THE FAMILY DIVISION IMPLEMENTATION Committee has issued a report proposing how to finance, staff and locate courts to concentrate on family law cases. The report, issued Dec. 1, responds to legislation authorizing work on statewide expansion of the one-court, -one-family approach now followed by the Family Division Pilot Project in Rockingham and Grafton counties. The family division will handle approximately 50 percent of the caseload of the state courts once it is fully implemented. The legislation called for a plan that would start the expansion by this summer and extend it over the next two biennial budget cycles.

The legislation, HB 643-FN, called upon the judicial branch to create a statewide family court system that "expeditiously achieves the goal of providing enhanced services to parties involved in cases relating to divorce, custody, children, domestic violence, and other family law matters." In addition to eight sites in the two original pilot project counties, the report calls for 21 sites using existing court facilities in the other counties, with added non-judicial personnel such as case managers and "child support referees" who will assist families in navigating through court processes, finding services, and reaching non-litigated solutions to their cases.

The report will be presented to the legislature, and "we'll wait for the legislature's reaction," said Supreme Court Associate Justice Linda S. Dalianis, who chaired the Implementation Committee. The report contains a proposed statute that she hopes will be introduced early in the session. The report "answers the where and the how" of a new approach to hearing family law cases, said Dalianis. It complements the recently released Family Law Task Force report (See Nov. 19 issue of Bar News or list of links at the end of the article) addresses the substance of a less-adversarial, more informal approach to family law matters. "Our recommendations are meant to fit with theirs," Dalianis said.

A task force to be convened by the Supreme Court next year will also examine the restructuring of the judicial approach to domestic relations and other matters involving families and children. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick will ask the task force-composed of citizens as well as those directly involved in the justice system-to look at recommendations for reform of the court system not only in the family law area, but to consider the work of two other task forces that issue reports this year - the Vision of Justice Task Force and the Task Force on Self-Represented Litigants.

Key Recommendations

Shifts in Jurisdiction, Resources

The Family Division report is less conceptual than those reports, and more of a blueprint and timetable for the shifting of jurisdictions, resources, and funding. Key to the implementation plan is that the superior, district and probate courts will be transferring significant staffing and budget resources to the family division as they yield jurisdiction over matters relating to families and children. In addition to marital masters, district court or probate court judges will also sit on family division cases. Specifically:

• Superior Court will be turning over jurisdiction over divorce and child custody issues, including existing matters as well as new cases. All of the marital master positions will be turned over to the family division, as well as funding and staff that handle those cases now. Once the superior court has reached its target size of 22 judges, superior court judges will no longer hear marital cases. (For more on the future of the Superior Court, please turn to page 26 for an interview with Superior Court Chief Justice Robert Lynn.)
• District Court will transfer funding equivalent to what it receives now to adjudicate domestic violence and juvenile matters.
• Probate Court will transfer funding and staff equivalent to the amounts now devoted to adjudicate termination of parental rights, guardianships of minors and some adoptions.

Courts in three of the least populous counties, Coos, Carroll, and Sullivan, will be the first to be converted, with personnel, judges and court facilities shifted from the superior, district and probate courts to the family division (see map). The more populous counties will then follow, with Cheshire coming last, allowing time for inadequate courthouses in Keene to be replaced. In designing the family division, court officials said they intended to use existing facilities as much as possible.

Added Expenses Mostly Offset

The report proposes $1.5 million in salaries for new positions, but the net cost impact in new personnel will be offset almost entirely by three major factors:

• Transfer of budgetary resources and staff from the superior, district, and probate courts that will be yielding jurisdiction on family-related matters;
• Savings from the retirements of four superior court judges who will reach mandatory retirement age in the next few years;
• Receiving a much higher level of federal funding under the IV-D (Four-D) program that provides reimbursement to the state of between 35 percent to two-thirds for non-judicial personnel who assist in obtaining child support payments.

"We expect to recoup a great deal more money from the federal government for case managers, child support referees, and other positions," said Justice Dalianis.

Work Unfinished on Process for Child Support Disputes

The report noted that its work was unfinished in devising a better, faster process for addressing the key area of discord in family law: child support issues. "The working group spent a considerable amount of time devising and reviewing a plan to introduce [alternative dispute resolution] into marital cases involving children," the report notes. "The plan, still in the process of development, will require the speedy scheduling of these matters for a case management meeting with a specially trained case manager followed by a session in front of a 'referee' in which the parties will be given an opportunity to address their respective positions concerning the amount of child support.

The Family Division Implementation Committee report is available at http://www.courts.state.nh.us/supreme/fdreport.htm. The Family Law Task Force Report (although not a NHBA report) is available at under News Releases.

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Family Division Locations

Except where noted, the Family Division would be located in existing court facilities. Grafton and Rockingham Family Division locations would not change.

* Although Franklin is in Merrimack County, its catchment area would include Belknap County communities.

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