Hennepin County Divorce Process

Initial Case Management Conference and Early Neutral Evaluations in Hennepin County

Hennepin County for the last few years has followed its own process, aimed at trying to expedite the processing of divorce cases, and minimizing conflict and the expense associated when parties quickly resort to litigating (resorting to the lawyers and the courts to decide disputes) all issues. As soon as a party files the petition or answer with the court, your matter will be assigned to one judge or referee, who will be responsible for all aspects of your case until its conclusion. Typically within thirty days thereafter, the court will schedule an "Initial Case Management Conference""(ICMC)". Both lawyers and both parties must appear, and the vast majority of judges and referees (judicial officers) will not allow any motions, including temporary motions, to be filed until the ICMC takes place.

Depending on the judicial officer, most ICMC's are fairly informal. The judicial officer will come into the courtroom, and give a small presentation to the parties. Literally all presentations are based on a common theme - the benefit of working cooperatively to reach a mediated settlement. The judicial officer will discuss the high cost, both financially and emotionally, of litigating your divorce issues rather than working towards an amicable settlement. The judicial officer will then discuss with the lawyers what issues they believe your case presents, what needs to be done to reach a resolution of those issues, what procedures the lawyers believe are necessary to prepare the matter for resolution (either through subsequent settlement or trial) and how much time will be needed to complete this work. At this point, it will be determined whether a temporary hearing is necessary, and how the temporary issues are best presented for decision by the judicial officer. Some judicial offers will require a formal "motion," as described above. A few may request the lawyers follow a more informal process of simply writing the judicial officer a letter providing the economic data necessary to decide temporary issues together with brief argument. The judicial officer will then decide the temporary issue.

Hennepin County has developed several innovative tools aimed at facilitating quick resolution of traditionally volatile areas - custody/parenting time dispute and economic disputes. If the court is advised a custody/parenting time is present, the judicial officer will order that the parties participate in an "Early Neutral Custody Evaluation" "custody ENE." In this process the parties and counsel will be quickly scheduled to meet with two Hennepin County Court Services custody evaluators - one male and one female. Each party will then respond to questions posed by the two as to how they have traditionally parented/co-parented the children, and what custody/parenting time arrangement each desires. The two evaluators will then briefly adjourn, and then return to advise the parties what recommendation would result from a full custody evaluation. Many parties are able to reach a settlement of most parenting time issues after hearing this informal report.

Hennepin County, in light of the success it has achieved in resolving custody/parenting time disputes through ENE’s, has recently commenced a "financial ENE". As part of this process, other trained family law attorneys not involved in your matter, will be assigned randomly to be provided with financial information as to your respective income, needs, and assets. This neutral expert will then advise the parties of what result they believe would occur following more traditional litigation.