Thursday morning at 8 a.m., The Lens’ Charles Maldonado will talk with Brad Cousins, head of Court Watch NOLA, a citizen-driven organization that keeps tabs on members of the judiciary — including those up for re-election.

With early voting beginning Oct. 21, this hourlong interview and Q&A session is designed to explain how and why the judicial races are important to New Orleanians who don’t usually find themselves in court. Seats on the bench are elected only every six years, so a chance like this won’t come along again until 2020.

Volunteers with Court Watch observe thousands of hours of courtroom activity, and Cousins compiles reports based on their observations, such as this recent one regarding user friendliness.

This event will follow our usual format, with our reporter and our guest having an in-depth, one-on-one conversation for about 40 minutes before we open the floor to questions from the audience.

While we welcome the attendance of judicial candidates, electioneering will not be permitted at the event.

For those who can’t make the event, we’ll have a live stream below.  If you have questions for Cousins  tweet them to #BreakfastNews and we’ll try to pose them during the event.

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Thursday, Oct. 16

Time: 8 to 9 a.m. (doors open at 7:30 a.m.)

RSVP: Anne Mueller, amueller@TheLensNola.org

Location: Basin St. Station, 4th floor, 501 Basin St. at St. Louis Street

Parking: Available in the Basin St. Station parking lot adjacent to the facility. This map shows the location of the parking lot and adjacent access points.

LIVE STREAM VIDEO IS AVAILABLE TO WATCH HERE. 

Steve Beatty

Steve Beatty is the publisher and chief executive officer of The Lens. He worked as an editor for The Times-Picayune for 15 years, leaving New Orleans just before Katrina to take a position as an editor...