A FLEXIBLE SCHEDULING Initiative proposed by the NH Bar Committee on Gender Equality is receiving support from the state's Administrative Council.

At their September meeting, administrative judges from the supreme, superior, district and probate courts and the director of the Administrative Office of the Courts pledged to send a copy of the Flexible Scheduling Initiative to each trial judge, clerk and register. The initiative was drafted by the Committee on Gender Equality and discussed with various representatives over the past year. It was submitted to the Administrative Council in May 2000.

The Flexible Scheduling Initiative is as follows:

Purpose: In recognition of the growing number of New Hampshire attorneys who have scheduled flexible working hours to accommodate such needs as family and health care responsibilities, the New Hampshire Bar Association Committee on Gender Equality, in keeping with recommendations of the 1998 Task Force Report, 29 NHBJ 213, 281-283 (1988), encourages the New Hampshire courts to adopt the following flexible scheduling initiative. The committee acknowledges the difficulty courts encounter in scheduling and recognizes that accommodation may not be possible in every case.

1. Reasonable effort will be made to accommodate scheduled flexible work hours of attorneys who notify the clerk of their work schedule at the time an appearance is filed in any case before the supreme, superior, district and municipal and probate courts;

2. It is the responsibility of attorneys who regularly appear in certain courts to meet in advance with clerks to discuss the days on which court is scheduled and the ability of the court to accommodate a particular schedule. It is also the responsibility of attorneys to raise the issue of their work schedule at any structuring or scheduling conference with the judge.

The administrative council is backing the initiative, according to Donald D. Goodnow, director of the AOC. In a letter to committee chair Lucy Hodder, Goodnow said, "Discussion of the [committee's] initiative was positive and supportive of special scheduling needs of attorneys with family, health care or other special circumstances."

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