Health & Fitness
NEW CHANGES TO CALIFORNIA FAMILY LAW
New changes on how Family Law cases will be handled in California.
Finally after much anticipated wait, thanks to the Elkins’ task force, you will see many great changes on how California courts will be handling family law cases. For some courts, these changes will begin in April and the following months for all others. The goal of Elkins is to ensure there is efficiency, consistency, fairness and due process to all parties, especially for the, “Self Represented Litigants”, the new term replacing, “Pro Pers”.
All of this began in 2007 when Petitioner Jeffery Elkins was a self represented litigant in a marital dissolution trial. According to local rules of Contra Costa Superior Court, only written declarations were allowed for trial and evidence could only be admitted in their pre-trial declarations. As a result, Elkins was denied the opportunity to give live testimony and of his 36 exhibits, only two were allowed. Having lost, Mr. Elkins appealed, arguing the local rules denied his due process rights and conflicts with both the evidence and civil code of procedures, Elkins v. Superior Court 41 Cal.4th 1337. The California Supreme Court agreed with Elkins, reaffirming the right of parties in Family Law proceedings to full evidentiary trials and due process of law. In his opinion, Chief Justice Ronald George called for the appointment of a task force to examine how to best accomplish these goals in California’s Family Courts. I have included a great blog article in the link below if you want to learn the specifics of the task force.
Some of the changes you will see:
1. Faster resolution of divorce, separation and nullity cases. The goal is to finish a divorce case in about 18 months (whether this case actually be accomplished, will see!)
2. Case management will be offered by the courts to control the pace of litigation.
3. Consistency with the use of the evidence and civil code of procedure.
4. Simplification of forms.
5. Uniformity in the process
Resources to learn more:
California Local Rules of Court 5.83
http://www.courts.ca.gov/cms/rules/index.cfm?title=five&linkid=rule5_83
Legal Informatic’s Blog:
https://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/tag/elkins-v-superior-court/#CODE
Elkins v. Superior Court
http://www.lawlink.com/research/CaseLevel3/11243
Elkin’s Task Force Recommendations/ Final Report
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/elkins-finalreport.pdf
