Family Court Watch....detailed instructions for volunteers!

Greetings NOW members and supporters!

Attached are instructions for becoming a volunteer court watcher for the New Orleans Civil District Court.

Some of you have been part of our training classes in the past several months and we hope to have another public training in the next few months.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact us!


Custody Justice Project
Court Watch Instructions

1. Go to Gmail (www.google.com/accounts)

2. Enter user ID: cjpcourtwatch

3. Enter password: volunteer

4. Click on ‘calendar’ in upper left corner

5. Court watch weekly calendar will pop up with available times
blocked in for the following domestic court divisions:

Division A (room 406)- Tiffany Chase
Division F (room 200B)- Chris Bruno
Division J (room 200A)- Paula Brown

6. Add your initials followed by a dash and the division letter to the hours you would like to observe by doing the following: Click on the time to the right of the blocks you want (_not inside them_); a box will pop up prompting, ‘what’: add your initialsfollowed by a dash followed by division letter (for example, Joseph Smith would be JS-A), then click on ‘edit event details’ in same box and adjust the hours under ‘when’ depending on when you will be observing.

7. At most, there should be only 2 volunteers per division per block of time (you don’t have to do a full block at once)

8. On the afternoon prior to your observation day or the morning of your observation day, please call the division to find out if the schedule is still same:

Division A (592-9200)
Division F (592-9216)
Division J (592-9230)

9. Drive or take a bus to the courthouse, which is at 421 Loyola Ave. (Map is available on Gmail site under ‘documents’ in upper left corner on the calendar page) (You can park in the lot at La Salle St. and Perdido St. for 3-5 dollars.)

10. Take multiple copies of both of the monitoring forms with you, for protective order hearings and custody hearings.

(If you need the originals, you can download them from the Gmail site under ‘documents’ in the upper left corner on the calendar page).

11. Observe and document what you see and hear (bring an extra notebook).

12. When you are done, please send the filled forms and extra notes to the following address:

Custody Justice Project
2220 Jena St.
New Orleans, LA 70115

OR you can scan and attach the forms and notes to an email: send to cjpcourtwatch@gmail.com (UNO students may hand the observations into their instructor)

13. Please include contact info so that we can contact you with questions concerning the notes if need be. Your contact info, whether email or phone number will not be distributed to anyone nd will only be used to contact you regarding the court watch.

If you have any questions, please call 504-376-5738.

Custody Justice Project