If you have recently separated and are about to enter the Family Law system, you are about to have your patience severely tested. If you are already involved in ongoing proceedings, then you already know how bad it is and you might be wondering why.

In the Family Court in Sydney, the average waiting period until your trial date is over 18 months, with some parties facing delays that stretch into years. If your matter involves a lot of conflict and argument over every detail, this can take even longer as each directions hearing adds a delay of three to six months. Where you have orders in place that prevent you from seeing your child or where there are allegations of child abuse, this wait can be extremely painful.

At the end of last year, the NSW Law Society pointed out the obvious – the Family Court and the Family Law Division of the Federal Circuit Court are not able to cope with their work load. The major cause is said to be a reduction in government funding which means that judges who retire or resign are simply not being replaced. Their workload is being shared amongst the remaining judges who may have up to 700 matters on their to-do list. In a report prepared in November 2014, KPMG found that the Family Circuit Court’s budget would fall short by $75million as early as 2017-2018. Without an urgent injection of funding for the Courts, the suffering of separating parents and their children will only increase.

Urgent interim matters take precedence, and may be dealt with quickly, but once these are sorted out and the family’s situation is relatively stable from the Court’s perspective, the long waiting game begins. Some parties are able to negotiate a settlement during this time which removes them from the Court system, but where there are a lot of complex issues or high, ongoing conflict, the parties are very unlikely to be able to reach an agreement. They have no alternative but to wait for their trial, which effectively means living in expensive, stressful, uncertain circumstances for a long time. Even this will not resolve some matters, where the losing party goes back to appeal the decision. There are children in Sydney starting school this year who have spent their whole lives in the shadow of the Family Court! This is a shocking state of affairs for a Court system founded on the principles of quick, cheap and efficient access to justice.

Another factor contributing to the delays is the increasing complexity of Family Law legislation. In August last year, Family Court Judge Grant Riethmuller published a paper on the “42 easy steps” required under the legislation to make a decision about even a straightforward parenting matter. The Law Council’s family law section has called “urgently” for simplification of the legislation. Instead, the government last year introduced a bill to transfer control of administration in the Family and Federal Circuit Courts to the smaller Federal Court. The Chief Justice of the Federal Circuit Court has said that while any increase in efficiency is welcome, this is not going to address the real resource issues. People in regional areas are likely to find accessing the system even more difficult if the proposed closure of the Parramatta and Wollongong registries goes ahead.

This situation makes it even more important for those entering the Family Law system to seriously consider their alternatives to litigation. Every family is unique but there are a range of options for you to consider which may allow you to resolve your family matter in a manner that is much faster and less stressful than waiting for the Court to make a decision for you. Every couple who are able to work with their professional advisors to make their own choices about their family’s future help to relieve the burden on the Courts so that they can deal with the most complex and serious cases in a more timely manner. Family Dispute Resolution (also known as mediation), Collaborative Law practices and negotiation facilitated through correspondence between your lawyers can be highly effective at resolving the issues and finding solutions that work for everyone involved. Take the first step and talk to us today about the alternatives that may be available to you!