Following Up On The Court Records Posts

Alexandria goes live on new statewide case database from The Anderson Herald Bulletin might best describe the mess of our courts (although there are serious differences between a town court and the courts hearing family law cases) even better than what was discussed in Court Files, Court Records and Getting Them and A Guest Post Following up on My Court Records Post.

The new Odyssey Case Management System has been introduced in 13 counties in Indiana, with the idea that it will link court records across the state.

“It was the goal of the court to have one statewide system so judges could see what was happening in other courts,” said Mary DePrez, director and counsel for trial court technology at the Indiana Supreme Court’s Judicial Technology and Automation Committee.

Although the database is geared toward trial courts, the committee has a Department of Justice grant that allows it to extend Odyssey to city courts whose systems are extremely old.

Also The Muncie Star Press reports 2 more counties join Indiana state courts network:

INDIANAPOLIS — Courts in Blackford and Huntington counties are now among 50 Indiana courts using the state Supreme Court's electronic case management system.

Information in the Odyssey system is available over the Internet at no cost.

Odyssey was installed in 10 Indiana courts on a pilot basis in December 2007 and now operates in 18 counties. These courts comprise 22 percent of all the new cases filed in Indiana.

***

Allen County is scheduled to begin using Odyssey later this year.

A Guest Post Following up on My Court Records Post

A brief introduction and an apology: the following came via e-mail after publishing Court Files, Court Records and Getting Them and the delay came about due to the need to deal with work. This is my first guest post. The formatting got lost in translation, so I will apologize for that also. I want to point out that this e-mail underscores just how little data we have on our courts.

I'll start with a disclosure- I work with one of the companies that "competes" with the Odyssey system by providing an alternative that works today and costs the taxpayers nothing. It *does* cost attorneys something, but in total, considerably less that the fees and taxes assessed to pay for the State's system. To give you an idea of the difference in expense, the annual salary costs for JTAC staff alone is about three times gross receipts in the last year. Their entire budget for 2009 was roughly 12 times our gross receipts. 50 counties use our system, so much of the court information in the State is in fact centrally available.

Here are several pieces of information that may have been unclear from the article you saw: 1) The Odyssey system doesn't include document imaging, so despite the $89 Million (per the LSA) spent by the Judicial Technology and Automation Committee so far, you still can't obtain complete public case documents from any of the counties that use the Odyssey system without visiting the courthouse. What you can get is part of the CCS. 2) The system procured by the Kosciusko clerk *does* include document imaging and the ability to share all public court information, including document images on-line.

Five clerks using that system requested permission from the Division of State Court Administration in April 2008 to make documents available on-line, more clerks have sought permission since then, but the Division of State Court Administration has not yet acted on those requests. It is not inferior technology or the unwillingness of local clerks that has kept these records bound up in the county courthouses. It is within the State Court Administrative Division's power to grant this access, and they have simply not allowed it. This may be because the Odyssey system doesn't stack up very well in comparison to the existing systems and this will become apparent if access is allowed. The Kosciusko clerk has opted to use a system that costs less per court than Odyssey and is capable of providing more of the type of access you would like to see. Of course, a press release from the folks promoting Odyssey won't highlight that distinction. Sadly, most newspaper articles on the topic are nearly verbatim reprints of those releases.

I am willing to chat further with you about this if you are interested- I also wouldn't mind posting any of the information above as a comment on your blog, just posting a comment felt a bit like starting an argument instead of a dialogue. Since I'm in agreement with you basic premise that broader access to court information is, I thought I'd start with a personal communication to correct some of the inaccuracies in that article and invite further discussion. Best Regards, -Nick

Courts Cost Money

For those wanting to understand a bit more the courts in your life, and for those who think we need judicial reform (particularly child custody matters), this post is for you.

Indiana's Chief Justice must give a yearly State of the Judiciary speech to the Indiana General Assembly. From The Indiana Lawyer's report on his speech, Chief justice: courts handling the tough times, I latched onto the following paragraphs:

The chief justice encouraged lawmakers to support any measures designed to help the judiciary collect all revenue that the law says is due from court operations so that it can go directly to state and county budgets that need it. Because requests for new courts and judges just aren't reasonable because of the economic state, the chief justice urged lawmakers to support legislation that would allow retired magistrates to also work as senior judges to ease local caseloads.

