WELCOME to Our First e-NEWSLETTER!

We hope to be able to put one of these together every three months or so.  There are a few districts that compile and send out newsletters via snail mail so we borrowed from some of their great ideas and took it one step farther.  It is our hope to be able to communicate through our e-newsletter with all of you and let you know what is going on in the 14^th, not only business wise, but also on a personal basis.  Hopefully some of you will come on board and develop your own e-newsletter so that we all can keep up to date about the goings on in your district.  We hope you enjoy our effort, suggestions on how to make it better are always welcome, thanks for taking the time to learn a little about us.       -- Judge Dent

KANSAS LEGAL SERVICES PLANS OFFICE IN INDEPENDENCE

For the past several years the 14th Judicial District has been unable to find attorneys who were willing to represent indigent clients charged with felonies and misdemeanors. Recently, after a lengthy effort and many trips to Topeka to testify before the legislature Judge Dent was successful in obtaining the necessary funding in order for the Kansas Board of Indigent Services to open a Public Defenders office in Independence to handle indigent felony cases. Insofar as indigent misdemeanor defendants are concerned, recently, after two years effort the 14th Judicial District and the Montgomery County Commission entered into an agreement with Kansas Legal Services to handle the representation of indigent clients charged with misdemeanor offenses, juvenile offenders and parents in child in need of care and severance cases. The following is the AP article that announced the agreement.

"Chief Judge Judd Dent, who had been the driving force behind bringing about the agreement, said it will provide legal representation in cases involving juvenile offenders, non-traffic misdemeanors and children in need of care cases.

The agreement is innovative and will help to ensure that all persons have access to legal representation the judge said.

Dent will oversee the project for the court and appoint legal counsel in cases involving indigent defendants. Eric Rosenblad, KLS regional services legal director, will manage the project.

April 1 is the target date to open the office which will be in the Judicial Center, 300 E. Main St., Independence.

KLS is a statewide, non-profit organization providing civil legal assistance, mediation and employment training to low income persons. It was established in 1977 to make legal help more widely available to the poor, according to Rosenblad.

Since the 1970's, KLS has "progressively focused its efforts on special needs individuals," he said.

Those include victims of domestic violence, the homeless, the elderly, farmers, those with disabling conditions, children in foster care "and persons who need basic life skills and employment training," Rosenblad said.

KLS provides a way "for keeping many low-income people from falling permanently into the category of chronically poor," he said, as well as providing a way for "many low-income people to successfully get back on their feet and become self sustaining."

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UPCOMING EVENTS Keep your calendars open for the upcoming 14th Judicial District Bar Meeting, CLE presentation and golf tournament at the Coffeyville Country Club in May. We hope to have Jeffrey Alderman, Executive Director of the KBA as one of the keynote speakers.

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WHERE DOES ALL THE TIME GO? Managing Your Time the Best You Can I don't know about you but I need the weekends just to catch up on what I didn't get done during the week.

 It seems that at the end of each day I wonder where all the time went. I think we all would agree that the tasks we want to get done today we put off until tomorrow, especially the unpleasant ones and then we wonder at the end of each day exactly what we accomplished. Doesn't it seem like we spend most of our time firefighting and managing all the way feeling under more and more pressure? Everyone is so busy these days, each minute of each day is crammed full of things to do, hopefully this article will give you some ideas as to how to manage your time a little better.

Our time can be managed more effectively. There really is no need to constantly be telling yourself that there aren't enough hours in the day and "how time flies." The first thing you need to do is find areas that take precious minutes and hours away from you. These areas can be divided into two categories, those which we have no control, and those which we can control.

Areas that steal our time which we cannot control can include vague or ambiguous instructions, interruptions, waiting for answers, to much work, equipment failure, bureaucracy, lack of training, mistakes of others. Those we have control over can include: lack of organization, failing to delegate minor time consuming tasks, poor attitude, forgetfulness (dementia in my case) indecision, screwing off, fatigue, procrastination, outside activities, can't find anything you want poor planning, and finally, getting in over your head. Not all of these are intentional, many as you know, creep into our lives bit by bit. Go over this list, and any try and identify which ones cause you the most trouble. Then rank them from one to ten. The object will be to develop a plan to eliminate as many trouble areas that steal your time away. This is the first step towards managing your time, if you cannot eliminate one or more, see how you can control them.

