What a year. Who hasn’t enjoyed life in 2020? Oh, right. Everyone. Covid-19 has brought changes to our ever-changing world that none of us could have predicted, and the legal landscape was not immune from its influence. Some of these changes affected the courts in a positive way, some in a negative way, and the impact on families engaged in custody disputes or divorces is undeniable. In this post, I will share some of my observations of how Covid-19 has changed how family law matters are handled and how it has affected clients in Central Minnesota.
The courts in Minnesota picked a somewhat controversial way of handling the early pandemic – they shut down completely. For a time, this was fine, but ultimately, they ran into constitutional problems because criminal defendants have very specific rights when it comes to timing of trials. The courts had to start back up, but then they had a severe backlog of criminal defense cases that had to be addressed immediately on top of everything else that was delayed. This basically caused a traffic jam effect, and everything has been pushed out, delayed, and continued. Even when the court gets to old cases, they have a new backlog of, well, new cases. The system is finally starting to catch up, but I have one client that was scheduled for trial in April 2020 pre-pandemic that still does not have a new trial date. You might be wondering *how* the court can catch up. Not everyone agrees with me, but I think it is due entirely to the system being forced into the 21st century by…
St. Cloud Family Law Attorney
Toepfer at Law is committed to helping families through the process of legal transitions. We work with clients experiencing divorce, separation, child support or spousal maintenance issues, custody disputes, and more.