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19 Fam. Advoc. 43 (1996-1997)
Connecticut's Child Custody Court

handle is hein.journals/famadv19 and id is 223 raw text is: ;,1V /' BY CHRISTINA P. BURNHAM Connecticut's Regional Family Trial Docket (IRFTD) was created to eliminate some of the pain that cus- tody cases create for children, The RFTI) accomplishes this by settling 84 percent of the referred complex. difficult, and long-standing custody cases. Every case is given a full-day pretrial with a gender-balanced team of two special masters. The teams are composed of one family law attor- ney and one family therapist, each of bwhom donates a day of time to the Sr court. In the past two years, the court has resolved 189 cases, including a postjudpnent modificatiou in which the parents had fought over their six- year-old child for five years. The referral noted that things tend to get a bit heated sometimes' Also settled was a case in which the maternal grandparents were seeking visitation with their three-year-old grand- daughter. The grandparents had raised her since she was three weeks old, when her mother was killed in :1 an accident and her father was unable to cope with the baby. The grandparent%' contact with the baby had ceased when the father remar- ried and resumed parenting. Like many other jurisdictions, k Connecticut has experienced an explosion of cases filed each year. Aaron Ment, chief court adininistra- tor of the Superior Court, instituted the RFTD to address the growing list of contested custody cases. Originally a trial court for only two judicial districts, the program has evolved into a statewide court locat- ed in Middlesex Superior Court in Middletown. In 1994,Judge Joseph L. Steinberg started the special master program with full-day pretrials. Many court- houses across the state were already using family law attorneys as special masters in financial cases. Steinberg announced to the leaders of the Hartford County Bar Association's Family Law Committee his plan to use special masters in custody cases. The bar responded with 10 gender- balanced teams, each initially consist- ing of two experienced family law attorneys who had extensive experi- ence handling financial cases as well as representing children. In the first month, 2() lawyers handled 19 cases: 17 were settled, and two went to trial before Steinberg. For the next docket, the New Haven County Bar Association fielded spe- cial master teams that settled 11 out of 14 cases, or 78 percent. On the third go round, the Connecticut Bar Association's Family Law Section provided the attorney teams. Their settlement rate was 86 percent; 13 Christina P. Burnham is an attorney and court officer of the Regional Family Trial Docket in Middletown, Connecticut. 4 C 1.' 4 V 43 .,,2,: .: ';. . . 4 x -..;

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