NH Citizens Commission on the State Courts 
Minutes for January 17 Commission Meeting 
Division of Motor Vehicle Auditorium 
Hazen Drive, Concord 
Kathy Eneguess opened the meeting at 9:10 am by stating that Will Abbott would not be 
attending today’s meeting due to the fact that he started work today at the Society for the 
Protection of NH Forests. 
Don Goodnow, Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts spoke regarding the 
functions of the administrative judges. (Handout was given to all participants, this can be 
viewed at www.nhcitcourts.org under the resources section.) 
Paul Clements questioned Don as to whether data is gathered by gender in divorce and 
custody cases. Don replied that it is not currently gathered by gender due to there not 
being a policy in place. If the policy makers decide that it is important then perhaps it can 
be done and captured in a meaningful way. 
Richard Uchida, President of the NH Bar Association spoke regarding the major 
challenges facing the legal profession. 
1. Justice System – how do they provide meaningful access to justice and 
issues such as language concerns, handicapped persons and the need for 
interpreters. 
2. The Value of the Profession – how to help society understand the value 
of lawyers, that they are trained to be problem solvers. 
Richard also spoke regarding the fact that new attorneys are having a hard time making a 
living. The number of attorneys in New Hampshire has risen steadily. There are 
approximately 5,700 licensed attorneys in N.H. about 4,000 of these are active in the 
state. 
The November 14 commission minutes were approved. 
Kathy spoke regarding the phase 3 process. The instructions will be emailed out on 
Wednesday. She reminded everyone that the phase 1 process was to gain input, phase 2 
was to research and now the commission has moved on to phase 3 and the deliberation 
process. Kathy asked that each committee keep a bibliography of reports reviewed. 
The time line for phase 3 is as follows: 
From now until March 1st committees will meet and decide on recommendations. All 
recommendations will need to be sent via email to Julie Morris by March 1st. At the 
March 13 full commission meeting everyone will need to discuss and decide on those 
recommendations to move forward and those that need further discussion. The final 
report will be presented prior to May 31, 2006. The steering committee’s role will be to 
identify those areas that have not been marked by each committee. 

Meeting adjourned at 10:10 am. 
Respectfully submitted, 
Julie Morris