The building+atmosphere is considerably nice. I don't think I have ever gotten along with a judge yet; some other staff I have. Not in person or over zoom have I gotten along with a judge enough to agree about an issue I bring up. I have had a furious experience with every case over zoom, those are obviously not in the beautiful courthouses, unless you pretend you have wifi issues and go to court administration for an ipad and solitary room, then at least you still feel like you went to court that day instead of just webcaming people. Knowing where to go and accessing the facility isn't that difficult. There's a great set of stairs or if you have mobility problems they do have handicap accessible ramps for wheelchairs or people on crutches. Beautiful courtrooms. Not much of a maze. Parking is easy to find, I don't mind having to pay as I keep change in the ashtray but there is a 2 hour maximum to be careful about as I recently paid for 2 hours with dimes, and came out to a ticket 137 minutes after my arrival time, I deducted the $2 of dimes I inserted into the machine from the $15 fee though as I was in the coffeeshop around the corner for a total of 180 minutes, parked where I usually have for court.
I once went to jury duty for a day, that was interesting and no complaints for that. The metal detectors are friendly.
The building to handle criminal cases is different than the building you handle civil cases in, that is where the Law Library can be found. Help will be found in there if you can find the room and ask for the specific help ya need.
Judges don't usually let me win or give me a break in any of my civil cases so I don't feel its necessary to finish the courthouses rating higher than a three, because if it was based on my personal outcome for court in contrast to the amount of effort I've put into each case there would only be a star to give as I've not walked away a winner once in two years after trying with maximum effort. I'm not sure if gamblers review casino's based on their win percentage though, so I've tried to base this review on the entirety of the Stearns County Courthouse, and with that said if I was not super unlucky I might like the place because its a nice building and you can handle quite a few different things once you know how to file a case into existence, but I won't say I like the place because nothing is worse than a crappy set of orders constantly delaying things. Reading books and trying to generate an interest in the field of law has backfired after most everything I submit is never looked at, and everything I have submitted got me nowhere. I do not like this county's courthouse because I lose and they have judges with power trips. read more
