THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 4, 1995 TAG: 9512040069
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Couples seeking uncontested divorces are flooding the city Circuit Court, where judges have streamlined the process for untying the knot.
In many uncontested cases, judges grant divorces in weeks, or even days, after the papers are filed.
In most of the Washington area, getting a divorce might mean a court process lasting several months.
The Alexandria system has created such a dramatic reduction in time and money for couples that the court clerk's office has been deluged with new business, much of it from neighboring communities.
``The fact that it is so much quicker helps you move on,'' said Kim Colman of Arlington.
It took Colman about five weeks to get divorced in Alexandria.
She and her ex-husband, who have no children, were able to work out who gets the condo and the car before they filed the papers.
The Alexandria court grants about 1,400 divorces a year.
Its caseload soared after the General Assembly's 1991 vote allowing Virginians to get divorced anywhere in the state.
Arlington lawyer Debra Goldenberg said her clients have come from as far as the Shenandoah Valley to take advantage of the faster and cheaper process.
The Alexandria court lets people filing uncontested divorces bypass the independent commissioner who traditionally makes recommendations to a judge.
Using commissioners can add months and hundreds of dollars to divorces, lawyers say.
The commissioner's hearings were established to relieve judges at a time when many divorce proceedings were mini-trials in which one side tried to prove adultery or cruelty.
Increasingly, couples are filing on the grounds that they have lived apart for the required time and that neither spouse is legally at fault for the breakup.
That reduces most hearings to formalities that a judge can handle without a commissioner.
But Denman Rucker, an Arlington lawyer who serves as a commissioner in about 50 divorces a year, said the reports he and other commissioners prepare provide good advice to judges and don't have to cause major delays.
Others say couples shouldn't be in too much of a rush to dissolve their marriages.
``A lot of people get back together after they file the papers,'' said lawyer Mark Sandground, who has handled divorce cases in Virginia for 40 years. ``The commissioner practice is a good practice. It ain't broke, so don't fix it.''
But Chief Judge Donald Kent offers no apologies for streamlining the divorce process.
``We really feel like we're doing a public service,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: DIVORCE LAWS VIRGINIA by CNB