Viewing Colorado's Early Experiments with Proactive Case Processing Through a Different Lens

Colorado Magistrate Judge Simon Mole recently penned a guest post for the Access to Justice Blog in which he comments on IAALS' study and analysis of data from Colorado pilot programs that instituted proactive case processing in family law cases. The findings, contained in a report entitled “Family Law in Focus: A Retrospective Study of Colorado's Early Experiments with Proactive Case Processing,” show that proactive case management benefited litigants in a number of ways, although, as Magistrate Judge Mole points out in his commentary, this approach also increased court appearances and reduced out-of-court settlement. Many of the procedures that were pilot-tested were ultimately incorporated into Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 16.2, which governs court-facilitated management of domestic relations cases. Magistrate Judge Mole suggests that the study deserves more than just academic interest, especially “at a time when the ATJ community looks to simplify civil procedure for self-represented litigants.”