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Man's Qquest Spotlights Law Library Public Access By David Unze
Kuckes, a retired
psychiatrist who lives in Avon,
Times photo by Jason Wachter,
jwachter a copy of
the pamphlet. He went to the Ramsey "I said 'Wow. Geez. I wonder what the other courthouses do?'" Kuckes said. "And I found out that only 25 percent would give me this paper." Court administrators and law librarians statewide soon would get to know Kuckes well. The 70- year-old graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has visited every public law library in the state in a quest to improve access to legal resources that can help average citizens help themselves. Those law libraries contain legal texts and informational materials on numerous court topics. They generally survive on surcharges from court fines. They're open to the public for free, but most people don't know they exist. They're important because court administration can't offer legal advice, but they often refer people to law libraries. On his tour of state law libraries, Kuckes has gathered enemies, been thrown out of buildings, been told those libraries are only for judges and lawyers and has collected several expandable file folders filled with letters from a who's who list of state judges, attorneys, court staff and sheriffs. "I think he's got a valiant effort," said Tim Roberts, Stearns and Benton county court administrator. "His whole goal is to heighten people's awareness to public information that might benefit them as they move through the court system in Minnesota. I don't think that's a bad endeavor to undertake." Signs After finally getting the pamphlet on child visitation, Kuckes' audit of courthouses took him to as many as 10 counties a day. In one, a court administration staffer mentioned the law library had more forms and resources about visitation. That put law libraries in his cross hairs. He soon realized how difficult it can be to find the libraries and wondered why that was so dramatically different than the public library that almost every town has. In one county in October 2002, he said the court administrator told him he was the first person in the library that year who wasn't a judge or an attorney. "Well, other people like the janitor had to be in there," Kuckes joked. "But, come on, they're spending this money on these libraries and materials. So I wrote them up and then the signs started showing up." Kuckes has written numerous court administrators, law librarians, judicial district chief judges, county commissioners and Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Blatz about the need for signs to indicate where law libraries are and to ensure they are open to the public. He receives polite responses thanking him for his concern. But change is slow to come, he said. He carries evidence of his influence —— before-and-after pictures of courthouses that now have printer-paper signs acknowledging a library's public accessibility. His goal once was to have a day in which he could go to any courthouse in the state and get all the relevant forms needed on a given topic, preferably without having to bother court staff. He's a stickler for wanting signage and organization of forms by topic. His new goal is to get the state's court Web site address printed on all forms that court administration offers to the public. Borrowing from his medical background, he explains his logic. "In the medical community, the trend is to educate patients —— here's the medicine, but you need to know about possible side effects," he said. "The courts should be the same way." The dramatic increase in pro se defendants, people who represent themselves rather than hiring a lawyer, makes more law libraries even more vital, Roberts said. That is even more important in counties such as Cass, where poverty and crime rates are high, law librarian Nicole Purins said. She welcomed the suggestions Kuckes made in mailings he sent her. "They are real common-sense things that don't cost a lot of time or money —— mostly books, pamphlets, signage, just making the law library noticeable," Purins said. "It's true that as a direct result of his mailing we did make an effort to be more pro se friendly." She also had a long talk with Kuckes when he traveled to the courthouse in Walker. And when a "baby idea" was floated to relocate the law library to an area of the courthouse that might have been less accessible, Purins enlisted Kuckes early. She asked him to write a letter outlining the reasons such a move shouldn't be made. It wasn't needed though, because the idea never got off the ground. "It's nice to get people who aren't court people making suggestions on how they see things," Roberts said. "They can be a very valuable resource. I think he is." He also can be a pain in the neck, and he knows it. The folks on the receiving end of his letters often say they don't have the time to talk to Kuckes. He sometimes is forceful to the point of offending. Some find a way to be scarce when they see him coming. Some inroads In Mahnoman County, he almost found a way to make himself scarce. Kuckes was in the county law library, which is near a hallway where a bailiff was checking in people who were appearing in court that day. One of the defendants on the daily court calendar had a name that sounded like Kuckes'. That created some confusion when the bailiff encountered Kuckes in the law library —— with the lights off. "Most of the time these rooms are used as meeting rooms for lawyers and clients," Sheriff Brad Athmann said. "And the name that he gave the bailiff was very close to a name of someone that she thought was a criminal who was waiting to come in." So out went Kuckes. "It was just a misunderstanding," Athmann said. "It's very common for people to lie to us in those situations. We didn't know who he was." Kuckes smiles when he shows off the letter, dated Jan 3, that he received from Athmann. The bailiff, Athmann assures Kuckes in the letter, now knows "that the law library is open to the public." "We told him,"Athmann said with a pause, "next time don't look so suspicious." Those small inroads for openness aren't enough to convince Kuckes that his work is almost done. Too many courthouses, including Stearns', have "precious few" signs to help the public, Kuckes said. Small accomplishments are part of the game, he said. It's a contest to see what he can get accomplished in a judicial culture that often is criticized as being slow to change. His courthouse equivalent of hitting for the cycle in baseball is to see an easy-to-find law library, the state court Web site address on court forms and visitation guides and motion papers. He is often asked if there aren't better things to do in retirement. His answer is simple: The public should be better educated, and litigation isn't affordable when lawyers get involved. Many problems, such as visitation disputes, become more serious when they're not resolved at a low level. "It's a payback," he said. "I've had a good life. Society has treated me well. You have all that money they're spending and with a few changes you can get a lot more benefit from that." "He may feel that he hasn't accomplished enough yet," Roberts said. "I see the time he's spent, and he's heightened the awareness of a lot of people in the court system."
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A Feast
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