Our tax dollars hard at work!

I accompanied a friend of mine to a preliminary hearing today.
She has been accused of something unjustly. It's not a criminal case, just a disciplinary infraction.
In any case, she was told to arrive at the building for her preliminary hearing before 9:30am. This, she was told, was to review the facts of the case and decide whether she would need to be seen by a judge.
I met her there for moral support.
There were about three other women there when I arrived waiting to be seen as well.
We sat in the waiting room for an hour. No one else was called in during that entire time.
Finally she gets called in by the judge who proceeds to inform her that this meeting is to determine the date for her hearing. He has no knowledge of what she has been accused of, and has, in fact, not read anything in her file. He then introduces us to the attorney who will be representing the city who also has not read the file and has no knowledge of the case and has just been assigned the day before. He now has to review the file and determine whether there is enough evidence for her to be seen by the judge and he will inform her of this at a later date, but before the actual hearing.
They then proceed to take out their blackberrys and go through their calendars to pick a date for the hearing for three months from now.
So, not only did they make my friend waste a vacation day at work, they had her go all the way there for something they could have just sent her a letter about, or called her about. What if she didn't have any vacation days left? She would have lost a days pay for absolutely nothing important.
I just don't understand why we're paying the judges and lawyers to sit in a room all day and tell people when they are scheduled to come back for a real hearing. Isn't that what secretaries or clericals are supposed to be for. This is how our wonderful system works folks.