EDITOR'S NOTES

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.1993.tb00279.x
• Published date: 01 January 1993
• Author: Hugh Mclsaac
• Date: 01 January 1993

One of the themes of the

1990s

in Family Law and Family Courts will be

reform. The source of reform stems from the need for a more efficient system,

for equity in results, and from changes within society itself.

In the United States, this reform will be driven by the need to have better,

more efficient means of determining and collecting child support. The

economics of this process is the logic that will drive the process. We already

hear proposals to have the Internal Revenue Service take over child support

efforts.

In England, the new Children’s Act will drive the reform to create

structures more attuned to the needs of families who find themselves in the

court system in aprocess started by none other than Henry VIII. New Zealand

will continue to refine its innovative and very successful family court, which

has expanded into the juvenile dependency and probate conservatorship

areas.

The winds of reform are also blowing in South America where a number

of jurisdictions are experimenting with mediation of custody disputes.

We will see greater coordination between the traditional family courts and

juvenile court where the introduction of mediation will assist families prob-

lem solve and develop plans better suited for the needs of children. The

Children’s Court in

Los

Angeles is just such a model. The July

1992

issue of

FCCR

dealt with this development.

However, these reforms must be rooted in an understanding of the under-

lying dynamics inherent in their conception and birth. These changes are

rooted in the changing and pluralistic nature of new, emerging family forms.

We can deny their existence and pretend they are deviant, but these denials

and misrepresentations will fail as more families respond to the shift in the

tectonic plates of our culture-not the least of which is the shift in gender

roles and an emergence

of

a more egalitarian culture. It is this shift that is

having a profound effect on the institutions and the formulations serving the

larger culture.

Mary Duryee, Director

of

Alameda Family Court Services, captures it in

the following way:

Against this backdrop it

is

not surprising that the seemingly benign structural

and procedural reforms within the court institution would

also

come into a

FAMILY

AND

CONCILIATION COURTS

REVIEW,

Vol.

31

NO.

1,

J~IIU~IY

1993

5-8

0

1993

Sage

Publications.

Inc.

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