NCJ Number
101356
Date Published
1982
Length
288 pages
Annotation
An evaluation of Saskatoon's Unified Family Court Project (Saskatchewan, Canada) between 1978-1981 focused on the functioning and interface of the judicial, administrative, and counseling components.
Abstract
Under the project, all family law matters were heard by the unified court. These cases included all matters related to juvenile delinquency, child abuse and neglect, divorce, custody, maintenance, matrimonial property, and interspousal violence. The court's abbreviated and custom-made rules allowed for the combining of multiple actions into a single originating motion, thus permitting lawyers and the court to understand families as a single entity. The unified approach also deemphasized the adversarial aspects of conflict resolution, reduced the expense of litigation, cut court costs, and made optimal use of the time of specialized judges. Further, the combination of social and judicial mechanisms provided a less stigmatizing and painful and more compassionate approach to dealing with family breakdown. The counseling service also helped avert a number of unnecessary trials by helping families resolve disputes out of court. Two major lessons can be learned from the project. First, the unified family court provides compassionate, fair, and client-centered services that can increase the mutual respect among bench, bar, clients, and social agencies. Second, interdisciplinary teamwork among the components is essential to success and must include good communication networks, deemphasis of hierarchy, and adequate opportunity for discussion and review. Recommendations for improving the court are provided. A list of public information and education activities under the project is appended. 19 tables and 21 references.