Snow closings are plaguing the divorce and custody courts in Frederick and the rest of Maryland this year. I cannot remember a year when the courts were closed more often than this season.
Of particular note is the closings have occurred sometimes several days in a given week. The court offices just begin to figure out how to jockey the cases around when BAM it is another closing. This week the courts were closed Monday and Wednesday of the same week.
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| From 2014-02-09 |
If you want to appreciate the impact of this situation think about this. With some variation the life of a divorce or custody case in Maryland starts 1st the “Initial conference.” The initial conference takes about 2-10 minutes once they call your case. The sole purpose of the initial conference is to select the other dates in your case including dates for the final hearing.
When your lawyer appears for that initial conference the dates which the court offers are usually months away at best. Yet because the initial conferences don’t take a long time they are scheduled 10-25 at a pop. So if the court is closed on a date when they had scheduled 25 cases to set court dates and there are 2 courtrooms doing initial conferences that is 50 cases.
That means 50 cases are going to have a rescheduled initial conference and each one has at least 2 people involved. Those cancelled initial conferences will be re-set after the already scheduled initial conferences so the “new initial conference will be at least a month. So will ALL the court dates the court offers for the case.
Enjoy the day with your kids and admire the icy wonderment. The hangover will last at least one month for 100 people who just want it to all be over:(
The Custody Place
19 North Court Street Frederick Maryland 21701
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