Task force hears Minnesota approach: early case management, expediters and mediation to reduce custody disputes

A former Minnesota judicial referee told the Child Custody Review Task Force that a menu of early‑intervention practices — including early case management conferences, evaluative mediation, parenting time expediters and parenting coordinators — reduces repeated family law filings and unclear court orders that often fuel enforcement disputes.

"The goal with what I'm gonna be talking about here is to issue clear effective orders, which minimize the chance of conflict," said Jim Streeter, who described Minnesota practices for early case management, confidential early neutral evaluations and hybrid ADR models. Streeter said most cases settle on paper or with non‑adversarial processes and that roughly 10% become the recurring, high‑conflict matters that drive legislative concern.

Streeter walked the task force through specific tools used in Minnesota: an initial case management conference within weeks of assignment, a sliding array of ADR options from facilitative mediation to evaluative early neutral evaluations, and role‑based options such as parenting time expediters (short‑term, limited decision authority) and parenting consultants/coordinators (broader, often contractual roles that may produce decisions subject to appeal). He emphasized tailoring approaches to local capacity and safeguarding survivors of domestic violence by limiting some mediated options where research shows poorer outcomes.

Committee members pressed on access and cost. Streeter said metro jurisdictions often subsidize services, while rural areas rely more on volunteers and sliding fees. He cited OurFamilyWizard as an example of a communication app widely used to reduce disputed text evidence and explained that some experimental AI tools have been demonstrated for constrained dispute types but are not yet broadly reliable for complex custody matters.

Streeter and members agreed on practical aims: make orders clearer up front, expand early case management to surface options before conflict becomes entrenched, and pilot limited‑scope expediters or court‑sponsored mediation to provide quick, lower‑cost responses to routine hiccups before they turn into contempt filings.

He urged the task force to consider which combinations of training, sliding fees and stewarded mediation the state could fund or pilot — rather than assuming a single national model would transfer unchanged to North Dakota.

The task force did not take any formal action on Streeter's recommendations; members asked staff to gather comparative caseload and cost data for follow‑up.