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FLEC LIASION MEETING MINUTES FEBRUARY 14, 2012 1. Roll Call and
Attendance. FLEC a. Judith Winn, Chair b. Russell Carlson,
Vice-Chair c. Elaine Van Beveren, Treasurer d. Fredrick S. (Rick)
Cohen, Secretary e. Michael Jonsson, Immediate Past Chair Judicial
Officers a. Hon. Matthew Gary b. Hon. James Mize c. Hon. Sharon
Lueras d. Commr. Scott Harman e. Commr. Danny Haukedalen
Administration a. Julie Setzer b. Lollie Roberts 2. Minors Counsel
Compensation by the Court. The funds to pay minors counsel on court
pay cases are dwindling rapidly, but are not yet at zero dollars.
The pace and method by which minors counsel cases are being
converted to pro bono or withdrawal of counsel is being handled on
an individual department basis. In general, cases that are dormant
(no motions and little to no billings) are receiving notices that
minors counsel will be relieved unless minors counsel requests to
stay on the case. Although there are questions about the survival
of various panel lists, the list that is most likely to survive
will be the Minors Counsel Panel.
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3. Pro Bono Mediation Panel. The court remains concerned about
how to ensure that the pro bono mediators are legally qualified to
provide this service, as both recommending and non-recommending
mediators must meet the statutory and Rule of Court requirements.
There was discussion about using the umbrella of pro tem judges or
working through the Family Law Facilitators office. But, these
options have logistical and legal problems as well. The court will
continue to look at this issue, but the sense is that it is
unlikely that the pro bono mediation panel will be able to be
resurrected in light of the legal qualifications. 4. Settlement
Department Issues. The court is concerned that settlement rates are
continuing to decline. The court may look at ways to bring back
some of the experienced pro tem judges who were known for fostering
successful settlements but resisted taking the time and effort to
qualify as pro tem judges under the current rules. The court may
consider finding ways to have these people serve unofficially where
they are not judge pro tems (may not take the bench or sign
stipulations). The court will look at training for the existing pro
tem judges in order to help develop their skills and increase their
settlement rates. This includes better clarifying how assertive the
court wants the settlement judges to be when assisting with
settlement conferences (coercive as compared to simply being
available to make it legal). If there are problems with attorneys
refusing to stay beyond a certain time (prior to 4:00 p.m.), then
the settlement judges should direct the attorneys to the
supervising family law judge for a resolution of the issue.
One concern discussed was that attorneys refuse to stay beyond a
certain time (prior to 4:00 p.m.) due to conflicts, such as
hearings in other courts. The court agreed that pro tems should not
release attorneys until their case is either settled or confirmed
for trial. As always, the Supervising Judge may offer assistance to
pro tems as needed. With respect to counsel who are double set with
a law & motion matter in one case and a settlement conference
in another case, that should not be happening. But, if it does,
counsel should notify the law & motion department in order to
either be heard early or to be notified when their case is ready to
be called in order to avoid disrupting the settlement department
process.
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5. Case Management Conference. We discussed ways that pro tem
judges could help with this function. The problem is that there is
significant work to support such a function and there are a lack of
resources available in Department 128. 6. Hearing Continuances. The
potential for attorneys to continue a court hearing on an earlier
date when that attorney happens to be in court anyway on another
matter will be a department by department decision. Most likely, at
a minimum, the continuance request would need to be close in time
to the hearing in order to ensure that the file is already up in
the department. 7. Private Judges. The court is looking at this
issue. Historically, the Presiding Judge of the Sacramento County
Superior Court (going all the way back to the late Judge James
Ford) has strongly resisted private judge stipulations. The concern
is the potential for a two-tier justice system for those who have
resources and those who do not. At this point, counsel should
expect that private judge stipulations will rarely, if ever, be
approved. The court does support and approve referrals to binding
arbitration pursuant to the California Arbitration Act, JAMS, and
other organizations. The key distinction is the loss of appellate
review and the fact that the case is permanently out of the
judicial system, rather than out of the system for trial, but back
in the system for appellate review. 8. Custody Sub-Committee At the
present time, no new applications are being accepted for admission
to any of the courts panels (minors counsel, special master,
private mediator, and custody evaluator). Thus, the court is not
reviewing drafts of new applications or procedural guidelines.
Julie will, however, review and follow-up on the procedural
guidelines for private mediators and custody evaluators because of
the upcoming training program. The Mediator and Evaluator Training
Program will be on October 19, 2012 at the Natoma Inn in
Folsom.
