As part of a state pilot project, Grafton and Rockingham counties will introduce a family court this summer to encourage alternate dispute resolution and allow families to see the same judge for different familial problems.
"Once people get to the court, we are hoping to make it easier for them to use and understand the process," Project Coordinator Craig Briggs said.
The project is part of a legislative act that directs the New Hampshire Supreme Court to establish pilot programs in Grafton and Rockingham counties with four family court sites in each, Briggs said. The family courts will open on July 1.
Briggs said the legislation specifies that in November 1997 the New Hampshire Supreme Court will submit a report to the legislature about the new court. He said the program may then expand statewide.
Currently, family law matters are heard in three different courts, Briggs said, and the family division "brings all family law cases under one jurisdiction."
The probate court hears cases of adoptions and termination of parental rights cases; the superior court hears divorces and the district court hears juvenile matters, he said.
The family division will hear all these types of case, he added..
About half of the states in the union have family courts, Briggs said. Rhode Island, which instituted its family court in 1960, was the first state to integrate these family issues in a court system.
Briggs said the family court judges will come from the probate, district and superior courts and are individuals who "have expressed a particular interest in family law and in hearing these cases." They will be designated by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, he said.
Bill Lawler, director of the Grafton County Youth and Family Mediation Center, said the courts are trying to find judges with experience and personal interest in dealing with family-related issues.
"One of the underlying themes is that if [the judges] are involved with the families and see them more than once, they can be familiar with what is going on and involve them with the appropriate agency," Lawler said.
In the new family division, "if a family is going through a divorce and there is also a juvenile matter that comes up such as delinquency, abuse or neglect, the same judge will be assigned to both cases," Briggs said. "The judge would be following that family through the process."
Lawler said the consistency which comes with having one judge work on all the familial legal matters for a family is an asset.
Briggs said he does not have any statistics at this point, but he said he does not "think it is unusual for a family to have two or more different types of cases either going on simultaneously or within a reasonable time frame."
A goal of the family court system is to encourage alternate dispute resolution, including "things like mediation and trying to encourage families to resolve disputes themselves rather than in all cases to have to go before a judge to tell them what to do," Briggs said.
Lawler said the family division is more like a mediation program.
"My sense is it is going to be more of a hands-on helping and trying to direct people to the right resources," he said.
Briggs said these courts will have a case manager, a new position, who will help litigants who are not represented by attorneys with forms and preparation for their hearings.
Briggs said the geographic accessibility of the family courts is another benefit of the system because a family from Lebanon, for example, can file a matter in their own town.
