When COVID-19 hit Detroit hard in March, Kathleen McCarthy, presiding judge in the family law division of Wayne County Circuit Court, quickly recognized the potential impact of court closures.
McCarthy’s concern was especially focused on domestic violence victims who needed personal protection orders (PPOs).
“In Wayne County we process 17,000 PPO requests every year, more than all of the counties in Michigan combined,” said McCarthy, who shared her personal story of growing up in a household with domestic violence. “When local domestic abuse shelters started closing, I knew we needed to act fast, because victims had fewer options to escape their abusers.”
McCarthy began investigating the ability to create an e-filing process for PPOs a year ago. “Once the courts closed, there was no choice but to set up an e-filing system,” said McCarthy. “Until then, Wayne County had always depended on in-person contact.”
McCarthy recognized that the courts were not the only ones challenged by not holding in-person meetings. Since 2015, she has served as a board trustee of the Wayne County Dispute Resolution Center (WCDRC), a non-profit organization which provides mediation services for a wide variety of general/civil and domestic disputes in Wayne County. In the courts, mediators can help to reduce a judge’s docket by as much as 50 percent.
When Wayne County Courts were required to close because of the pandemic, there was still a need for mediation and for WCDRC to continue its training of volunteer mediators, including domestic abuse screening.
“We are fortunate to have Judge McCarthy as a valuable and contributing member of our board,” said Siham Awada Jaafar, WCDRC board president. “She helped advocate for our organization to more easily shift from classroom to online mediator training, approved by the Michigan State Court Administrative Office (SCAO).”
In June, Zena Zumeta, an experienced mediator and trainer, conducted WCDRC’s SCAO-approved online training of mediators for General/Civil disputes. In July, she will lead WCDRC’s online SCAO-approved 40-hour Domestic Relations Mediation training and a required 8-hour Domestic Violence Screening Training.
“What we have is a very symbiotic relationship,” said McCarthy, referring to WCDRC and the family law division. “WCDRC has also trained the court’s social workers who help families with custody and parenting time.”
With the online system for processing PPOs now in place in Wayne County, McCarthy witnessed other benefits of having a system that was also safer and easier for individuals to file.
“It eliminated the need for transportation and the time it took for people to get to court, finding and paying for parking, filling out the paperwork which could take up to three hours, and potentially being in the proximity of their abuser,” said McCarthy. “Now, they can file online from a smart phone or tablet in the safety and comfort of a friend or family member’s house or even at the police station, where advocates can be available to assist in the process. There is a 24- hour turnaround to receive the PPO.”
When in-person filing was in place, the family law division would receive an average of 25 PPO applications every day. With the conversion to online system, McCarthy was concerned the numbers would drop. However, the online system has proved to be working as they now receive approximately 25 e-filings a day.
According to McCarthy, Michigan is only one of six states in the U.S. where online filing of PPOs is available, and Macomb and Wayne counties are the only two counties within Michigan that e-filing of PPOs. She anticipates a statewide solution will be in the works soon.
As Michigan stay-at-home orders have been eased and people are returning to work, there are many questions about what the “new normal” will be. Will it include both in-person and online options?
McCarthy and Jaafar are hoping whatever the outcome, they have helped to create a “better normal” for domestic abuse survivors.
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