Symposium: Editor's Note

Abstract

I am honored to guest edit this second Family Law Quarterly Symposium on Unified Family Courts. I have supported and contributed to the American Bar Association's efforts to create and strengthen unified family courts for many years and in many capacities?as a speaker on the Unified Family Courts Presidential Showcase Panel at the ABA Annual Meeting in New Orleans in 1994; as the Family Law Section's Liaison to the Standing Committee on Substance Abuse and as Co-Chair of its Unified Family Courts Committee from 1997 until 2000; as a member of the Planning Committee for the 1998 ABA Unified Family Court Summit and as a speaker at the Summit; as a contributing author to the first Family Law Quarterly Symposium on Unified Family Courts; and currently as a member of the ABA's Unified Family Court Coordinating Council. The articles in this Symposium issue address the subject of unified family courts from both a national and an international perspective, as well as offer creative approaches to resolve existing problems within family law adjudicatory systems. I have written and spoken extensively about the need to create unified family courts, providing both an interdisciplinary framework and a blueprint to establish those courts.1 Unified family courts by my definition consist of the following components: 1) a specialized court structure that is either a separate court or a division of an existing court and that is established at the same level and receives the same resources and