“Ask Three Mentors” is a question-and-answer column, produced exclusively for Insights, that highlights the fact that members of AFCC are attorneys, judges, and mental health professionals. Many of our most experienced members are committed to mentoring and passing on the wealth of knowledge they’ve acquired through years of work in the field of family law. Each month we will pose a custody-related question to three members of our panel of exceptionally experienced and widely respected family law experts. Our readers will then have the benefit of hearing the answer from the perspective of a judge, a mental health professional, and a family law attorney. Please submit your questions for our Mentors here. For biographies of our Three Mentors panel members, go to this page.
Below our Mentors answer this question:
What are some unexpected silver linings that you’ve seen in family law as a result of the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders?
Judge Monica F. Wiley
In the last three years, we have used technology to improve access to our court system streamline our court hearings and trials and provide litigants the autonomy that they need to resolve their disputes more efficiently. As COVID-19 swept across the country, courthouses initially shuttered their doors, and the state court systems moved swiftly to digitize their processes. The COVID-19 outbreak forced public courts to shift to online operations in a matter of weeks, to ensure continued access to justice. Beginning in March 2020, all 50 states and D.C. adopted statewide or emergency local rules to govern digital operations, shifting civil and family court online in three significant areas: moving from in-person to virtual hearings, immediately implementing e-filing to allow litigants to submit documents online, and accepting e-signature verification of documents.
In San Francisco, the Unified Family Law Department never ceased operations as we struggled to adjust the new reality within our byzantine court infrastructure. For many courts, including the public health emergency meant re-imagining how to administer justice and focusing on the adoption of digital tools to assist litigants in navigating the court system. Courts throughout the state leveraged technology not only to stay open in the face of a global pandemic, but to improve participation rates and communication with attorneys, litigants, and our court partners. Department emails, voluntary remote mediations, and emergency e-filing were implemented and immediately benefited court users during the height of the pandemic.
The efforts made by state courts in 2020 and 2021 represent an important step toward modernization. In family law, we are now living in a world where extended relatives can attend adoption hearings from all over the country, where parents litigate court hearings without having to take a day away from their jobs and where expert witnesses can testify in cases remotely at a fraction of the old cost.
These technological innovations have made the civil legal system more accessible, with operations and procedures that are transparent and equitable, so that all users can assert their rights and resolve disputes more efficiently.
Silver linings indeed.
Dr. Matthew J. Sullivan
Walter Scheidel, Professor of History at Stanford University wrote about the pandemic:
“A big crisis doesn’t necessarily change the direction of a society’s development. More often than not, it merely accelerates and amplifies existing trends”.
These words ring true with the impact of the pandemic on the family justice system as many changes that occurred in response to COVID are here to stay. COVID has created significant hardships, but there have been some silver linings I have experienced that have benefitted clients and professionals alike.
For clients, paradoxically, with the societal “shut-down” access to justice improved for many after an initial adjustment to the new realities of the pandemic. Virtual services provided by the Family Court and professionals associated with the family Courts have been more accessible to many underserved clients, including, those living in rural/remote areas, those with special needs (mobility, etc.) those with financial and individuals without legal representation. Geography is no longer an obstacle to obtaining Court-related services. Clients and professionals can engage virtually. For clients, transportation is eliminated as an obstacle. For legal and mental health professionals, working remotely has reduced or eliminated office-based work (I gave up my office totally last year!). No commute, no rent.
In the private sector, there is a disruption in professional practice that is seismic. Geography is much less relevant in clients seeking legal and mental health services. The priority of finding a local provider, is being replaced by finding the best provider regardless of where they practice. Geographic restrictions are limited only to licensing limitations (typically needing to practice within the state) and those are rapidly being eliminated. We have yet to see how this disruption will impact our practices in the future.
Finally, professional training instantly shifted to virtual formats in early 2020. I was president of AFCC international 2019-2020 and remember having a stressful discussion with Peter Salem our Executive Director in March of 2020, as the fate of our annual conference in New Orleans scheduled for June looked increasingly uncertain. We made the decision to “pivot” to a virtual conference and ended up had 4 times the enrollment in the program compared to our in-person conference. Continuing education opportunities have increased dramatically since – conferences, webinars, virtual trainings provide professionals low-cost, easily accessible live and videotaped educational opportunities.
Attorney Deborah H. Wald
The ability to appear remotely has made it possible for attorneys and mental health professionals to appear in court in more counties without having to charge travel fees. This has broadened the group of professionals available to serve court-involved families throughout the state, with particular benefit to families living in under-served areas of the state (e.g. more rural counties).
In addition, many mediators are finding that there is benefit to the parties each being in a place of comfort during mediation, rather than being in an unfamiliar office environment. It can make for a less stressed mediation process, which in turn can cause the parties to be more relaxed and open to considering a broader range of potential solutions.