EDITORIAL NOTES

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.1995.tb00355.x
• Published date: 01 April 1995
• Date: 01 April 1995

EDITORIAL

NOTES

Martin Van Creveld,

in

The

Trunsfomtion

of

War,

predicts

modem

warfare will

be

replaced

by

low-intensity conflict. Warfare has

become

too

expensive.

This

thesis

also

applies to family law. The

cost

of adversarial

litigation

in

real and in

human

terms

has

become

too

much.

'Ihis

issue is devoted to court reform. Throughout the world,

a

transfor-

mation

is

occurring.

Courts

are moving toward a more prosactive response to

resolving family conflict. This move is away

from

a purely adversarial

process. More

and

more

courts

are

using mediation and settlement

to

encour-

age the parties' private ordering. Judges are becoming more active

in

man-

aging the

court

process.

Attorneys have become negotiators and guides rather

than

warriors and guard dogs. Courts

are

taking hold of cases earlier

in

the

process to avoid unnecessary delay, discovery,

and

other

time-

and expense-

creating

processes.

This issue

tracks

some elements of

this

court reform.

To

set the tone, we begin

with

the

invocation

to

the Maui Conference by

Judge Douglas McNish, Robert Mcwhinney, and Kathleen Metcalfe. Judge

McNish describes the kind of persons needed

in

the

area

of

family law. No

system

will

succeed unless the

persons

implementing that system are

up

to

the task. No system will

succeed

unless

it

serves

justice. Mcwhinney and

Metcalfe define restorative justice

as

opposed to retributive justice.

The next article is by Justice Donald

B.

King of

the

California Court of

Appeals. Justice King, throughout

his

illustrious carer,

has

been responsible

for a number of important reforms: mediation of child custody disputes,

development of

uniform

court

rules, direct calendaring, and strong judicial

management. In

this

issue, he

proposes

a much less adversarial process.

The second

article

presents a

report

of the Oregon

'hk

Force on Family

Law.

The

task force began

its

efforts

with

a 2-day retreat with the futurist

Robert Theobald to stimulate

their

thinking.

The

task

force identified core

values to be fostered by the system and then constructed a series of recom-

mendations

to

achieve these goals. This far-reaching report was developed

over the

past

year, involving hours of public testimony and private consid-

eration. The recommendations are divided into preconflict and postconflict

FAMILY

AND

CONCRIM'ION

COURTS

REVIEW.

%I.

33

No.

2

April

1995

150-1

51

0

1995

sage

Publicstioa,

Irr.

150