ALBANY, N.Y., Feb 6 (Reuters) - The New York City Bar Association will focus in 2012 on increasing access to the legal system for the poor, adding judges to family and civil courts and consolidating state trial courts, the group said in a wide-ranging report released Monday.

The 53-page report is a compilation of the association's views on a host of issues currently before the state legislature, some of which impact attorneys and the court system directly, and others that do not.

Like its statewide counterpart, the New York State Bar Association, the NYCBA is calling on the legislature to pass the Office of Court Administration's proposed $2.5 billion budget in full. The proposal cuts spending slightly from last year, while including $28 million for raises for the state's 1,300 trial court judges and an additional $12.5 million in funding for legal services for the poor. Last year, the legislature cut OCA's spending by $170 million, leading to shorter court hours, hundreds of layoffs and other cuts that have caused backlogs and other issues in the court system.

"The budget as proposed is fiscally prudent, ameliorates the harshest consequences of last year's budget cuts, and helps address vital unmet legal needs of the state's most vulnerable individuals," the report reads.

The bar association also wants to see a "simplification" of the state's court system through the creation of either a single-tiered or two-tiered system, which would include the Supreme and District courts, to replace the current maze of courts. That would likely require a constitutional amendment, which would take several years to pass.

"Citizens not only find our current court system frustrating, inconvenient and difficult to understand, but they are often forced to pursue relief before multiple judges in different courts," the report says.

Despite the recent lack of funding statewide, the report also calls for more judges in the city's family courts in order to expedite permanency proceedings, in which permanent homes are found for foster children. A 2005 law mandates the proceedings to be completed within six months, but family courts have had trouble keeping up with the requirement due to strained resources, according to the report.

The state should also complete what it started in 1993, the report says, by deciding how to spread out 11 new judgeships in New York City Civil Court, where filings have tripled over the last decade. The legislature created the positions almost 19 years ago, but never passed legislation apportioning those seats among the five boroughs.

The report also calls for the creation of a fifth judicial district in order to ease the burden on the Second Department, where caseloads are currently higher than the Third and Fourth Departments combined, a commission-based judicial appointment system to replace the current convention process controlled by political parties, and the creation of a private right of action for improper debt collection.

NYCBA is also backing a number of proposals with annual constituencies in Albany. Among them are the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, which would add "gender identity and expression" to the list of categories protected from discrimination under a number of state laws, the Reproductive Health Act, which would codify the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, and a bid by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to require anyone convicted of a crime to submit a DNA sample to the state's criminal database. The state Senate passed the DNA bill last week, but a number of Assembly members said they want the proposal to include greater access to the database for defendants.

(Reporting by Dan Wiessner)

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