Courtroom assistance being tested on Oahu Currently on Oahu, there are three places outside a lawyer’s office where a person enmeshed in the court system can ask for and receive court-based assistance. The Ho’okele Court Navigation Project was officially launched
Courtroom assistance being tested on Oahu
Currently on Oahu, there are three places outside a lawyer’s office where a person enmeshed in the court system can ask for and receive court-based assistance.
The Ho’okele Court Navigation Project was officially launched last August.
This program allows the growing number of litigants representing themselves to receive one-on-one assistance from three Ho’okele customer service centers located in the entry ways of the Honolulu District and Circuit courthouses.
Dew Kaneshiro, project director for the Office on Equality and Access to the Court, is heading up Ho’okele.
The project has been so popular with Oahu litigants, Kaneshiro hopes it can be translated to Kaua`i, Maui and Big Island.
“This is a pilot project. Provided we can get permanent status, we would like to expand it to the other islands,” she said.
Currently there are two full-time judiciary supervisors overseeing AmeriCorps members outside the District Court’s Civil Division and at Family Courts, both located in Honolulu.
According to Chief Justice Ronald Moon, the demand for Ho’okele services “has far exceeded our expectations.”
In the five months since the pilot program was launched, more than 20,000 court users on Oahu have taken advantage of Ho’okele’s assistance.
Kaneshiro said the program was primarily fueled by $250,000 in federal funds and will run through the end of July 2001.
“There are limitations to the program,” Kaneshiro said, noting Ho’okele staffers “can’t be advocates. They won’t word things for you. But they will make sure your filing is complete. They tell you which forms are necessary and explain to you which forms are necessary.”
Ho’okele staffers can help self-represented litigants with uncontested divorce proceedings, post-decree (divorce) relief, orders in paternity cases and appeals to child support enforcement, among other matters.
And according to Moon, Ho’okele is a program that pleases those it serves.
In his State of the Judiciary address to the Legislature Tuesday, Moon noted that nearly 100 users of the program complimented Ho’okele and its staffers for their help.
If more funding can be obtained, Kauai’s court users may get their own chance to see for themselves how effective the Ho’okele Court Navigation Project really is.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
