the library. and i think that just common sense can help you determine that. and i think that the second thing is that accessibility also means proximity to the people and the purpose, which means that it should be accessible by public transportation and something near market street would be helpful and it certainly needs to be near the courts, which is where the people are gravitating that are in the need of the library and so i asked you to look at those two considerations as you look at future space for light braer. and to please be generous and proud of your support of your san francisco law library. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> my name is john murray and i have lived in san francisco since 1977. i have been using the law library since about 1980 or so, and i use it whenever the need arises, i am not a lawyer, i am simply a citizen of this

country and a resident of san francisco. i have had many occasions to use the library and i don't do computers and i found that when i do computers i wind up with eye strain and headache and there are many things that i can do with the book such as lay the books out on a table, six or more if i need to and go back and forthwith the books and find it an easy way to deal with smaen subject and especially the law. i have represented myself in overcoming a denial of unemployment insurance claim. and a personal injury slip and fall, and at the rent board where they are using unlicensed contractors and other times such as researching to better help my disabled 82-year-old

friends. and there also an issue with the abc... (inaudible) and i could tell in most of those case, i would not know where to begin without the library and i would not have gotten involved. my life has been enriched beyond measure because the law library exists and i urge you to maintain at least 30,000 with the help from the libraries. >> next speaker, please? >> my name is david lipson and i am an attorney here in san francisco and have practiced for over 40 years and graduated from harvard in 1971, and that

school has the best law library of any school in the world. and i have had the 14 to be a clerk to a judge and work at the state public defender and all of those positions had ample access to legal resource and to law library and i am currently and i have been since 2000 for 13 years, a solo practitioner and i want to subscribe to all of the comments that you have heard about the necessity of full-scale use of books, bolting for lawyers and the public, but i want in these two minutes to try to touch on a point that has been previously touched on and this goes back to the principals and that is how the lawyers think. now we have learned that the most important thing was to learn this think like a lawyer. when you graduate you know theory but you have no idea how to apply it to a case and the practice of law involves theory

applied to facts, principals applied for exceptions and then exceptions to exceptions and so forth. there has been the implication that they are equal to books, but they are not. when you look at the head note and you see under the statute the idea that you never thought of and that whole process is invaluable and that is what you get at looking at statutes and cases and looking back at tretuses and going back and forth you get that process with the books you don't duplicate that on-line which is based only on word searches and as you know, garbage in and garbage out. thank you very much. >> hello my name is michelle

haze and i full time volunteer of the coalition of concern, legal professionals based in san francisco, cclp has two offices in san francisco, one on van ness and the other in bay view hunter's point one of the powerest communities in san francisco. i am here to protest the city's plan to down size the only public library left standing in san francisco. and coalition and unincorporated association of attorneys, law skaouts and paralegals as well as students. we work with organizations of the lowest paid workers and domestic workers and service workers and farm workers who have no access to the legal system as they cannot afford the cost of legal recourse. whether it is hiring an attorney to provide advice on filing suit, in the courts of this city. all that have takes money and access to the information to

make informed decisions and to bring complaints. already, the state has cut the budget for the small claims court resulting in san francisco county no longer hearing small claims cases. historically known as the people's court, because individuals could take their claim without an attorney to settle low legal problems, and they have gone the way of so many services necessary for the people to exercise their rights. now you have proposed to that rink the law library, don't do it. >> as the economic conditions in this country worsen, we are finding more and more people coming to us for assistance who previously could afford to hire an attorney and access the courts. now an increasing number of people are having to navigate the way through the legal system depending on their own ability to find out the law. this is not the time to down size the resources available to assist in insuring the population and can exercise the

constitutional right to petition the government. i urge this committee to hold to its promises of 18 years ago to give these law library adequate space. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> hello, supervisors, my name is carlin gage and i am a native san franciscoan and community residents and i am a member of (inaudible) and a community that utilizing this library, i am requesting, suggesting and verbally petitioning along with other ccerebral palsy members that just spoke before me, as a member of the community with social and economic justice. we are asking for adequate and sufficient space for everyone, for access to a public law library in san francisco.

good morning. i am a native san franciscoan as well. and i have watched over the years the law library shrink from the last 30 years to where i represented prisoners in county jail as directing attorney of legal services as helping the sheriff's department administration using the law library, and currently as a sole practitioner doing worker's comp for injured workers, but there are thousands that i am unable to help because the hours spent i could not possibly, i would be out on the streets as my kids have said. but i am able to always direct them to the law library. i am able to use the resources of the law library that i could not afford if i had to do it on my own and i urge you not to not cut the space any further

than it has been done, thank you. >> good morning my name is ray sloan and i use the library on a regular basis and a friend of the coalition of concerned legal professionals. law library serves the low income community that concerned professional or legal professionals and the organization deals with daily as well as those who previously could afford to hire attorneys and now cannot. the budget cuts are not being made in a vacuum, they are being made at a time of job and benefit losses and over all real loss of income among working people. this is hardly the time to cut yet another critical service. and with the current budget cuts, the state has made to the courts, we cannot afford to have access to the law library diminish because the city is not willing to provide enough

