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51 Fam. Ct. Rev. 1 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/fmlcr51 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITOR'S NOTE KVELL[ING11 FOR FAMILY COURT REVIEW ON ITS FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY This issue begins the fifty-first volume of Family Court Review (FCR) and is a good time to pause to reflect on where we began and to take pride in how far we have come. (FCR began life in March 1963 as the California Conciliation Courts Quarterly and continued publishing under that name only until June 1964. The publication then signified its desire to expand beyond its original geographic home and for higher academic aspirations by dropping California from its title and becoming a Review rather than a Quarterly. The Conciliation Courts Review began publication in January 1965. Indicating the desire for a still broader focus and the increasing integration of alternatives to litigation into the family court process, the Conciliation Courts Review changed its name to the Family and Conciliation Courts Review in July 1989. It published under that name until October 2000. In January 2001, this publication's name became what it is today. While its name changed, the core focus of this publication has always been the same. Its goal in March 1963 and today remains the same. FCR seeks to develop and disseminate the intellectual capital so that the legal system can better meet the needs of families and children. Volume 1, Issue 1 of the California Conciliation Courts Quarterly was, however, a stranger in a strange land.2 In 1963, California law specified seven grounds for divorce or separation: adultery, extreme cruelty, willful desertion, willful neglect, habitual intemperance, conviction of a felony, and incurable insanity. Parents sued one another for divorce in an adversarial proceeding much like a claim in tort or contract law. Children were treated like property to be awarded to one of the parents, almost inevitably the mother. The number of divorces in California, though growing, was comparatively small. The 1966 Report of the Governor's Commission on the Family, which envisioned no fault divorce and a never created comprehensive family court, was still three years away. Volume I, Issue 1 spoke in a different voice. That issue was the child of the California Conciliation Courts, a radical institution premised on the unproven idea that nonlawyers such as marriage coun- selors affiliated with a divorce court could provide helpful services to parents to help keep their marriages together and spare parents and children from involvement in the adversary system of justice. The functions of the California Conciliation Courts have evolved over time away from reconcili- ation of marriages to better managing the effects of divorce and separation on children and parents. Mediation, parent education, neutral custody evaluations, and parent coordination have replaced conciliation. The core ideas of Volume 1, Issue I and the California Conciliation Courts were that the future of children should not be treated as a tort claim or a contract dispute and that families would benefit from multidisciplinary services to help them plan for their futures. These core ideas remain as powerful today as they were radical when first proposed. Volume 1, Issue 1 sowed the seeds of what Jana Singer, a member of FCR's editorial board, has felicitously described in these pages as the velvet revolution in family law. This paradigm shift has replaced the law-oriented, judge-focused adversary model with a more collaborative, interdisciplinary, and forward-looking family dispute resolution regime. It has also transformed the practice of family law and fundamentally altered the way in which disputing families interact with the legal system.3 California Conciliation Courts Quarterly was launched in 1963-a year of great transitions for America, and not necessarily a propitious time to begin a process of revolution in family law. The FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 51 No. 1, January 2013 1-6 c 2013 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

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