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Bar News - March 22, 2002
Fast Facts: The NH Superior Court
From the State of New Hampshire Judicial Branch 2001 Annual Report.
- Close to half of the Superior Court workload (44 percent in calendar year 2000) involves domestic relations matters.
- A pilot project initiated by the Legislature in 1993 to reduce the impact of divorce on children became operational in all 11 Superior Court locations this year. Parents now attend a four-hour child impact seminar on how to avoid involving their children in the negative aspects of separation and divorce.
- All 10 New Hampshire counties are now using the Academy Program, an innovative sentencing plan for certain non- violent offenders that combines strict supervision, education and counseling as an alternative to serving time in prison. The program is often a defendant’s last chance to avoid jail. Defendants accepted into the yearlong comprehensive, self-directed program must complete courses in living skills, including parenting and money management, and must maintain a job or search for one. Substance abusers must attend a required number of self-help programs and submit to random testing.
- Since 1992, the Superior Court Alternative Dispute Resolution program, sup ported by volunteer attorneys, has saved time and money for litigants and helped eliminate the backlog of civil cases in the Superior Court. The volunteer attorneys act as neutral evaluators, mediate disputes and act as arbitrators in various cases. 290 lawyers volunteered 841 days to ADR in the year 2000. Recent statistics show that of the 5,500 cases filed in 1999 in NH, 2,100 were referred to alternative dispute resolution and an estimated 60 percent were settled as a result, most within six months of being filed. Participation in the ADR program is mandatory in all civil cases in Rockingham, Hillsborough, Sullivan and Merrimack Counties.
- The Superior Court is composed of the chief justice and 28 associate justices. There are also 11 marital masters appointed by the court.
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