day of the week were suddenly new: the type and volume of forms Ruth was asked to complete; the conduct of the first secretary we met; whether the staff members introduced themselves by name.”

Lets learn to think about our courts and legal aid programs the same way — not only when we have to go there as a litigant — but all the time.

I am not a doctor, but as a public defender, I used to go and sit quietly in the waiting room for a quarter of an hour or so every month, just to soak up the feelings of fear and powerlessness.

Note that the Self-Represented Litigation Network has developed a set of tools to help courts do walk-throughs designed to self-assess just the kind of factors that the doctor talked about in the New York Times.  The tool is on selfhelpsupport.org.  It is part of a broader set of self-assessment tools.

My own, totally impressionistic view is that judges as a general matter may do a better job of being empathetic than court staff.  My wife Joan’s thought was that this was because judges are in control, whereas court staff are more cogs in the machine.  If so, that is a strong argument for training court staff in the things they can do.  See this PPT from the SRLN Court Leadership Package.