Another fundamental tool of time management is to look at your priorities. One of the basic principles of time management is prioritization. It is said that 20% of what we do delivers 80% of our results. If this is the case we need to find out what we are doing during that 20% that assists our productivity and helps us succeed. The problem we usually find ourselves in is that we are sometimes driven by the urgency of the task rather than its importance. If this happens what you will end up doing is constantly reacting to crises, fighting constant fires, and generally rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off. As we all know, while in this mode we feel like we are accomplishing something, but actually all we are doing is wearing ourselves out. Much of our time like this is spent on urgent, unimportant activity. Many of the activities we talked about above fall into this category, and it is easy to get caught up and overly focused on these activities. These activities make little or no contribution to you completing your tasks. These tasks are usually thrust upon us by someone else, or are the result of someone else's foul-up.

On the other hand, non-urgent and unimportant tasks are very tempting to take on rather than have them thrust upon you. At the office the biggest culprits in this area might be such things as spending time reading junk e-mails, responding to non crucial emails, and spending time on the phone. It never fails that the temptation is great to focus on these activities before we start working on the important tasks we need to tackle. What happens when we succumb to the temptation is that these unimportant, but attractive tasks take longer than we had expected and as a result we start sliding down that road towards procrastination. Procrastination is postponing (almost always unpleasant) activities until later, and is the biggest robber of your time. We all are tempted to put off now what we can do later, especially larger tasks. You need to realize that many times procrastination occurs as a result of fear of failure or self doubt. In others the desire for perfection can lead to procrastination. The way to beat procrastination is to tackle the task in the order it comes to you, regardless of time constraints. If you do not have time to finish it come back to it, but do not stray from the task at hand. Sometimes it is better to tackle difficult tasks that you would normally put off in short increments. Remember though when time permits return to the project, do not start another, for when you eventually return your end product may seem incoherent at the worst or disjointed at the least.

Often we linger on unimportant tasks because they are an escape from the stress of doing the urgent ones. Obviously, the longer you dwell here the less you get accomplished. Ideally it is best to prioritize activities which are important, but not urgent in order to keep them from becoming important and urgent. If you do this, you will be able to plan ahead, maintain control of your work life and eventually start allocating time to those activities that will allow us to get ahead and succeed.

OK, with the above in mind, how do you better manage your time? Here are some suggestions.

Unnecessary interruptions are always a problem. They occur when someone drops in unannounced, or calls you (mistakenly thinking that you care) requesting information that normally they think you know and are too lazy themselves to look for, or they think that you are the only one who has information or knowledge about something that doesn't involve you other than having to waste time on their interruption. If either of these scenarios happens to you, and if you cannot avoid it altogether, terminate the interruption quickly by any means. Unnecessary interruptions such as this are probably one of the worst time killers. Not only do they waste your precious time, they distract you and sometimes make it very difficult to get back to where you were. On the other hand a necessary interruption has some value and should be handled at once unless the timing is not right. If this is the case do not let yourself get off course by handling it at what is an inconvenient time, just reschedule it. Tell whoever it may be that you will get back to then within a specified time, never leave it open-ended, like "I will have to get back to you later" for this just leads to further interruptions by the person who thinks that you are either not going to get back to them or that you are not getting back to them quick enough. When you are interrupted like this come right out with a "to the point" question in order to get to the heart of the matter as quick as you can and also in order to determine which category the interruption fits in, urgent, not urgent, important and not important. If you just ask yourself "is this really important" you could probably rule out 99% of your interruptions. If unimportant it is going to be a waste of your time and it can therefore wait. If the interruption is unimportant to you or what you are doing, but seemingly important to the interruptee they will call back anyway.

How to get around procrastination. We have discussed some of the problems and pitfalls surrounding procrastination, but how do you avoid it? The first thing to do is ask yourself what it that you are avoiding is. Chances are it is something that is unpleasant or time consuming. If this is the case set yourself a deadline. What this does is instantly create a sense of urgency when you may not think that it exists. Tackle the most unpleasant part first, this way when you get to the enjoyable parts they seem like rewards. If all else fails give yourself an incentive, e.g. as soon as you are done you are out of here. Remember; complete this task before you move on the next. Never put low priority work first thinking if you get the enjoyable easy stuff done it will make it easier to tackle the unpleasant work. Chances are you will never get around to the important or unpleasant tasks if you do this.

