Monday, Aug. 28, 2000 | 9:22 a.m.
Efficiency, consistency and courtesy seem to be the buzzwords this year in the race for three wide-open Family Court judgeships.
Thanks to the 1999 Legislature and an overwhelming caseload, three new judges will don robes and join eight of their counterparts in the Family Court division of the 8th Judicial District on Jan. 1.
Voters will have plenty of people to choose from. Thirteen local attorneys are hoping they will get the chance to dispense justice in divorce, child support and child custody cases.
Phil Beuth, Paul Carelli III, Robert Kurth Jr. and Cheryl Moss are competing for the Department I position. Lisa Brown, William Henderson, Chuck Hoskin, Gayle Nathan and Thomas Kurtz are running for Department J. Those vying for Department K are Nicholas Del Vecchio, Mathew Harter, Jack Howard and Beth Wachsman.
A fourth Family Court judgeship is also on the ballot this year, but Department H Judge Art Ritchie is running unopposed. Almost 28,000 cases were filed last year in Family Court, and some estimate that the instant the new judges walk in the door, they will have 2,000 cases on their desks waiting for resolution.
All of the candidates agree a solution needs to be found to handle the glut of cases confronting them.
Department K candidates Howard and Harter agree more parties need to take advantage of arbitrators and mediators. Currently mediation is mandatory only when it involves child support and child custody cases.
Rather than battling over property in the courtroom, the time could be better spent sitting down with an unbiased mediator who could work with both sides to come to a resolution. Or both sides could battle it out in front of an objective arbitrator who could then make a recommendation to the judge.
Harter also believes the system could be sped up if UNLV's law students were allowed to represent the indigent in court. State statutes already allow law school students to practice if they have some guidance, but no such program exists.
Allowing students to represent the poor is a win-win situation, Harter said. Law school students would get great experience and the indigent would get through the system quickly and efficiently at no cost.
Poor planning
Another Department K candidate, Del Vecchio, said the backlog is due to poor time management.
"There are some judges who hear cases over the table," Del Vecchio said. "They don't read the pleadings ahead of time and they let the attorneys go on and on. They let the attorneys schedule three weeks of arguments so the attorneys can earn their fees."
Wachsman, a Department K candidate, said a good judge sets a timeline and keeps to it. They make sure the paperwork is coming in on time and being handled quickly.
Perhaps another domestic violence commissioner could cut down on the caseload, too, Wachsman said. Such commissioners preside over temporary protective order cases.
Kurth, a Department I candidate, said that having three new judges should help the caseload tremendously. Judges should stay on top of their cases regardless, he said.
"But you don't want to manage your cases at the expense of the litigants and the children. Sometimes they can get lost in the shuffle," Kurth said.
Another way to cut down on the caseloads would be to expand the county's self-help center and staff it with an attorney or two, said Kurtz, a Department J candidate.
The center provides packets of information about how people can file for divorce and handle other issues without the help of an attorney.
If people understand what is happening and why, the system will move that much faster, Kurtz said.
Kurtz said he would also like to see a fast-track system put into place. Many simple court matters can be placed onto a fast track and handled quickly and more efficiently, he said.
Henderson, a Department J candidate, agreed many cases that don't involve children could be fast-tracked.
However, even those cases involving children could be moved through the system faster and less expensively if judges began relying less on private therapists, whose schedules are often full, Henderson said.
If a judge wants an opinion in a child custody case, Henderson said, he should refer the family to a family mediation center or the Court Appointed Special Advocates program for evaluation.
It would cost the family little, if anything, to be evaluated by those programs, and the judge could get a recommendation much more quickly, Henderson said.
Although she says it is difficult to judge the Family Court from the outside, Nathan, a Department J candidate, said she believes the reports being filed with the courts now result in more litigation because they aren't objective.
While the reports are being prepared by qualified therapists and doctors, Nathan said, they are loaded with hearsay statements rather than clinical analysis.
If she is elected, Nathan said, she would like to change the way the reports are written.
Beuth, a Department I candidate, said that if he is elected he would put together an information packet that would let litigants know what his stance is on such things as visitation plans and child support.
If people know what a judge is likely to do, Beuth said, they aren't likely to take up their time in the courtroom arguing about those issues.
Del Vecchio, running for Department K, said that now, no one can predict what a judge's decision is going to be.
"I've always contended that it's very hard to get consistent decisions from the same judge, let alone from the different departments," Del Vecchio said. "The widest discrepancy seems to be in alimony. Some judges will have a guy living in his car and others won't award the ex-wife anything."
Those problems might go away if the Family Court had a strong chief judge system -- a judge who could develop policies on how to handle different issues, he said.
District Judge Lee Gates is the presiding judge of the 8th Judicial District, but the Family Court needs one of its own, Del Vecchio said.
Rolling the dice
Hoskin, a Department J candidate, agreed a chief judge system could solve the problem. As an attorney, anytime he takes a litigant into the courtroom, it's like "rolling the dice," he said.
"In divorce settlements it can vary hundreds of dollars between departments, and it's based on the same set of facts," Hoskin said.
If litigants have an idea of which way a judge will likely rule, Hoskin said, the number of contested cases would decrease.
Some of the candidates note that there seems to be a lack of feeling in the court system now, thus making a traumatic situation that much tougher.
"In some situations I don't think people feel as though they got their day in court, especially those people who can't afford an attorney and had to represent themselves," said Moss, a Department I candidate. "I would make sure that everyone has equal footing in the courtroom, and I would try to make people more comfortable."
Carelli, a Department I candidate, said he thinks that open dialogues have suffered because of the caseloads.
"Judges don't get an opportunity to talk one-on-one with parents in child custody cases," Carelli said.
If he is elected, Carelli said, he would make sure to set aside time to listen to the parents, psychiatrists and lawyers.
"One of the important things is to be courteous and to deal with people the way I would want to be dealt with," Carelli said. "A lot more can be accomplished with a soft voice and courtesy than the other way around."
Howard, running in Department K, said judges too often let the attorneys do all of the talking.
"I will absolutely listen to the litigants personally, and I believe children have an absolute right to be heard," Howard said.
Hoskin, too, sees a correlation between courtesy and caseloads.
"In Family Court you see good people at their worst. Typically, no one is happy when they walk out," Hoskin said. "But if they can be made to understand why you've made a particular decision, it's unlikely they'll come back and litigate it again."
Brown, a Department J candidate, said she would start from the basics if she were elected. It all comes down to being fair, courteous and respectful, she said.
"People want to feel like they're being listened to," Brown said. "If you start with the basics, I think everyone can do a good job."
Ritchie, the lone Department H candidate, said that despite the perceptions of the other candidates, he believes the Family Court judges are doing their best to be efficient, courteous, consistent and fair.
That may not have been true a few years ago, but a great deal has changed, Ritchie said.
Not as they appear
And while criticism can sometimes be a good thing, Ritchie said those who are elected will find out that things are not always as they appear on the outside.
"I don't think the cases have ever been moved faster or more efficiently than last year," Ritchie said.
That's not to say that the three new judges won't be a great help, Ritchie said.
"If they like to fix things and help people, I think any one of them will do a good job," Ritchie said. "There's not one candidate out there that I'd be scared to come here."
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