And a child shall lead them
I've been doing a lot of consulting work in various family courts of late. While a manager tends to look at work in an orderly fashion, it's hard not to get caught up in the emotional upheaval that occurs in children's lives who, for no fault of their own, often find themselves in a bureaucratic nightmare called family court while their families sort through conflicts associated with divorce (or worse, child neglect and abuse cases). The American Bar Association published an interesting article about British and American courts that are beginning to do a better job of outreach to youth.
The Brits now invite comments from young people concerning proposed changes in the family court system. Most US courts appoint a separate lawyer for a child involved in abuse and neglect cases, and judges solicit direct input from kids concerning the outcome of these cases. Divorce cases are a little tricky in that children have no legal standing in the actual dispute other than custodial issues and child support. However, California courts (and a growing number of others) mandate mediation in custodial disputes and mediators are trained to seek a child's views as part of the settlement effort and development of a parenting plan.
One thing is for certain … our traditional adversary system of justice does not work well in the family courts. US courts are using a lot more innovative approaches to resolving these disputes, including mediation and even one-judge-one-family assignments. This involves identification of ALL cases pending in court involving a particular family and bringing all the cases in front of one judge. Not surprisingly, a drunk driving case by one spouse, a domestic violence charge by another and a delinquency charge against a child may all be related to root family problems such as substance abuse that, if addressed, could resolve all these cases at once. The alternative is to try and address these issues piecemeal and hope everything works out (it usually doesn't).
So, this is my lame excuse for not writing blog entries more frequently. I have been out laboring in the fields of justice trying to make our country's family courts work better. The good news is that courts are asking for help and are serious about trying new approaches. And in some instances, a child may lead them.
Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com