During a meeting of the Bar Association's Family Law Committee yesterday, our new presiding Family Division judge, Hon. Hany Mawla, reported that there are now 93 cases in backlog (equating to a 2 plus year trial delay). He intends to cut this number in half by the end of the year through vigorous, hands-on, involvement in cases, keeping the court house open late two days a week for settlement conferences, and calling two cases at a time for trial. In addition, he will have the availability of a back-up judge to assist. If this aggressive process is successful, Hunterdon County's current standing among all 21 counties (now dead last in family case backlog) should be greatly improved by spring 2011.
The county Bar Association has institued a new committee: ADR, which will handle private arbitrations, mediation and collaborative law issues. There is a recognition by both Bench and Bar that more cases need to be resolved through ADR to avoid calendar back-ups such as the one recently experienced.
The New Jersey Collaborative Law Group is revving up after a short summer break. The near-term goal is to identify best practices for collaboration with the goal of smoothing out practice wrinkles. There has been a recognition that members of the group are following different procedures and, perhaps, employing different styles, which may have unnecessarily complicated collaborative cases. Overall, the feed back from collaborative clients is positive, but more needs to be done to improve quality and continuity of professional services.
I want to congradulate my partner, Robert Shanahan, on his installation next week as Hunterdon County Bar President. Bob has already made a positive and significant impact on the association through his attention to the committee chair assignments.
Finally, I am very gratified to have been named the Legal Professional of the Year by the Hunterdon County Bar Association. It is a good year for the firm in many ways.
Thanks for reading.
© Kevin M. Kilcommons, 2010
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