Additionally, the chief justice recommended that lawmakers support legislation that would create a framework for new veterans' courts, problem-solving courts that would allow the judiciary to better deal with those with special disabilities stemming from military service pressures. This would mimic what's already been done with drug and re-entry courts, he said.

"This bill has no fiscal note at all, and indeed the net of these three ideas is revenue positive," he said, adding to a message that the judiciary will do all that it can to assist in these tough times.

***

Chief Justice Shepard also pointed to areas the judiciary has worked on during 2009: a statewide electronic protective order registry system is enacted in every county, and hundreds of law enforcement agencies have used the e-citation system implemented in the past year. He also pointed out the 1,112 attorneys and judges who've been trained to help in mortgage foreclosure cases, and that the judiciary will soon put facilitators into foreclosure-settlement sessions to help. In addition, the number of new volunteers trained as court-appointed special advocates in 2009 increased 26 percent over 2008.

He also spoke about how the state's judicial branch is about ready to unveil new statewide jury instructions that will be easier for non-attorneys to understand and how a statewide assessment tool for juvenile offenders in the Department of Correction has been adopted.

Even if there was a role for a court to act in a more policeman role, that is a more activist role, there is no money for them to do so.

Even more specifically about family law and judge, The Indiana Lawyer published State funding of judges being explored

Lawmakers rejected a southern Indiana county's request this week for a new judge to run a family court, even though it proposes paying for it locally rather than with state money. But in declining to attach the magistrate-turned-judge idea to another bill, a House committee said it wants to keep talking about the issue that could be a policy-altering move in how Indiana pays for its trial court judges.

The House Judiciary Committee approved HB 1154, which would allow Marion County to convert its 24 appointed commissioners to magistrates that hold the same responsibilities but would be able to consider a wider range of issues within each court. The county proposes paying the $2.3 million for those magistrates with a $35 fee tacked on to traffic infractions, which has been collected since 2004 and is by law turned over to the state general fund. The fee initially went into place to pay for jail overcrowding costs, but that issue has been largely resolved and the fee isn't used for that anymore. Now, the state's largest county wants to use that money to save the state from having to pay for the county magistrates or pay for adding new judicial officers.

***

Committee members voted 11-0 in support of the idea, but not before voicing hesitation about a proposal by Rep. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, to amend the legislation so that Bartholomew Superior Court could also convert a commissioner position into a new Superior judgeship starting in July 2011.

This would allow the county to convert a current commissioner, who hears only child support non-payment cases, to a judge that could hear all family-related case types. Bartholomew Circuit Judge Stephen Heimann proposed using the same kind of funding mechanism as Marion County is proposing in its commissioner-to-magistrate conversion - using a fee of at least $20 on traffic infractions that would go to the state general fund. If anything fell short of the estimated $150,000 needed, the county would be responsible for making up the difference. An estimated $189,000 per year could be raised from the fee, and be applied not only to the judge's salary but also benefits, Judge Heimann said.

Even without this having a state fiscal impact, Rep. Trent Van Haaften, D-Mount Vernon, questioned why the proposed amendment didn't call for a commissioner-to-magistrate change as Marion County's proposal did, but rather a commissioner-to-judge. In response, Judge Heimann said it was specifically because the county needed a new family court and needed a judge's authority to hear all of those issues that might come before it.

Just in case anyone thinks this only an Indiana problem, give a read to The Future of Divorce in MN

The court system is in a financial crisis. This crisis has been articulately described by Chief Justice Eric J. Magnuson in highly publicized interviews he has given to the media. I have read some of his interviews, and I have to say that I think he is right. (I also have to disclose that, technically, I work for the Minnesota Supreme Court. My license to practice law is granted by the Minnesota Supreme Court, and in some sense Chief Justice Eric J. Magnuson is my “boss.” Regardless, I feel that he is right and I think that anyone who has an interest in the Minnesota court system should make known to their legislators how important it is that the court system be adequately funded.)

In a practical sense, the lack of funding effects every person who is getting divorced in Minnesota. The court filing fee is now $400. It could increase. It costs $100 to file a motion in divorce court, and it even costs $25 to send a fax to the court. These are the costs that are easy for people to recognize.

However, there are other costs. The funding for child custody and parenting time evaluations in Hennepin County has been reduced significantly. Now, judicial officers are talking about parties using private evaluators. Private evaluators typically charge thousands of dollars for a custody or parenting time evaluation.

Unpaid, overworked describes every court I know of.