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MINUTES
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE OREGON STATE BAR FAMILY LAW
SECTION
February 16, 2012
Present: Laura Rufolo - ChairAnthony Wilson - Past ChairMarcia
Buckley - TreasurerLauren Saucy - Secretary
Members at large: Sean Armstrong, Jacy Arnold, Debra Dority,
Andrew Ivers, ScottLeibenguth, Christopher Eggert, , Laura Graser,
Theresa Kohohoff,
Also participating: Ryan Carty - Legislative Subcommittee
Co-ChairSusan Grabe - Bar Liaison
* * * * *
The meeting took place by teleconference.
Call to Order. The Chair called the meeting to order at 3:02
p.m. A quorum was present.
Business: The following items of business came before the
committee:
1. Approval of Minutes. Upon motion duly made, seconded and
unanimously approved, itwas:
RESOLVED: The minutes of the Executive Committee meeting
heldJanuary 19, 2012, are approved as written.
2. Treasurers Report. No report.
3. Salishan Conference 2012, Committee Report. Planning for the
conference is movingforward. Discussions have begun with Salishan
for contracting the 2014 and 2015conferences. For the 2012
conference, some speakers have been acquired, including asecond out
of state speaker. The committees main work at present is focused on
pursuingadditional topics and presenters. Suggestions from FLEC are
welcome.
5. Legislation, Committee Report. No legislation that is
currently outstanding should impactthe Family Law Section for the
2012 session. The committee is meeting February 22 todiscuss
proposals for the 2013 legislative session. The committees
recommendations willbe presented to the FLEC before the March 15
meeting so that a vote on proposals may beheld. The 2013 deadline
to have legislative proposals to the Oregon State Bar for
approval
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is April 2, 2012.
6. Child Support Calculator, Committee Report. The state
workgroup is making progress.The work groups recommendations will
soon be finalized and presented to the Departmentof Child Support
to determine which recommendations should be put into effect in the
newguidelines and how various issues should be incorporated into
the formula. Ultimately theDCS has control over which
recommendations are incorporated, however, it seems likely thatthe
majority of issues will be addressed by DCS. The new guidelines
should be implementednear the end of 2012 or the beginning of
2013.
7. Family Law Section Web Page, Committee Report. The web page
is not yet up andrunning. Contact has been made with the programmer
to try to determine what other stepsneed to be taken to get the web
page going and that connection should be made soon. Thecommittee
solicited additional members from the family law list-serve to join
the committeeand no response was received.
8. Professionalism Award, Committee Report. The committee has
created a brief outlineof how to solicit nominations (list serve
and perhaps bar journal) and a process for voting onfuture awards.
More work will focus on creating guidelines for the award. The
committeeintends to have a working model in place by June 2012.
9. Donation Request. Follow up discussion was held on the
request that the section contributeto the Campaign for Equal
Justice.
Upon motion duly made, seconded and unanimously approved, it
was:
RESOLVED: The FLEC will periodically review and
considerdonations to charitable organizations within the framework
allowedby the Oregon State Bar. This includes, but is not limited
to, theCampaign for Equal Justice. Donations will be made in an
amount setby the FLEC. The source of donated funds will be
conferencerevenue rather than member dues.
10 Section Newsletter, Editors Report. The Editor submitted a
written report as follows:Article submissions and requests are in
line with previous years. A few particular out of stateattorneys
have volunteered to write articles relating to military pensions.
They do researchOregon law to include in their materials and it was
recommended that the articles continueto be included on the FLS
newsletter so long as the quality level continues.
Articlesubmissions by section membership are always welcome.
There being no further business to come before the committee,
the meeting was adjourned at 3:32p.m.
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These minutes were prepared by Lauren Saucy, 2012 Secretary to
the Oregon State Bar Family LawSection Executive Committee.
Lauren Saucy* * * * * * * * * *
The schedule of future meetings is:
Thursday March 15, 2012 3:00 p.m.Thursday April 19 , 2012 3:00
p.m.Thursday May 17, 2012 3:00 p.m.Thursday June 21, 2012 5:00 p.m.
in SalemSaturday October 20, 2012 7:00 a.m. in Salishan
IMG_8426IMG_8427IMG_84282010-04-FLEC-MeetingReport.pdfIMG_8346IMG_8349
2010-06-FLC-Newsletter-ListServReference.pdfIMG_8354IMG_8356
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