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April 21, 2005
Legislative Update: SF330 - Parenting Plans
Both the Senate and the Iowa House have passed, unanimously, SF330, which, if signed by the governor, would bring "parenting plans" to Iowa family law cases. The full text of the bill is available here. The Fiscal Note prepared by the Iowa Legislative Services Agency is also worth reading as it provides some very interesting, and many would say suspect, statistics about the judicial workload caused by family law cases in the state.
Most practicing family law attorneys would probably be highly doubtful of the assumptions found in the Fiscal Note, particularly the claim that "the average time the Judicial Branch spends on a family law case is 103 minutes or $240 per case." Think about this for a minute, no pun intended. If there were 12,181 family law cases in calendar year 2004, as stated in the fiscal note, that means that the Iowa Judicial Branch spent 1,254,643 minutes last year handling family law cases. This equates to 20,910 hours overall, or an average of 211 hours per year in each of Iowa's 99 counties. Assuming a 6 hour day (admittedly on the long side given that most courts have 9:30-12:00 and 1:30-4:30 sessions), this works out to only 35 days per year of court time per county spent on family law cases. Assuming approximately 250 business days per year, the family law docket would, according to the Fiscal Note, only consume about 14% of the court's docket time.
Observations:
1. Call any district court administrator in the state and ask him/her if only 14% of their court's docket time is devoted to family law. Be prepared to wait for the laughing to subside. 2. Consider Polk County, where two (2) judges are assigned full-time to the family law docket each year. This alone equates to 3,000 hours, or more than 14% of the state-wide total. 3. At the opposite end of the population spectrum, primarily rural counties generally spend half or more of the time during their once-a-week court service days handling family law matters. 4. If the case is contested, the Fiscal Note still only assumes the court will give only "an additional 15 minutes of court time" to make a decision about the contested issue(s) related to the parenting plan. This assumption should cause an outcry from the judicial branch, particularly district court judges who take so seriously the incredible responsibility they alone bear in making decisions about children's lives.
Posted on April 21, 2005 in Legislation | Permalink
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| Military Pension and Compensation Resources »
April 21, 2005
Legislative Update: SF330 - Parenting Plans
Both the Senate and the Iowa House have passed, unanimously, SF330, which, if signed by the governor, would bring "parenting plans" to Iowa family law cases. The full text of the bill is available here. The Fiscal Note prepared by the Iowa Legislative Services Agency is also worth reading as it provides some very interesting, and many would say suspect, statistics about the judicial workload caused by family law cases in the state.
Most practicing family law attorneys would probably be highly doubtful of the assumptions found in the Fiscal Note, particularly the claim that "the average time the Judicial Branch spends on a family law case is 103 minutes or $240 per case." Think about this for a minute, no pun intended. If there were 12,181 family law cases in calendar year 2004, as stated in the fiscal note, that means that the Iowa Judicial Branch spent 1,254,643 minutes last year handling family law cases. This equates to 20,910 hours overall, or an average of 211 hours per year in each of Iowa's 99 counties. Assuming a 6 hour day (admittedly on the long side given that most courts have 9:30-12:00 and 1:30-4:30 sessions), this works out to only 35 days per year of court time per county spent on family law cases. Assuming approximately 250 business days per year, the family law docket would, according to the Fiscal Note, only consume about 14% of the court's docket time.
Observations:
1. Call any district court administrator in the state and ask him/her if only 14% of their court's docket time is devoted to family law. Be prepared to wait for the laughing to subside. 2. Consider Polk County, where two (2) judges are assigned full-time to the family law docket each year. This alone equates to 3,000 hours, or more than 14% of the state-wide total. 3. At the opposite end of the population spectrum, primarily rural counties generally spend half or more of the time during their once-a-week court service days handling family law matters. 4. If the case is contested, the Fiscal Note still only assumes the court will give only "an additional 15 minutes of court time" to make a decision about the contested issue(s) related to the parenting plan. This assumption should cause an outcry from the judicial branch, particularly district court judges who take so seriously the incredible responsibility they alone bear in making decisions about children's lives.
Posted on April 21, 2005 in Legislation | Permalink
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