Indiana Family Law Resources

I am not sure how many readers take a look at the sidebar because some seem to miss a collection of links I have under the heading of Indiana Family Law Resources.

When I created this list, my thought was to create a mini-portal for the most important sources for Indiana family. That does not work very well if no one notices that the information is here.

Nor is it really much use to those using RSS feeds or who have an e-mail subscription.

Every parent should bookmark the first three links.

• Indiana's Parenting Time Guidelines
• Indiana Child Support Guidelines
• Indiana's Online Child Support Calculator
• Indiana Trial Courts and Clerks
• Indiana's Family Law and Juvenile Law Code
• Indiana Rules of Trial Procedure
• Indiana Rules of Appellate Procedure

If you are looking for a specific trial court, then go to Indiana Trial Court and Clerks. This page is maintained by our Indiana Supreme Court. Find the county and this will take you a page showing contact information for each court in a county, the judge's name, a map to the courthouse, and a link to the county's local rules.

Indiana's Family Law and Juvenile Code takes you to Title 31 of the Indiana Code. Here you will find the statutes on marriage, annulment, divorce, parenting time, custody, paternity. child support, and more.

The Indiana Rules of Trial Procedure contains all the rules needed in handling a case procedurally (as opposed to the substance found i the Guidelines and statutes). Not all apply to family law - such as anything dealing with jury trials - but these need knowing for trying a case and they apply in all counties.

Indiana Rules of Evidence are those rules about what is relevant evidence and how we get that evidence before a court. Don't follow these and you do not get your case made.

Indiana Rules of Appellate Procedure are the rules on how to create and handle an appeal in Indiana's Court of Appeals and Supreme Court.

Well, I hope this helps. Bookmark the specific sites or come back here - these will be here.

What Do You Know About Indiana Courts? Part Two - Trial Judges & Commissioners

If you have read What Do You Know About Indiana Courts?, you have probably realized that
Indiana has no courts dealing specifically with family law cases.

For the most part, our trial judges have their time taken first by criminal cases and then by civil suits and then family law cases.  What expertise exists for family law cases will be found more in the unelected commissioners.


Recently Madison County offered a good example of what we have for judges.  Our long standing Circuit Judge resigned and the Governor appointed a new judge.  The Anderson Herald-Bulletin described the appointee's resume as:

ANDERSON­ — A man whose legal experience ranges from enforcing the law as a state trooper to trying criminal suspects as a deputy prosecutor has been named Madison County Circuit Court judge

***

Pyle said his experience gives him the ability to view cases from the perspective of law-enforcement officers and with an understanding of legal theory. “It gives me a really well-rounded background to be an effective judge.”

Notice the emphasis on criminal matters?  This is how the press presents courts to the public.  However, Judge Pyle played to the same choir when he was sworn in according to the Herald Bulletin's New Judge Pyle vows ‘respect, reliability, results’:

He noted a recent federal stimulus grant of nearly $1 million that will help the courts consolidate and expand problem-solving courts. Drug court, mental-health court and re-entry court are meant to provide alternatives to nonviolent offenders who may benefit more from treatment and social-service intervention than from incarceration.

Recently, someone commented to an older post of mine, What to do if refused visitation? that lead me to think a bit more about judges.  The comment noted how hard it was to get visitation enforced as opposed to child support.  Why should that be?  Remember that our Circuit and Superior Court judges are elected.  For those complaining about our judges should ask themselves - what attracts you to a judicial candidate when you go vote?   If you look upon a trial judge's judge as being about helping the prosecutor prosecute criminals, I suggest that you need to rethink your complaints about Indiana's judiciary.  So long as the public demands judges talk like prosecutors, we will have judges whose interest in family matters is secondary at best.  Judges will talk the talk necessary to get themselves re-elected.

(Added after the first draft.  I noticed Family Law Prof blog published MacDowell: "When Courts Collide: Integrated Domestic Violence Courts and Court Pluralism" that seems - once one gets past the academic prose to actually touch on this issue but from a different direction.)

Indiana Courthouse Tours

Whiule not very complete,Courts in the Classroom > Court History Museum Online does give the broader public a chance to see some of Indiana's courtrooms.

The Indiana Supreme Court is in the process of developing virtual courthouse tours for Indiana's 92 county courthouses, all of which are historically significant, and many of which are aesthetically and architecturally significant. In the coming months, these tours—complete with 360° interactive imaging, still photo galleries, and narrative information about each courthouse—will be published to the Courts in the Classroom website and the Indiana Courts county pages.

