Australia

Last month, Australia’s Attorney-General announced he would continue with a plan to merge the specialist Family Court of Australia with the lower-level Federal Circuit Court, with the aim to improve efficiency, but not everyone is convinced.

I spent two weeks in Australia in May, meeting Australian judges, lawyers, law professors, deans, and legal service providers. I spoke at a conference dedicated to examining the role of empirical data in legal system reform, visited two Family Relationship Centres, and horrified a group of Australian judges by detailing how judges are elected in partisan elections in some states in the United States. The whole experience confirmed my notion that Australia is leading the way in legal system reform.

The Women's Legal Centre ACT (Australian Capital Territory), in the Australian capital of Canberra, has opened a divorce clinic for women from diverse cultural backgrounds. The clinic provides free legal advice and representation to women in troubled marriages who may encounter issues navigating the Australian legal system.

On September 3, the Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families at the University of Denver opened its doors to metro-area families. The Center is a model for providing interdisciplinary, out-of-court solutions to separating and divorcing families. This IAALS “out-of-court model” is part of an international trend towards less adversarial separation and divorce processes.

Penny Pether is a Professor of law at Villanova University School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, law and literature, criminal law, and criminal procedure. In her Voices from the Field interview, Pether gives several suggestions for how the American legal education system can mirror some examples from her native Australia.