Vol. 55, No. 2 (2021–2022): Family Law During COVID-19: Practical Responses and Systemic Innovations
In the pandemic, courts have scrambled to provide access to justice, individuals have struggled to resolve family disputes, and lawyers have strained to serve clients. This issue explores the challenges and emerging opportunities.

Editor’s Note
Lisa F. Grumet
We began planning this issue, our second on COVID-19 and family law, early in the pandemic, not expecting it to last so long. We hope the articles provide perspective on the challenges, lessons learned, and potential future reforms.

Introduction
Samuel V. Schoonmaker IV
During the pandemic, courts scrambled to ensure access to justice, individuals struggled to resolve family disputes, and lawyers strained to serve clients. The issue explores the challenges and emerging opportunities.

How the Judiciary Has Driven Systemic Innovation During the Pandemic
Samuel V. Schoonmaker IV
COVID-19 compelled practitioners and state courts to adapt in uncomfortable, ad hoc ways. Many courts seized the opportunity to implement NCSC innovations, which rely heavily on technology and problem-solving rather than litigation.

Lessons from a Pandemic: The Georgia TPO Forum’s Recommendations for Strengthening Protections Against Domestic Violence
Sarah White, Christine Scartz, Jamie Bormann
The Georgia Temporary Protective Order Forum is a collaboration of practitioners who are passionate about ending domestic violence. This Article offers practical recommendations for other advocates and attorneys working towards the same goal.

COVID-19 and Families with Special Needs
Margaret “Pegi” Price & Jack Hamlin
Dramatic changes to daily life during the pandemic have weighed heavily on families of special needs children and adults. We hope this Article helps the family law community and policy makers aid such families and learn from the COVID-19 experience.

Co-Parenting During Lockdown: COVID-19 and Child Custody Cases Before the Vaccine
New York Law School Family Law Quarterly Editors
This Article looks at child custody disputes from the early, pre-vaccine days of the pandemic to show how courts balanced physical and emotional health considerations and the parties’ circumstances to determine the child’s best interests.

Family Law Court Proceedings in the Pandemic’s First Year: The Experience of Each State as Reflected in Contemporaneous Interviews and Reviews of Court Websites and Orders
University of North Carolina School of Law Research Team
[PDF Download] A project directed by UNC Law Professor Maxine Eichner evolved from the work of the ULC’s Study Committee on Family Court Emergency Procedures to provide a snapshot of each state’s response to family law issues during the pandemic’s first year.

Charts 2020: Family Law in the Fifty States, D.C., and Puerto Rico, Part 2
[PDF Download] We introduced the first four of eight new family law charts in our last issue. This issue contains the next two: Chart 5. Property Division Statutes in 2020 and Chart 6. Child Support Statutes in 2020.