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In 2010, CFCC, the American Bar Association Section of Family Law and other leading organizations collaborated to launch the multi-year “Families Matter” initiative, with the mission “to develop practice methods and approaches to minimize the destructive consequences of the family law legal process on families.” The Families Matter Symposium convened an interdisciplinary group of experts in the fields of psychology, law, accounting and mediation to brainstorm about reducing the harmful effects of the legal process in family law cases. The symposium launched a three-year undertaking to address devastating consequences of family law matters and the family law process on families, children, extended family, businesses and the community.

Project partners included:

The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC)

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ)

The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS)

The Families Matter Symposium convened an interdisciplinary group of experts in the fields of psychology, law, accounting and mediation to brainstorm about reducing the harmful effects of the legal process in family law cases. The symposium launched a three-year undertaking to address devastating consequences of family law matters and the family law process on families, children, extended family, businesses and the community. Keynote speakers were Maryland's Chief Judge Robert M. Bell (retired) and Georgia's former Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears (retired).

Family law cases constitute nearly half—or more—of trial court filings in most jurisdictions, exceeding the filings for either criminal or other civil cases. The impact on individuals, communities and society is profound. People often emerge from a divorce having disposed of a marriage but also having traumatized loved ones, exhausted the family’s resources and diminished the well-being and self-esteem of their children and of each other.

Following the symposium, the Families Matter initiative continued to work to identify legal practice methods and approaches that minimize the damaging consequences of family legal proceedings based on an interdisciplinary, holistic and therapeutic approach.

The Families Matter initiative actively engaged in a number of activities to improve the family justice system:

• In 2014, CFCC completed a final report of the Families Matter Symposium proceedings which includes recommendations on a number of issues and subjects, such as case management, Unified Family Courts, self-represented litigants, interdisciplinary collaboration, court services and family violence, among others.
• In 2011, CFCC published a special edition of its nationally recognized newsletter, the Unified Family Court Connection which includes articles by a number of Families Matter Symposium participants, including Maryland Chief Judge Robert Bell (ret.) and Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears (ret.) of the Georgia Supreme Court.
• The ABA Section of Family Law’s Spring 2011 and Fall 2011 CLE Conferences focused on Families Matter. The Fall CLE program included a plenary session moderated by Professor Barbara Babb, CFCC’s Director, on “Promising Practices in Family Law Cases.”
• On July 14, 2010, the Baltimore Sun ran an op-ed co-authored by Professor Barbara Babb and ABA Section of Family Law Chair Mitchell Karpf. The piece, “A more humane vision of family law,” has since been reprinted widely. The article was the direct result of      discussions at the Families Matter Symposium.