Go here to directly access the virtual courthouse tours.

News: Indiana County Case Information Online

I only recently noticed All Things Family Law - Indiana Divorce & Family Law Blog's Boone County Court Cases Available Online.  I was not aware of this, so I might overstate this being good news for the general public and lawyers.

What is nto soclearform the orignalpostis that Indiana's State Court Administration has records for several counties online.  Monroe, Hamilton, DeKalb, Owen, Parke, Floyd, Tipton, Warren, andWashington Counties have their dockets online (think the equivalent of an online Chronological Case Summary).

What Do You Know About Indiana Courts?

Indiana has two broad types of courts:  trial courts and appellate courts.  The appellate courts mean the Indiana Court of Appeals and the Indiana Supreme Court.

Trial courts mean either Circuit Courts or Superior Courts.  The difference between the two is that the Indiana Constitution created Circuit Courts:

Section 7. Judicial Circuits. The State shall, from time to time, be divided into judicial circuits; and a Judge for each circuit shall be elected by the voters thereof. He shall reside within the circuit and shall have been duly admitted to practice law by the Supreme Court of Indiana; he shall hold his office for the term of six years, if he so long behaves well.
(History: As Amended November 3, 1970).

Section 8. Circuit Courts. The Circuit Courts shall have such civil and criminal jurisdiction as may be prescribed by law.
(History: As Amended November 3, 1970).

The Indiana General Assembly created the Superior Courts.

The following sets out the powers of the Indiana Circuit Courts:

IC 33-28-1-2

Jurisdiction

Sec. 2. (a) The circuit court has original jurisdiction in all civil cases and in all criminal cases, except where exclusive jurisdiction is conferred by law upon other courts of the same territorial jurisdiction.

(b) The circuit court also has the appellate jurisdiction that may be conferred by law upon it.

As added by P.L.98-2004, SEC.7.

And here the General Assembly set out the powers of our Superior Courts at IC 33-29-1-4:

Sec. 4. The judge of a standard superior court:
(1) has the same powers relating to the conduct of business of the court as the judge of the circuit court of the county in which the standard superior court is located; and
(2) may administer oaths, solemnize marriages, and take and certify acknowledgments of deeds.
As added by P.L.98-2004, SEC.8.

No practical difference exists between the two.  Notice that both courts have criminal jurisdiction. Criminal cases take precedence when it comes to scheduling cases and they will be heard by the judge.  Which may make clear why most family law cases are not heard by the elected judge but by a commissioner appointed by the judge.

A few counties have created family courts.  However, it does not appear that these family law courts are separate courts but a program in addition to the court's general jurisdiction.  (This is based on my knowledge of Henry County and extrapolating to the other counties listed as having family courts).

None of the above applies to juvenile courts which have jurisdiction over paternity cases.   Marion County is the only county I am aware of that has a court denominated for paternity cases only  Even then it is part of the Marion County Circuit Court and commissioners preside over the actual court hearings. In other counties, the juvenile court is but a part of a court's regular jurisdiction which means in addition to its civil and/or criminal jurisdiction.  In Madison County, Superior Court 2 is our juvenile court and hears all juvenile criminal cases, CHINS cases, regular civil suits, paternity cases, and dissolution of marriage cases.

The Indiana Supreme Court maintains a Know Your Indiana Courts page that provides more detailed information on how Indiana structures its courts.  You may also want to check out Indiana Code 33-33 which sets out how the Indiana General Assembly organizes the courts in each of our 92 counties.

I will be following this up on the 19th with What Do You Know About Indiana Courts? Part 2.

Family law courts in Vanderburgh County, Indiana

Evansville lies far beyond my area of practice but when I found the Domestic Division page for the Vanderburgh County courts, I thought why not?  Since I have discussed how Indiana organizes its courts, it helps to see what the individual counties have done.

The Domestic Relations Division of the Vanderburgh Superior Court, commonly known as Division Four, handles cases involving Divorce, Legal Separation, Annulments, Child Custody, Visitation or Parenting Time and Child Support.  The vast majority of these cases begin with the filing of a Petition for Divorce.

