Uncontested divorces stall in Queens, attys say
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Uncontested divorce cases have piled up in Queens during the pandemic, attorneys say. Eagle file photo by Clarissa Sosin
By Jacob Kaye
It may have been difficult to meet a romantic partner during the pandemic but try getting divorced in Queens.
Uncontested divorce cases in Queens have piled up during the pandemic, forcing former couples to wait six to eight months before they can formally split, according to matrimonial law attorneys.
There are currently 630 uncontested divorce cases waiting to be finalized inside Queens courts, according to the Office of Court Administration. That number would put Queens with the fourth fewest cases in the city.
Frank Bruno, a family law attorney and the president of the Queens County Bar Association said that the slow moving process can sour people on the court system.
“There's a portion of this divorce litigant population that has had no prior contact with the system, and their only contact is the divorce case which lasts a long time,” Bruno said. “What this does is that for the people that have not previously been involved in the court system, it lets them see the delays”
The delays also end up affecting the relationship between the attorneys and the clients, lawyers say.
“If a client is waiting for a significant period of time for the divorce, [it puts a strain on the relationship],” Bruno said. “Once they file for divorce, sometimes there’s an expectation that it’ll be done right away. With Walmart, Amazon, Zappos and online shopping, everyone is used to a next day product when the client needs the actual expectation that it’ll be done in [months].”
At a certain point though, Bruno said it’s out of the attorney's hands – they can’t force the courts to move any faster and they can’t stop a client from leaving to find a new attorney.
“There's only so much the attorney can do once it's filed,” he said. “It's up to the court to pick up the ball from the filing all the way through signature and the judgment, and if that window can be compressed that would make for a more pleasant court process.”
Attorney Donald Mastrodomenico said that it can take a “toll on the lawyers,” but that the clients don’t deserve to wait that long and he understands the frustration.
“The people that have been making the agreements for these uncontested cases are not fighting and have been adults enough to resolve the cases on their own,” Mastrodomenico said. “They're being penalized by the amount of time that it takes for their divorce to go through.”
‘The Savior’
Despite the backlog of cases, there are people fighting to help people get their cases processed.
Beyond the attorneys and other court officials advocating for a greater allocation of resources to Queens’ Matrimonial Part, one former Queens Supreme Court justice has come out of retirement to lend the state his services for free.
Former judge Sidney Strauss spends part of his week as a judicial hearing officer, signing off on uncontested divorces without children.
“He's really been this savior of Queens County with regard to these uncontested divorces,” Mastrodomenico said.
Strauss, who has lived in Queens his entire life, picks up around 50 cases in Queens each week. He also picks up cases in the Bronx, which faces a backlog of around 1,758 active uncontested divorces, according to the OCA.
Strauss, who also officiates weddings in his free time, got the idea in March, when the courts began opening back up again and when he couldn’t take being cooped up any longer.
“I'm thinking about all these people who not only are suffering because of the pandemic, and job loss, and this and that, and the other thing, but they have uncontested divorce papers they’ve filed and nobody's working on them,” he said. “I don't need the money, thank god, and I don't want the money. But I want to do something in order to help some of these people out.”
Since March, Strauss, who has been happily married for 58 years, has been taking on cases a couple of days a week.
“As far as I'm concerned, I would do this five days a week to give some relief to some of the people who have been so adversely affected by the court shutting down,” he said.
However, there’s only so much one retired judge can do. Bruno suggests that as a permanent fix, more resources be allocated to the uncontested divorce cases.
“If more funding is brought to the task at hand they can hire more clerks,” he said. “And then even without more money, there might be a way to reallocate resources within the court building to handle the backlog.”