floor space or even unback the (inaudible) and the city needs to live up to the promises that they made to the law library 18 years ago that it will find a location of sufficient space to meet the law library's needs. it is ironic that at the time that the state legislature is finally recognizing the need to assure access to legal representation for low income workers in civil cases by the passage of the act it also recognizes that the pilot program can in no way meet the needs of the legal advice and the systems that it exists. the problems of down sizing the library space, is the same short sided thinking that per veils with the cuts and the court budgets that somehow shrinking will not matter. shutting down the access to the courts and to the law libraries might be acceptable if you are a fortune 500 company or are well off and you can hire a

arbitration judge to arbitrate your problems at $500 to $1000 an hour but most people cannot afford that. >> coalition of concerned legal professionals... >> thank you. >> my name is tony cline and i own three businesss in san francisco, and i have been using the public library for about 35 years. i have used the two downtown branches the one at the court the one across the street and another one i can't remember, but they moved around considerably, i have used it for the paralegal program at city college and i researched five books and i wrote and donated to the library here for a processor of school and two years at law school and i use it for legal history too. so i am familiar with the collection of this library and i know that a lot of it is

missing, but not missing but it is in a different part of the... it is a different area of the library and it is not accessible. my research takes me to other state laws and other decisions some international treatties and secondary sources that are not available and, a table of contents and the index is considerably more convenient than the on-line sources which are inadequate. i do use them because i had a lexus account when i was a law student. it was restricted to non-commercial use. and frankly, i go to the library to make sure that my research is thorough. that on-line services don't have the historical treeties and occasionally i reference them going back to the 1930s. and so i urge you to provide

for the sufficient space for this library. >> thank you. >> my name is christopher heys and i have been practicing law in san francisco since 1974. i'm not an apology for the on-line search because until the legal data basis became available on-line, and as an attorney you were subject to the mersy of the people who made the indexes and they were not very small people and the great thing about the on-line data base is you can do the search and if you figure out the words that the court has to use to decide the issue that you want to do and you will decide that the index people may be there. and so i like that stuff. and the problem is that a lot of the resources that are in the law library across the

street are not available on-line. for example, many of the older cases are not available on-line, the data base i subscribe to goes back to 1930. and when i practiced law at the firm that had a library, many years ago, the older law books, the older case books were gotten weathered and i called it getting into a leather when you (inaudible) that it was relevant. the beauty of those cases that was decided before the turn of the last century is that in those days, the courts decided the case in a page or two. and nowadays, it is like 30 or 40 pages, if you can find one that is relevant it is good to say it. and the second thing that they had there was the directorry and i found my dad who

practiced in new jersey many years ago back in 19933 edition, i use it for looking up judges and attorneys and the historical use of that is good too. >> good morning, my name is (inaudible) santacruise and i am here m my capacity as a sole practitioner and also the president of the san francisco lasada lawyers association and i am here to petition that you reconsider your current proposal and provide the san francisco law library adequate space. and i think that it is very obvious given how many people turned out today that it is a tremendous amount of support that the san francisco law library has. i think that it is important to remember that the library is not just about rows and rows of books, it is about a space that foster as a community, a sense of community. and i have experienced that first hand.

when i first started, my own practice, i was obviously lost when i was researching in order to figure out what particular issue i was seeking, and i have also seen countless numbers of individuals both attorneys and non-attorneys spend hours at the library sitting and researching you know with sacks of books and i think that space is really important, also given that the san francisco law library also hosts ncles which help all attorneys continue their legal education as well as hosting workshops, for example, on bankruptcy or on landlord tenant issues that serve the community as a whole. so it is more than just the

books that are there, but it is also the space that we need. thank you very much. >> good morning, committee members, my name is robert fletcher, i have been a law library user since 1970. when i passed the bar. i became a member of the california bar, i would like to corroberate all of the statements made this morning in support of the resolution to expand the law library's space. i just like to touch about a couple of, you know, personal experiences. i think that you have heard and i would invite you to go to the law library some time and you would find number one, practice

books that are really uniquely appropriate and useful for non-lawyers. >> san francisco law library has the best collection for non-attorneys to be able to solve, to understand their legal problems. and now the san francisco is fortunate of having a very extremely helpful and untilable library staff, every time that i have gone to the law library, i have heard the staff patiently direct say (inaudible) so in conclusion, i would ask you as everyone else as informally to reconsider a 20,000 square feet and to take

the recommendation of this fine professional staff. thank you very much. >> my name is james at ridge and i gave up the full time practice of law 17 years ago because i decided to go part time and partner with my wife in raising an au cystic child and her sister and we have done that successfully and never have looked back, but i never would have been able to accomplish that without the law library across the street. i don't think that there was not everybody in the room who was not moved by the movie philadelphia, about a lawyer who took on the establishment and brought justice to a person who is dying of aids. everyone in this room knows, you don't win a trial like that, just in the courtroom. you work up a trial, you win a trial by working it up in a law library. to a large extent i would like

