. >> i think judge berzon save you an accurate picture of the problems on the 9th circuit so let me turn to some more general problems. i believe that one of the most significant problems, if not the most these days, is the effort of the federal courts recently to close access to the courts. i agree with judge williams but it's a broader problem as far as i'm concerned. we've had a lot of technicians in the federal courts recently. who rely on technical rules to close access. the great contribution the warren court made to our system was to open courts that used to be open only to corporate interests, to big business and make them available to people who had problems. since then we've gone in the opposite direction. it's much harder for people who need the courts to get help, to get into court. we have standing rulings, mootness -- a whole series of technical rulings designed to shut off access to those who need it. in the criminal field we've adopted a statute that now says for state prisoners who've lost their constitutional rights, that it doesn't matter whether you're constitutional

but judge berzon mentioned to me something last night which i think is pretty important. and that is on the dc circuit we have no visiting judges at all. and i know on the ninth and probably on the sixth and i don't know, jay, about the fourth, but we don't -- i assume that the large number of visiting judges, whether they're district court judges or appellate judges does adversely affect the ability of a court to do collegial decision-making because these are people who don't have an investment in the institution and who you really don't know. >> that's very interesting. >> and i've not sat on a court with visiting judges so i can't say for myself but as i listen to my colleagues on other circuits, it could be a big problem. >> we just started on 7th. there was a period where visiting judges on the seventh and there were 14 years where there were no outsiders, period. and this year we have started with district judges who are less than five years on the bench inviting them to sit partly because of the exchange that we can so that they can experience being on the court of