American Bar Association Policy on Unified Family Courts, 32 FAM. L.Q. 1 (Spring 1998).

Catherine J. Ross, The Failure of Fragmentation: The Promise of a System of Unified Family Courts, 32 FAM. L.Q. 3 (Spring 1998).
This article focuses on practical concerns rather than on lofty, theoretical, and jurisprudential matters. Specifically, Part I presents an overview of the failures of fragmented judicial systems to deliver either efficient or equitable justice to families. Part II lays out the rationales for a unified family court, by exploring four essential components of any unified family court system, suggesting the likely impact of structural reforms in these areas on families and children: (1) comprehensive jurisdiction, (2) structure and administration, (3) training, and (4) comprehensive services, including prevention. It then considers the potential offered by transforming those fragmented forums into unified family courts and some of the concrete steps needed to attain that goal.

Barbara A. Babb, Where We Stand: An Analysis of America's Family Law Adjudicatory Systems and the Mandate to Establish Unified Family Courts, 32 FAM. L.Q. 31 (Spring 1998).
In this article, the author presents a comprehensive overview of the results of a nationwide survey determining how each state's courts handle family law matters, including an assessment of the court structure and whether a state operates a family court, the subject-matter jurisdiction of the court, the term length of judges, and the case assignment method. The results reveal a striking amount of variety and inconsistency in how America's courts process family law cases and illustrate the dramatic need for "a fundamental rethinking and restructuring of the legal system" with regard to family law adjudication and suggests that states consider implementing unified family courts.

Jeffrey A. Kuhn, A Seven-Year Lesson on Unified Family Courts: What We Have Learned Since the 1990 National Family Court Symposium, 32 FAM. L.Q. 67 (Spring 1998).
This article examines what has been learned about efforts to provide therapeutic justice to children and families within the context of a unified family court. It reviews key recommendations made in the 1990 Recommendations for a Model Family Court (Redbook Recommendations) and offers commentary reflecting the experiences of judges, court and agency managers, service providers, academics, and educators with the unified family court during the last seven years.

Andrew Schepard, Parental Conflict Prevention Programs and the Unified Family Court: A Public Health Perspective, 32 FAM. L.Q. 95 (Spring 1998).
The thesis of this article is that every unified family court should develop a prevention plan to help parents reduce conflict arising out of divorce and separation. Section two describes the problems facing courts, parents, and children resulting from divorce and separation in terms of a public health rather than a caseload model. Then, the article details the epidemic-like crisis facing family courts because of increased caseloads and troubled parents and children. The fourth section describes already existing preventive education programs that family courts can draw on and briefly summarizes the available research on their effectiveness. The fifth section describes the comprehensive prevention approach designed by Oregon's interdisciplinary Task Force on Family Law. Finally, the article discusses how a unified family court can incorporate a prevention strategy into its mission.

Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, Loretta Frederick, Barbara Hart, & Meredith Hofford, Unified Family Courts: How Will They Serve Victims of Domestic Violence?, 32 FAM. L.Q. 131 (Spring 1998).
The current national drive toward creating unified family courts rests on the premise that they are more likely than are traditional courts to foster certain specified goals. However, philosophies of jurisprudence must themselves be flexible, for no set of jurisprudential goals is appropriate to all litigants. Add domestic violence to the picture, for example, and those very goals of the unified family court, which in other domestic settings are so desirable, entirely lose their efficacy. This article discusses the question of how a unified family court structure designed to foster those jurisprudential goals desirable in the "normal" context can serve those litigants for whom, because they are victims of domestic violence, such goals are anathema.

Mark Hardin, Child Protection Cases in a Unified Family Court, 32 FAM. L.Q. 147 (Spring 1998).
This article begins by discussing the special characteristics and challenges of child protection cases. It then describes some of the factual and legal complexity of individual child protection cases in order to emphasize the high level of expertise and experience required to achieve excellence in child protection litigation. Next, the article discusses the actual performance of two states' unified family courts in child abuse and neglect cases. It compares their performance to the performance of two exemplary specialized juvenile courts as well as to national standards. The article describes some of the ways that unified family courts should be organized to achieve excellence in child protection cases. Finally, the article considers whether and under what circumstances child protection professionals should support the establishment of a unified family court. It concludes that they should support the unified family court if it will be organized, as described in this article, to improve judicial handling of child abuse and neglect cases.