it to be mindful that many people in this city, if you shut down the library, you might as well shut down the courthouse. >> how do you do? my name is ron (inaudible) and i have practiced since 1964 and i do all kinds of criminal work, appointed federal. and so, i am johnny one note but i have brilliance on the note. i have found in almost every case that i do, somewhere, there is a case or a statute which is going to help the position of my client. and the problem is finding it. and the place to conduct that investigation as far as i am concerned is the law library. and i have a little confession to make which none of the other lawyers have had to confront

which that is that i don't know how to use on-line services. i don't know how to turn on a compute ir. i believe that it is the old problem about the older dog and the new trick. and so help me, i have not mastered that trick. and so, without the law library, to be perfectly honest, i would be like the chemist without a test tube, i would suffer and my clients would suffer and the community at large would suffer, thank you. >> good morning, my name is alan besborus and i am a practicing lawyer here in san francisco. i have had the pleasure of being a law professor for a number of years. and the beneficiary of a good education. one of the things that i learned in the process of practicing and of living, is that the first thing that the

totalitarian wants to do is burns all of the books. no one has proposed to burn the book, but what you have decided to do is lock them away and i can't really meaningful distinguish between a book that is gone because it is burned and a book that is gone because you locked it up and won't let me have access to it. for you that is what is happening here. that is the political and practical implication of taking the law library, fulfilling your duties to provide one to the population, and then making it so small, as to make it unworkable. i don't know that that is what you intend to do. i know, to a certainty that there is a politically position and i think that you and the rest of the population respond to that. i don't know whether it has been 100 and 75, or 150 people

who have come up before me, but i have not heard one voice that said close the library. i have not heard one voice that said... to 20,000 feet is enough. i know that it is not. i am not an, engineer, but i am a user of that library and i have seen the librarians have to go into a locked reposetorrey where the public does not have access in order to get a book that i need. thank you very much for listening. >> i am jerry shapiro and a third generation san franciscoan and i am a lawyer, practicing in the three attorney firm and i am a regular user of the library. you should not find that less than 30 to 35,000 square feet located 8 or 9 blocks from the civil courts is suitable or

sufficient or accessible or convenient. first the library needs that space at a minimum. although additional space is available, with the veteran's building, the city has not provided that space to the library. i often find the desk and computers occupied so that the people who want to use it either stand or can't use it. the space is so small that the library has cut back its collection this means that there are not multiple copies of many books that people commonly need. if you have a book of of the shelf i can't use it. in addition as you have heard much of the klekds collection is in storage and not available to anyone at all. this includes the irreplaceable unique historic collection of the library. as ray bradbury said to counter the statement by my predecessor, you don't have to

burn books to destroy a culture, just get the people to stop reading them. the second reason that the proposal is wrong is that the proposed space is 8 or 9 blocks from the courts tha. is not accessible or convenient as required by law. third, and most important, the failure to provide enough space is not just a violation of the law, it is a disservice to the public. i urge you not to allow the executive branch to violate the law any longer. providing less than suitable space that is not immediately accessible and convenient to the courts will not merely violate the law, it does harm to all of us, thank you. >> >> good morning, my name is heather valante i have been an attorney in the city since 1995 and as a solo practitioner for over ten years now and so, i

think that we are talking about not just a blow to the law here, but a blow to civil society, just like the gentleman just said. take away education and you destroy a culture. my question is, you know, what will those people do who don't have the means to access the books, if we fail to provide them the law that they need to get to. so that they can prepare to go to court. so, it is already difficult for them to access justice. and if the city fails to provide what they need. then i think that it would be a terrible blow to us. these books are cost prohibtive to me, to own and maintain, i would not be able to maintain my practice without in law library. and i ask you to provide not

just adequately for light braer, but to provide all of the books that we need. thank you. >> good morning, my name is john ogrady and i have been a regular user of the law library for more than 25 years. i have or i have given educational workshops on how to prevent financial elder abuse and other state planning topics at the law library. i have often encountered low income people who cannot afford a lawyer trying to do research in the law library, i remember that i had a hell of a time doing research. and i still have a hard time. i don't know how how many does it without legal training, sometimes they ask me questions about how to do their research. and i am really glad to help

them on occasion. and these people do not have a voice here today and so we are speaking for them and the road to democracy is the road begins at the law library, without access to justice, without access to the courts, without access to the legal materials, to present their cases, there is no justice, there is no democracy. so, enough is enough. please listen to us, please stop the devastating cuts to the law library. >> my name is har on the ross and i have been practicing criminal defense law for many years. i remember the library here in this building and having access to the law library has helped me to be successful in many cases that i would not have

been if we did not have the number of books that were not necessary for my research. particularly, textbooks that are very difficult for solo practitioners they are very expensive and have to be renewed every year and i found that the law library has a very nice collection of textbooks that you can also borrow and use them at home and so i know that having a law library has made it possible for me to help a lot of people. and i would not have been able to do it without. so i think that we must consider our citizens and protect them with the right, so that they can defend themselves or represent themselfs in civil cases. thank you, for considering my remarks.