Time management. Planning is the key, plan ahead, a day, a week or an hour if you have to. Schedule your important, non-urgent tasks first and most importantly schedule these tasks when you are the most effective whether it is in the morning, late afternoon, weekend, etc. Look at the day ahead of you and set aside you're most productive time to the most important tasks. I have found my best time is after three in the afternoon. By that time everything is out of the way. Here is another thing to consider, delegate tasks to others to free up time. The crucial thing to remember when you delegate a task to someone is to remember that you are the one responsible for its completion so put that other person on a deadline. Remember during your planning stage to prioritize your tasks depending on when the task is due. For example, many times we often do things as soon as they are upon us, if we would check first to see when it was needed you might find out that it can be put off until later, just make sure that you schedule it or else you will find yourself heading towards procrastination.

Try and create "to do" lists as much as possible, at the very least on a daily basis, if not on a weekly or monthly basis. These to do lists are great motivators because you can see your progress.

Finally, learn to say no. If people ask you for help and you are too busy with other important things, just say no.

There is no perfect solution to time management. What I hope I have provided is some ideas to allow you to plan around the problem areas more effectively. One final rule on time management is to avoid boring articles on time management; you are going to do what you always do anyway, right? I will meet you at the end of the day and both of us will try and figure out where all the time went. Thanks for your time, Judge Dent

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COURT SERVICES NEWS

Mary Kadel, Chief Court Services Officer, is pleased to announce that Kim Walker was hired in August 2004 to fill the adult felony position in the Independence office, replacing Erin Engleken. Kim was born and raised in Fredonia Kansas and graduated from Fredonia High School in 1997. in December 2000, she graduated from Pittsburg State University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Justice Studies. Kim was the first person at PSU to graduate with this degree. After graduation, she accepted a job in Marion County as a Court Services Officer. After working there for three and a half years, she returned to her hometown so that she could be closer to her family. In her free time, she enjoys baking and cooking. She also enjoys walking, doing crafts and in the yard (if its' not too hot of course). Kim enjoys spending time with her two sisters, parents and a gaggle of cousins.

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If You Like Blues Music, Check This Out

	Anyone who enjoys Blues and Gospel music should look for the name of Kelley Hunt. Kelley, who is originally from Emporia, and now makes her home in Lawrence, (doesn't everybody but us) loves to sing the blues. She plays the electric piano and sings. She was the featured act for Neewollah 2004, and was outstanding receiving rave
reviews. She makes appearances all over the country and just recently appeared at the famous House of Blues in Chicago. Her website, www.kelleyhunt.com has her listed as being a featured artist at the Chautauqua County Blues Festival in May of this year. If you like blues you will love her music.

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Our Recipes

MEXICAN CHICKEN - from Linda (Knop) Walters, Trial Clerk

3 lb. chicken

½ c. chopped onions

¼ c. butter

1 small can green chilies (diced)

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 lb Longhorn or cheddar cheese, grated

1 9 oz bag of Tortilla chips

Boil and bone chicken. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sauté onions in butter. Add soups, chilies and chicken and cook 10 minutes. In 11x13 pan, place, in layers the following:

Crumbled Tortilla chips
Chicken sauce Grated cheese

Continue layering - usually no more than three layers, making sure top layer is grated cheese. Bake 30 to 40 minutes. Serves 8.

SLOW COOKER CHICKEN TACO SOUP

You can call this soup or chili, but either way it is wonderful. This recipe is also very adaptable to your personal taste. Prep time: approx. 15 min. cook time: Approx 7 hours. Ready in approx. 7 hours 15 minutes. Makes 8 servings.

1 onion, chopped 

1 16 oz can chili beans 

1 15 oz can black beans 

1 15 oz can whole kernel corn, drained 

1 8 oz can tomato sauce 

1 12 fluid oz can of bottled beer 

2 10 oz cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained 

1 1.25 oz package taco seasoning 

3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts 

Shredded Cheddar cheese (optional) 

Sour cream (optional) 

Crushed tortilla chips (optional)

Place the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, beer, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning, and stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set slow cooker for low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours.

Remove chicken breasts from the soup, and allow to cool long enough to be handled. Stir the shredded chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours. Serve topped with shredded Cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream and crushed tortilla chips, if desired.

