New legislation has been enacted through the recommendation of Elkins Family Law Task Force. This legislation will not only affect our courts, it will also impact your family law case through “live testimony” at Order to Show Cause and Notice of Motion hearings.
Live Testimony At Hearings: “At the hearing on any order to show cause or notice of motion (or request for order) brought pursuant to the Family Code, absent a stipulation of the parties or a finding of good cause, the judge must receive any live competent testimony that is relevant and within the scope of the hearing and may ask questions of the witnesses.” Elkins Final Report Pg. 29, http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/jc/tflists/documents/elkins-finalreport.pdf.
Prior to these Elkins recommendations, it was very rare to see a court taking live testimony at an Order to Show or a Notice of Motion hearing. In lieu of live testimony the court was allowing the submission of a declaration.
How will this affect you? The bad: Now your hearing for initial requests of custody & visitation, child & spousal support and/or attorney’s fees will be prolonged in duration. The courts are already over-crowded and quite often have as many as thirty (30) cases scheduled each morning.
The good: the court will be required to hear live testimony unless it finds good cause not to. This will allow you to tell your side of the story from the onset of the case and you will no longer have to wait until trial to do so.
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