FLS Survey Shows Strong Support for a Specialized Family Court

By Louis Tesser, Family Law Division Chair

The Family Law Division of the DeKalb County Bar Association was formed in part as a means for lawyers to communicate with the bench. As biased as we are (and no family lawyer feels that every judge gets it right every time), we are in a great position to observe and advise the judges we litigate in front of. To support the discussion, we promulgated a survey of member’s views regarding the bench and how the treatment of family law cases could be improved in DeKalb County. The survey was answered (anonymously) by nearly a third of our members. We received both numerical and narrative responses.

The responses were very interesting. By and large, the respondents gave average marks to the bench in terms of efficiency. The narrative responses included some compliments, some complaints, and some substantive suggestions. The most outstanding result from the numerical aspect of the poll was the support for a specialized family court which was very strong (4.78 out of 5).

The next phase of this project will involve communicating the comments and findings to the court and discussing the views of the section with the bench. We hope to do this annually and feel that it will be beneficial to both lawyers and judges.