year in review
Family Law Hon. Jill Fannin Supervising Judge
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elieve it or not, the Family Law Division experienced a relatively calm, uneventful year. That’s the way we like it!
The Division was made up exclusively of family-seasoned bench officers. Judges Christopher Bowen, Ed Weil and Barbara Hinton masterfully managed their heavy, full-time family caseloads while Judge Susanne Fenstermacher expertly juggled both family and probate matters. Commissioner Anita Santos efficiently and compassionately ran her AB 1058 department. The year was unfortunately routine in that we continued to struggle with inadequate resources despite the best efforts of court administration. Family Court Services wait times have once again crept up because of staffing shortages. A new bilingual custody counselor joined the ranks at the end of September. Once she is trained, we hope to whittle away at the backlog. The Family Court Services operating system, RHONDA, has now officially died and our IT Department is scrambling for a fix. In the meantime, please be patient with our already overworked staff as they try to manually calendar appointments and send out letters and reports. All court staff must be commended for their daily herculean efforts to keep the Peter L. Spinetta Family Law Center functioning despite remarkable attrition. There have been a few bright spots. After the terrifying backlog in filings, use of limited overtime funding helped bring us back to more normal levels. We were also authorized to extend the operation of the filing windows from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Family Law Facilitator
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NOVEMBER 2014
Magda Lopez’s article (pg. 31) addresses numerous other changes to workshops and the Help Desk. One real highlight has been the success of the John F. Kennedy University College of Law settlement workshops created by our own Commissioner Josanna Berkow (Ret.) in 2013. The goal is to have attorneys and law students prepare self-represented litigants for mandatory settlement conferences and trials. The workshops took off in 2014 and now frequently results in partial settlements even before the parties appear for their mandatory settlement conferences. Thank you to all the volunteers who have made this program such a success. Your good work flows to the unselfish attorney volunteers who staff our double pro per settlement conferences. The judges truly appreciate the time and talents of the selfless volunteers who staff all the workshops and conferences each month. Next year, we will welcome Judges Leslie Landau and Brian Haynes, and say farewell to Judge Hinton who so graciously devoted herself to the families of Contra Costa and will take on a new assignment in the Richmond Courthouse. I, too, will say goodbye and leave you in good hands with Judge Ed Weil as Supervising Judge, as I take on a new assignment. I want to thank the entire family law bar for your hard work, volunteerism and dedication to your difficult profession. It has been my pleasure to work with you. Here’s hoping that Judge Ed Weil gets another (relatively) easy year! s