Life in lockdown proving perilous for parties in Willy Alstergren’s speedy callover regime for the Family and Circuit Courts … Callovers for cases already resolved or in their final stages … Pandemonium  

Ahead of the September 1 Family Court and Federal Circus Courts “Fusion Day“, Alstergren is planning to pump out of the bilges as many of the old cases as possible – up to 7,000 of them. 

It’s called the “Winter Callover” with a swag of ex-judges pulled from retirement to help crunch through the cases in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Parramatta and Sydney – at reduced, or no cost in some cases. 

Sydney gets underway this week, following Brisbane and Melbourne which commenced the rapid winter fire procedure last week. 

Callover notices appear to have been sent to lawyers and parties in cases at least six months old. Each judge is allocated 47 matters with a time limit of between 10 and 15 minutes – the idea being to encourage mediations and the resolution of cases without further ado. 

While the court hears feedback that practitioners in Adelaide are happy with the arrangement, others are less enthusiastic – particularly those in lockdown states, where life is already chaotic with people working from home and trying to school children with online learning.

Parties are required to attend using Microsoft Teams, and there are complaints that the court’s electronic form to be filled-in by the parties is clunky and cannot be saved. 

Among the matters where parties have been notified to attend we find:

 The Family Court declined to comment.