Posted by Sterling Hospedales on November 21, 2023

As budgetary challenges leave self-help centers understaffed and courtrooms without court reporters, the Santa Clara County Superior Court spent nearly $70,000 for a “first-of-its-kind” staff training day. According to records obtained by the Vanguard, over 450 court employees spent Indigenous People’s Day being treated to catered meals, gift cards, and team-building activities that included a photo booth managed by one of the court’s top executives, David Walker. Photos of the event posted on the court’s social media, resembled an iPhone product launch for Apple, or an elite client marketing and incentive eventcommon to private businesses and publicly traded companies based in Silicon Valley.

In addition to staff salaries, court administrators spent nearly $70,000 in public funds and grants on the so-called training day. The event was held on a court business day, but managers arranged for phone lines to go unanswered, courtrooms to be closed and e-filing questions to be ignored. Over $50,000 was spent on catering, $1,000 on name tags, and $2,200 for photos and a photo booth fitting a high school Grad Night Party.

Budget records for Court Staff Training held on Indigenous People’s Day 2023

Records related to the training day event do not show if court attorneys or administrators obtained consent forms to take, or publish, photos and video of court staff, managers, judges, and court reporters.   The Vanguard has requested all photos taken at the event, at public expense. The court has not yet produced the photos, or other responsive records.

Court reporters are hybrid court employees. They are paid by the court to document the historical record of public court hearings. Additionally, they are privately paid by lawyers and litigants to produce what is commonly known as a transcript. The court reporter owns the copyright for the transcript and can largely determine how to charge for the service of preparing it.

Before 2019, Santa Clara County Superior Court provided court reporters in every family law case. Litigants and lawyers were charged a $60 filing fee when requesting a hearing, and another $30 to assure a court reporter would be present to create a transcript, for an additional fee.

Since that time, courts up and down the state have declared a court reporter shortage. Some court reporters have left public court for lucrative private judge and arbitration businesses.  Others retired. The court has blamed the shortage on budget cuts.

A lack of cameras and court reporters in domestic violence and civil harassment cases leave these important cases without a record and also make an appeal nearly impossible, as recently reported by the San Francisco Public Press.

State and federal grants have infused a significant amount of funding into the courts to address restraining order matters. However, an alarming number of these cases show no court reporter assigned, despite the fact these cases are quasi criminal and stand to eliminate Second Amendment rights if granted. More troubling is restraining order cases that appear to be brought to chill speech and First Amendment related issues.