'Triage' may aid in divorce conflicts

The triage approach used in medical emergencies might help stop or at least slow the emotional hemorrhaging in high-conflict divorce cases, members of a legislative ad hoc family law review committee said Tuesday.

Assessment of a couple as soon as a petition is filed could divert it from court, direct them toward resolution and shorten the process by months, said committee members, who are focusing their review on high-conflict divorce cases. Those cases represent 5 percent of divorces in Utah but take about 90 percent of the courts' time and effort.

Instead of coming in and encouraging them to draw up the boundaries for a fight, the courts should immediately intervene and push them toward developing a parenting plan, they said.

The state already has some success taking that approach. The 2nd District Court has been running a pilot program for about two years in which an evaluator makes an assessment within two days of filing.

"Those fight-to-the-death cases in nine months had been reduced to zero," state court administrator Rick Schwermer said.

There are those cases that early intervention wouldn't be able to rescue, said Lori Nelson, committee coordinator and a family law attorney.

"What we're doing now is hard on people, with labels and presumptions and making them think they're going to have to fight over everything," Nelson said. "If they want to fight, let them, but we've got protect the kids, and we need to figure out how to do that best."

Custody evaluator and committee member Jay Jensen said he's seen "a lot of cases in 15 years where the couple was fairly amicable in the beginning and then became fairly conflicted along the way" because of the courts.

Just the terminology of the courts sets people up for conflict instead of resolution, other committee members said. They come in thinking their only choice will ultimately be they're going to have to fight to get what they want. They are labeled petitioner and defendant and all correspondence reminds a couple they are "versus" each other.

Jill Sanders, a custody evaluator and committee member, said with 34 percent of divorces in Utah being determined without lawyers involved, "there are plenty of people who could figure it out on their own. But there's not enough education and we don't help them. If we could change the language used in divorces, we would go a great distance."

Brian Florence, a committee member and divorce mediator, said parents invariably feel they have to pick a camp.

"A father came in the other day demanding sole custody when it turned out all he really wanted was to have access to report cards and be told when the doctors' appointments were," Florence said. "They can work those things out, but they often don't know it. The terminology creates cubby holes for parents to fight from."

Between now and November, the committee will look at several custody issues in the state, including undoing the link between child support payments and parent visitation time and the growing legal questions surrounding social versus biological fathers.

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E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com