Managing Mayhem

Passaic County’s family court was beginning to rebound in 2019, when family law attorney Jessica Ragno Sprague became president of the county Bar association. For four years, Passaic had faced severe judicial shortages, worse than most counties in the state. Motions in family matters often sat unresolved for months, sometimes more than a year.

In 2015, the county’s only sitting matrimonial judge was the late Judge John Selser, for whom Sprague had clerked in 2006. What followed his retirement in 2016, Sprague says, was “an incredible backlog and complete mayhem,” with families left waiting for essential rulings on support and parenting time.

“You have situations where a house is going into foreclosure, or somebody isn’t complying with a custody and parenting-time order,” Sprague says. “How long is someone going to go without seeing
their kids?”

Those delays, she says, pushed her and a small group of colleagues to try something new: a low-bono mediation program that could move motions forward and ease the court’s backlog.

Their first step was to hold two-week volunteer “blitzes,” during which family law attorneys rotated through the courthouse, for full or half days, mediating family motions free of charge.

Sprague says they soon realized they needed a more sustainable arrangement: “The burnout was real.”
That led to the low-bono mediation program, in which attorneys could ask the judge to refer a pending motion to an approved mediator for up to three hours at a reduced $200 hourly rate. The case came off the docket during mediation, and the original filing date was preserved.

The concept drew inspiration from a similar initiative that was forming in Somerset County. “They’d started working on it, and we got the forms they were intending to use and built [our program] from that,” Sprague says.

“Most parents are already in agreement on a lot of things—they just don’t know how to effectuate it.”

With continuing judicial shortages, the program has been a big success. “It gives people a chance to get into mediation instead of waiting months and months,” she says.

Sprague and her colleagues next focused on the non-dissolution docket, where cases involving unmarried parents had piled up after the pandemic. Many of those parents represent themselves, due to financial constraints.

“There really aren’t a whole lot of options for those cases,” she says. “So we modeled a pro-bono program after the matrimonial early-settlement panels, but specifically for non-dissolution matters.”

Volunteer attorneys review filings in advance, meet with the parties and mediate agreements. Law clerks assist by drafting consent orders and running child-support guidelines. “We’re not allowed to give legal advice, but we can provide basic knowledge, like how judges typically handle certain issues, so they’re not going in blindly,” says Sprague. “Most parents are already in agreement on a lot of things—they just don’t know how to effectuate it and need something in writing.” The initiative boasts high success rates, with roughly 75% of cases ending in consent orders.

Sprague, a shareholder at Jardim Meisner Salmon Sprague & Susser in Florham Park, now focuses on her roles as family section co-chair and state Bar trustee for Passaic County. She’s handed off day-to-day oversight of the programs she helped found to others within the Bar.

She’s quick to emphasize that none of it has been a solo effort. “I’d be completely remiss not to thank those who really helped me,” she says, citing Judges Rudolph Filko, Yolanda Adrianzen and Jason Tuchman; and attorneys Candice Drisgula and Jeffrey Fiorello.

In 2021, Sprague was recognized as Professional Lawyer of the Year for Passaic County by the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law, acknowledging her contributions to the profession and the community. She now serves on the committee that selects future honorees.

While a memorable moment, she’s even prouder of the programs: “Both are still active and running.” What began as a crisis response has become a fixture in how Passaic County manages family law cases.

Keeping Volunteers Engaged

The non-dissolution docket relies on a small pool of attorneys who donate their time. “We have a rotating panel list,” Sprague says, “so you’re probably helping three or four times a year if you serve in both programs.”

Recruiting new participants isn’t always easy. Some attorneys scaled back their involvement when sessions returned to in-person after COVID-19, and the low-bono program is limited to approved mediators who are members of the Passaic County Bar Association in an effort to encourage membership. “You always have the same people volunteering,” she says. “They burn out. That’s definitely the biggest challenge.”