State court administrator: standalone family court would serve few cases but require significant resources

State Court Administrator Sally Haleva told the Child Custody Review Task Force that creating a separate family court in North Dakota would address a limited number of high‑conflict cases and carry substantial fiscal and logistical costs, and she offered lower‑cost alternatives for the legislature to consider.

"A specialized family law court would be addressing an extremely limited number of cases," Haleva said, noting family‑law filings (divorce, paternity, parenting responsibility) average about 3,800 annually and represent roughly 2% of the court's overall caseload. She said 87% of family law cases are never reopened after final judgment and that a small subset of recurring, high‑conflict matters drives many of the system's most acute burdens.

Haleva described several implementation options and their tradeoffs: adding dedicated judgeships (the court prepared a planning estimate that would create two new judgeships per judicial district with associated staff and operating expenses), converting existing referee positions to judges to increase capacity at lower marginal cost, expanding court‑sponsored mediation and expedited mediation pilots, and targeted funding for parenting coordinators and parenting education. She cautioned that converting referees to judges or reassigning judges across election districts raises statutory and administrative constraints tied to election jurisdiction and automatic removal rights.

Haleva also outlined program numbers and utilization: the court mediation program provides six hours of free mediation at filing and has a settlement rate that rises to roughly 70% when partial settlements are counted; expedited family mediation and parenting coordinator programs exist but currently operate at low volumes, often because of cost and limited referrals. She said the court anticipates a shortfall in mediation program funds and that county facilities and clerical staffing costs for new judgeships were not included in the court's preliminary estimates.

Haleva advised the task force to consider converting or creating referee positions strategically, beefing up mediation and expedited options, and carefully weighing statutory changes that would alter judges' election jurisdictions or judicial assignment rules. She emphasized due process limits on any statutory acceleration of contempt timelines, noting minimum notice periods and right to response must be preserved.

Committee members asked for more detailed breakdowns of settlement outcomes and the court agreed to provide further data and to participate in follow‑up work on operational models and budget estimates.