Legislative Roundup

IN LEGISLATIVE ACTION at the close of the biennial session, the governor signed a bill creating a task force to examine the treatment of family law cases in New Hampshire, and she vetoed a bill that would have required the Bar to hold a referendum on the unification of the Bar Association. (See her veto message on page 4.)

Meanwhile, attorneys are considering the ramifications of HB 1429, which extends the Consumer Protection Act to regulated professions. The bill may heighten acrimony in litigation and creates the possibility for enlarged damage awards if damage clients suffered resulted from fraudulent or intentional misconduct. (See accompanying article on page 5.)

The 22-member task force formed to examine the handling of family law cases has been given until November 2003 to come up with a proposal for "integrating a non-adversarial system for families undergoing divorce, separation, custody disputes, and other family matters."

John Cameron, a Laconia attorney and chair of the Family Law Section, said he helped write the bill and testified in favor of creating the task force. Speaking as an individual and not in his capacity as chair of the section, Cameron said the system is in need of overhaul to provide litigants with more non-adversarial options and that, to date, many of the changes have been made in a "helter-skelter" fashion. Cameron said that some of New Hampshire's divorce procedures are "archaic" and deter divorcing spouses from raising children jointly.

The legislation calls for the committee to do the following:

• Gather information on and study the current state of family law and its application in the court system, including current procedures and reporting requirements.
• Develop a comprehensive plan that might include recommendations on modifications of laws and court rules; case processing, reporting, and information exchange; and how reforms in the courts can be coordinated with social ser vice resources with the goal of integrating "a non-adversarial family law system that provides support to families prior to making a decision regarding divorce, custody or other family law issues."

The task force would include representatives from the Bar Association, the relevant committees of the House and Senate, and the courts; an attorney from the state's Division of Children Youth, and Families and one from the Division of Child Support Enforcement; a guardian ad litem; a child psychologist; other social services representatives; a man and a woman who are both "experienced consumer(s) of family law, mediation, family support, or children's services"; and the executive director of the NH Judicial Council.

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