Maine Gets Creative To Deal With Huge Backlog Of Divorce Cases
There's nothing worse than being stuck with someone.
Years ago, obviously before I met my wife, I was living with a girl and we broke up. But... both f us were strapped financially, and we ended up having to live together for an extra five weeks waiting for our security deposit. It was miserable. I tried to never be home, but it didn't always work out. And it was great meeting my new ex's new beau.
For a lot of folks, this has been very real for a while. The pandemic and other circumstances have caused a huge backlog in divorce cases. So there have been tons of people waiting to get someone not-so-special out of their lives for way longer than necessary. But the state has been coming up empty on solutions to deal with the issue.
Here come the retired judges, ladies and gentlemen.
Help is on the way according to WGME. The state is bringing several judges out of retirement to help muddle their way through the backlog of cases. And it's no small number. Maine is backed up by some 6000+ cases since 2020. Imagine being stuck with your ex for this long? It must be maddening.
The judges will act as legal referees and hopefully handle all these cases without them actually having to go all the way to trial. It's an innovative way to handle the problem, without having to hire more judges to do it, which in the long run saves the state some money, undoubtedly.
The program will run for about the next year or so, and folks hope by then that things will be more manageable. And even better, it should give some people some much needed hope after waiting so long to have some closure. Fingers crossed....