Uniform Family Court Rules & Forms: Committee Looks to Create Uniformity Across Pennsylvania’s Family Courts

David L. Ladov, Esq. on 12/05/2008

As a result of the geographic proximity of Philadelphia to the four surrounding Counties, many family law practitioners in the region represent clients and appear in Court in any one of the five Counties on a regular basis. Oftentimes, these attorneys also consider representation of clients outside of these Counties if called upon to do so. The biggest hurdles in stepping out of a single country, however, are that each and every county has its unique set of forms and pleadings, as well as their own local rules. This scenario can be analogous to walking through a field full of land mines.

Often, after a pleading is filed, attorneys get back in the mail not the time-stamped copy that we have requested, but instructions or a corrections sheet identifying what was done incorrectly with how to go about re-filing a corrected pleasing. The frustration levels of the attorneys, the paralegals and/or the secretaries involved spiral upward with each rejection which is often the case. But…good news is coming on the horizon and this all-too-typical scenario may soon no longer be the norm.

In the Spring of 2008, Justice Max Bear appointed a Subcommittee to the Pennsylvania Domestic Relations Procedural Rules Committee to develop a set of unified forms to be used throughout the Commonwealth in an effort to help create standard family law practice and procedures. Additionally, the Committee was charged with developing a separate set of Family Court Rules similar to juvenile practice and/or trust and estates.

The Chair of the Committee is Mark Momjian of Schnader Harrison and the other appointments to the Committee, which includes both practitioners and Judges, are the Honorable Robert G. Bigham (Adams County), the Honorable Pamela Ruest (Centre County), David L. Ladov (Montgomery County), David Rasner (Philadelphia County), David Slesnick (Allegheny County), and Jack Howett (Daulphin County).

The Committee has met and is presently putting together a set of Family Court Forms in all substantive practice areas consisting of divorce, custody, and support. The Committee has also sought the assistance of various Legal Aid Service Centers throughout the Commonwealth to assist in this process.

In addition to the actual forms, the Committee anticipates developing “Simple English” instructions so that individuals with a basic ability to read and write will be able to complete the forms and file them with the appropriate Prothonotary or Domestic Relations Office in their particular county. Obviously, the forms will not fit every single factual situation and they will focus on the less complicated and uncontested situations. Family Law Practitioners need not be concerned as it is anticipated that this set of forms will mostly be utilized by pro se litigants and may provide reference points for other parties who want to educate themselves and get a handle on what their divorce, support, or custody case may look like in terms of the documents that need to be filed with the Court. The uniform forms will not take the place of attorneys and will not address contested and/or complicated issues that are normally handled by counsel.

As can be predicted, because the scope of this project is extremely broad, the Committee hopes to present their work product to Justice Baer in the Spring of 2009. Stay tuned for further updates, but hopefully, some time within the next year there may be uniform rules and forms that will be accepted and utilized by each and every County of the Commonwealth so that we don’t have to dread sending pleadings to a County with the expectation that they will be bounced back at least once, if not more, for failure to follow the “Local Rules”.

Add Comment

Post Anonymously

Name
Email
Comment