The Judges and Magistrates of the Vanderburgh Superior Court rotate through the Domestic Relation Division on a monthly basis.  Uncontested matters are scheduled at 8:00 am in Courtroom 110.  After the parties have met and attempted to reach an agreement, a contested hearing can be set before the Judge or Magistrate presiding in the month in which the hearing is scheduled.  The Court will order the parties to mediation if the parties request a contested hearing for more than 1/2 day.  See Vanderburgh Superior Court Division IV Rules.

I also suggest this same page fro those seeking information on how to file and handle their cases.

How One Indiana County Allocates Its Family Law Cases

While preparing a divorce for Shelby County, Indiana, I read up on the Shelby County court's Local Rules.  If you have read my , you will know why the following caught my eye:

LR73-AR00 Rule 2 Local Caseload Plans:
I. Caseload Allocation

A. Criminal Cases

1.¹ Criminal case allocation shall continue to operate as specified in Amended Joint Local Rule No. 1

B. Civil Cases

1. Juvenile Cases

a.² All Juvenile cases (JC, JT, JD, JS, JM, and JP) shall continue to be filed in Shelby Superior Court No. 1

2. Remaining Civil Cases

a. All Civil Plenary (CP) cases shall be filed alternately in Shelby Circuit Court and Shelby Superior Court No. 1
b. All Domestic Relations (DR) cases shall be filed alternately in Shelby Circuit Court and Shelby Superior Court No. 1
c. All Reciprocal Support (RS) cases shall be filed in Shelby Circuit Court.
d. All Protective Orders (PO) cases shall be filed in Shelby Circuit Court
e. All Small Claims (SC) shall be filed in Shelby Superior Court No. 2
f. All remaining types of civil cases (AD, AH, CT, ES, EU, GU, MH, MI and TR) shall be filed as requested by the initiating party.

More generally, The Indiana Judicial Conference proposes changes to the whole of how Indiana organizes its courts.  See Judiciary announces court reforms from The Indiana Lawyer Daily for news on this.

The plan calls for state funding of the trial courts in order to allocate resources fairly. Currently, the state pays for some salaries and court programs and county councils pay for other salaries and programs. Figures aren't yet available on the impact of funding changes.

I get to add this 27 page report to my reading list of the new Child Support Guidelines.

Paternity and the Child Support Enforcement Prosecutor

What is a Prosecuting Attorney doing in a paternity case? That answer I cannot easily provide but I can try. From long before I was practicing (and I think long before I was born), the Indiana General Assembly legislated that the Prosecuting Attorney had a role to play in paternity cases.

The Indiana Code designates the local prosecuting attorney as a part who can file a paternity affidavit. Then prosecuting attorney must then represent the person for whom they file the paternity petition. (IC 31-14-4-2).

Federal law also applies here since the creation of the Title IV-D Court. This allows for the child support enforcement prosecutor to intervene in more than paternity cases. In Re: The paternity of A.M.P. (PDF format) has a good thumbnail sketch of the IV-D Court system. See pages 5- 6.

Trial Court Reform Coming Our Way?

The Indiana Lawyer reports Study to examine trial court reform:

"The Indiana Supreme Court's Division of State Court Administration is working with the Indiana University Center for Urban Policy and Environment to study ways to make the state's trial courts more equitable and efficient.

The Center for Urban Policy and Environment will partner with Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis' Program on Law and State Government to analyze the state's current system and assess how other states manage and fund court operations, paying particular attention to governing, budgetary, and personnel issues."

Why is this of any importance? My cynical side says it depends on the how and what and why of the reforms. My more thoughtful side wants to point out those of you having children - whether divorce or paternity cases - remain tethered to our court system till the children are emancipated or payment of all the child support arrears (whichever comes later).

Oh, if you want to know what is going on with Indiana's courts then you might want to check out Indiana Court Times. Published bimonthly by the Indiana Supreme Court.

Electronic filing for family law cases?

The Divorce Journal has an article on Miami, Florida going to a paperless filing system for its family court system. See Paperless Family Courts: The Pluses And The Perils.

Indiana courts have nothing like this system in place. Some courts allow for fax filing but that is not a paperless system.

My experience with a paperless system comes from bankruptcy and other federal work. I have not always liked it but that might be my own prejudices. I never used Internet Explorer and for the past few years I have used Mozilla's Firefox. The federal system finally became compatible with Firefox, but still does not like allow for its system to be opened in more than one tab. I work with lots of tabs open. I guess that makes me a bit of a computer geek but so be it! The point here is that the system must be open to all users and that means more than Microsoft's Internet Exploder.