REDUCED CALORIE CHEESE SCALLOPED POTATOES

¼ c. skim milk

1 can Campbell's Healthy Request cream of chicken soup 

4 cups 1/8 inch sliced potatoes (about 4 medium) 

1 c. Kraft fat free shredded Cheddar cheese 

¼ c. chopped onion 

½ teaspoon salt 

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Gradually stir milk into soup in a 2 quart microwavable casserole dish. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover tightly and microwave on high (100%) 10 minutes; Stir, cover and microwave until potatoes are tender, 10-15 minutes longer; stir. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if desired.

Makes 8 servings and calculates to 3 points per serving on the Weight Watcher plan.
From the kitchen of Cindi Weaver, Trial Clerk.

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District Initiates Employee Of The Quarter And Year Program

Starting January 1, 2005, the 14th Judicial District implemented a new program creatively named the "Employee of the Quarter" and "Employee of the Year." The program is gauged towards improving overall employee attitude and workplace environment by positively rewarding an employee each quarter for his or her efforts toward a list of given criteria. A committee made up of the district judges, magistrate judge and chief clerk will nominate and select a clerk from one of the three courthouses to receive a $50 gift card to Wal-Mart and one administrative day of leave. Nominations will be based upon the following criteria: efficiency; productivity; attitude; accuracy; working relationships w/public, staff, judges and other offices (courtesy, friendliness and helpfulness); timeliness and absenteeism. At the end of the year, the committee will select the "Employee of the Year," from those clerks who received the quarterly awards. The prizes for the yearly award include a $100 gift card to Wal-Mart, $25 dollar gift certificate to one of the many local restaurants, one day of administrative leave and other gifts to be donated by local merchants and to be named at the time of the presentation. Court Services plans to initiate a similar program for their staff. The committee looks forward to some healthy, yet friendly, competition from the employees and eagerly awaits reporting our winners in future e-newsletters. -- Michelle Lahey, Chief Clerk.

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During the past eighteen months our office has seen some major changes occur. We have seen people come and go, but the hardest was the retirement of Bessie Scofield after being with the Court system for 50 years. What a wonderful achievement! Bessie served as District Clerk for many years and at the time of her retirement she worked the civil, probate, small claims desk, and was the main bookkeeper. She told us on many occasions that she was amazed at all the changes that had been made and she was thrilled to be a small part of those changes. We never realized how much we depended on her wealth of knowledge until she left. She always had a ready answer for our questions, or, for the public. We now have a new employee, Lance Carter, from Cherryvale that has fit right in and has mastered the probate desk and the art of answering the phone and waiting the counter. He has done a super job ! ! Lance works part time and is retired from a local firm. Matt Williams is our file clerk and works part time. Matt is a student at Coffeyville Community College and he, too, is a great addition to our staff. We really appreciate Matt and all the extras that he does for us. Matt is a very active young man in his church, the college band, the Civil War re-enactment class, was a counselor for his church camp, a Boy Scout from the age of 11 to 17 years, he has gone on 2 northern tier 9 day canoe trips to Canada. He has plans to attend Mid America Nazarene Bible College. Bonnie James handles the limited and small claims desk, plus part of the bookkeeping duties. She has worked here since 1991. Bonnie keeps the limited case load running smoothly, and that is amazing since some years she has had as many as 2, 237 cases ! ! ! Bonnie handles these by herself ! ! ! We are so proud of her. Bonnie is about to become a grandmother again - she already has 2 grandsons and 1 granddaughter. She is also our resident baker - she loves to bake and share with us in the office. My name is Nancy Williams and I have been with the Court since 1981. I, too, have seen many changes during the years I have been here. I remember the old journal logs that we hand wrote in ! ! Computers are a much better way to handle things! I do the domestic and civil desk, along with bookkeeping duties. I am so thankful that I work in an atmosphere that is friendly and pleasant - it is what makes coming back each day easy! A plus is that our bosses are great about keeping us supplied with excellent equipment. And, speaking of new equipment, we are in the process of getting a new phone system. Everyone is anticipating a more modern type than what we now have with voice mail. Susan Griggs, court reporter, and Roger Gossard, District Judge, have offices in Coffeyville that adjoin the clerk's office. Since neither of them are court clerks, future articles will be devoted to their roles in the 14th Judicial District.

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