The COVID-19 pandemic upended family court operations across the country. While its initial shock forced many to close temporarily, courts made impressive efforts to pivot by utilizing technology to conduct proceedings remotely, enabling their operations to continue administering justice while still keeping their communities safe.
Today, many courts are working on getting back to operating at the same degree as they were pre-pandemic, and the ongoing vaccine rollout is helping to transition away from the days of masked hearings. Still, the pandemic introduced a shift in how judges think about hearings, with many seeing the potential for technology to continue playing an important role in family law courts.
In late 2020, we surveyed family law judges across the U.S. to gain insight into how the pandemic and the resulting shift to remote hearings had impacted individual members of the judiciary as well as the judicial process as a whole. We also asked whether judges see remote hearings as having any long-term potential to benefit the judicial process and improve access to justice overall.
Here are five key takeaways from our national family judiciary remote hearing survey.
1. Most hearings are being conducted remotely from the bench.
We found that most judges are still conducting hearings from the bench, even if they are remote. At the same time, a quarter of the judges we served reported that they were conducting remote hearings from their homes. Other locations that judges cited include their offices or chambers.
2. The complexity of a matter could impact how and when it will be heard.
While the judges we surveyed reported that they are conducting remote hearings covering a wide range of issues, simple or uncontested divorces were the most common case types being heard remotely, followed by establishment or modification of child support.
Matters perceived as complex or extremely sensitive, like those involving domestic violence, were often reported as still being heard in person or postponed until an in-person hearing could be held safely.
3. Judges see remote hearings as promoting access to justice — if litigants are set up for success.
Most judges we surveyed indicated that they believe remote hearings have the potential to improve an individual’s access to justice. At the same time, more than half specified that this is only true if litigants are set up for a successful hearing from the start.
Judges indicated several prerequisites that promote successful hearings for litigants. These included technology that enables video, a stable internet connection, and an adequate understanding of how to use the conferencing software.
4. Judges recognize the potential for leveraging remote hearings into the future.
Many judges indicated that they would continue to conduct hearings remotely to some degree even after courts reopen. Most notably, 64% of judges we surveyed reported that they would be open to continue hearing cases of simple or uncontested divorce remotely compared to only 36% who indicated that they would prefer to hear those cases in person.
Even as some judges may continue leveraging technology to hold proceedings at a distance, lack of formality and difficulty in reading body language were cited by judges as two insurmountable challenges to remote hearings.
5. Ensuring open access to remote proceedings for the public remains a concern.
Most judges we surveyed expressed that ensuring that the public has open access to remote proceedings is a critical issue to resolve. Still, very few have ideas on how to do it adequately.
Some feel that it is simply not possible to ensure secure open access to remote hearings to the same extent as they can when held in person. In contrast, others believe that providing links to view remote proceedings through YouTube is sufficient.
Even as these distinct groups emerged from our survey, the reality is that most judges have thought about this challenge to some extent, and many are open to hearing ideas on ways to resolve this issue.
The pandemic highlighted how technology can be effectively applied in family law courts, helping achieve administration of justice at a physical distance. As we move further into 2021 and pandemic-related restrictions continue to be lifted across the country, it will be interesting to see how these five key takeaways from our 2020 survey continue to influence family court operations over the long term.
National Family Judiciary Remote Hearing Survey
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