Another point I see from my local experience is how many people in my area remain offline and of those that are online are not very fluent in their use of the Internet. I would say the majority of my family law clients are not on the Internet.

After reading the Divorce Law Journal, The Indiana Law Blog reported on The Appellate E-Filing Project:

"Many readers will recall this ILB entry from Oct. 15, titled 'Supreme Court withdraws amendment to Appellate Rule 43(K) mandating electronic filing of briefs effective Jan. 1, 2008.' As noted in the entry, the Court first posted, and then later withdrew an amendment to the rule that would have required that all appellate document filings include an electronic/digital copy."

I am not sure whether to read this as Indiana lags Miami, Florida (which is my first thought) or something more. While the ILB article is not about family court filings, I do suggest reading it with the original post. Both project share large technical problems similar to what I touched on about the federal courts.

In the end, we will have electronic filing in state court. Moving from paper to digital will cause major pains in the lower back but the costs savings are apparent in nothing else if not storage space of paper files. What I would not like to see is a purely digital system - too many people who are indigent must rely upon paper. Besides, it will take a long time for the judges to adjust to a digital system. One local judge gladly admits he has no idea of how to use a computer. (On the the other hand, a Delaware County judge has a computer on his bench and can rundown case law as quickly as it is cited).

Madison County needs a new court

This post has the distinct possibility of turning into a rant. My apologies if it does, but this is something that I must say.

Madison County, Indiana has four courts for family law cases- Circuit Court and our three Superior Courts. There is also what we call IV-D (that is 4-D) court for child support cases handled by the child support enforcement prosecutor, but that court does not really matter with this discussion. All four courts have one commissioner . The commissioner is a lawyer appointed by the elected judge to hear cases. I used to estimate 99% of all family law cases are heard by commissioners, but that percentage declined when our courts started using senior judges. I will continue to wager that the regular judges hear less than 1% of family law cases in Madison County. (A slight digression - this percentage is probably accurate for most counties without a family law court and is nothing peculiar to Madison County.) Still there remains a huge delay in some of these courts for a hearing date. I see the problem as having two components: 1) space and 2) time.

Four courts means four courtrooms. There are also two hearing rooms. That leaves six rooms for hearing cases, right? Wrong. Circuit Court, Superior Court 1 and Superior Court 3 have criminal jurisdiction. Mondays are devoted wholly to criminal matters. The other days may have criminal trials. Mondays leave one courtroom and two hearing rooms available for civil cases. During the rest of the week criminal matters dictate availability of court space for civil matter.

Nothing will change the precedence given to criminal matters unless we want to amend the federal and state constitutions. I do not advocate any such changes.

Unifying all the courts into a Circuit Court with six divisions is mentioned from time to time (as in about every year there is a race for the Circuit Court judgeship). The idea has some good points in its favor. People favoring the unification point to Muncie and how the Delaware County courts consolidated their Superior Courts and Circuit Court into one Circuit Court with divisions. I am not in Muncie as much as I used to be but I do not see any great problems with their system. I do see a cost that does not get mentioned - the courts employ two full-time commissioners to handle family law matters. Besides the cost to the county for paying their salaries, the commissioners must leave their private practices. Finding that combination in Madison County might be a bit difficult.

Not that Madison County need worry about unifying its courts any time soon. Between the legislative politics needed to get approval for the unification and the politics between the judges in Anderson, it will not happen any time soon.

Frankly, another court will not be added any time soon. The General Assembly would need to pass a statute allowing the court. Besides there would need to be space available in the Madison County Government Center and I cannot see where that will be found.

Looking to Muncie does provide another alternative to ending our backlog of family law cases. The Delaware Courts designate Fridays as their family law day. They have what we call a cattle call - all the cases are set at 9:00 am and they take the cases as they are ready. The procedure helps move the smaller cases - the child support modifications, the contempt cases, the uncontested divorces, the parenting time modifications - quickly through the system. If I recall correctly, the Muncie courts started this procedure before their unification. Putting such a system in place here in Anderson means a good deal of cooperation between our Superior Courts and our Circuit Court. Actually, the system could be put in place with just the Superior Courts and it would still be a great benefit for the parties.

I know that something must be done. Our Superior Court 2 is swamped and I do not see any great difference in the other Superior Courts. All this slows down the adjudication of cases and raises the annoyance level in the clients.