How Family Court Perpetuates High Conflict and What Needs to Change

Scales of justice

Family court tells parents they want “low conflict.” They urge cooperation, mediation, and a focus on the children. But for many families, the reality is the opposite: every court date, every filing, and every procedural delay becomes another wound in an already damaged dynamic.

Instead of breaking cycles of hostility, the system often cements them.

How Hearings Can Perpetuate Trauma

Every time you walk into a high-conflict hearing, you’re forced to rehash the past. Old wounds get reopened. Allegations, true or not, are re-read into the record. Parents are pulled back into moments they’ve worked hard to move past

This is not healing. It’s re-traumatization.

And because the system often treats both parties as equally responsible for the conflict, it fails to see what’s really happening. True high-conflict dynamics are rarely “50/50.” One person is usually driving the escalation, while the other is responding to survive, protect their children, or defend against false narratives.

The Red Flag Everyone Ignores

When someone sends 150 pages of “evidence” at 9 p.m. the night before a hearing, that is not the behavior of a low-conflict person. It is a deliberate tactic, meant to overwhelm, destabilize, and gain advantage by surprise.

In any other setting, this would be recognized for what it is: procedural abuse. But in family court, it too often gets a pass. The case proceeds anyway. Deadlines and fairness are treated as optional. The party using the tactic is rewarded with more time, more opportunities to argue, and more control over the process.

The Cost of Deferring to Delay

In my recent hearing, three of the four issues could have been resolved in 30 minutes. Instead, the process allowed the matter to be pushed out for months. The hearing officer declined to mediate in the moment, opting instead to set a new date. That means more filings. More expense. More missed work. More instability for the kids.

And here’s the most damaging part: it sends a message to the high-conflict actor that their tactics work. File late? No problem. Dump irrelevant pages on the other party at the very last minute? We’ll still hear it. Stall resolution? We’ll put it back on the calendar.

What Needs to Change

If family courts truly want to reduce conflict, they must be equipped to:

• Recognize manipulation and delay tactics in real time

• Hold parties accountable when they weaponize procedure

• Differentiate between the person driving the conflict and the one responding

• Mediate in the moment when issues can be resolved quickly

• Protect children’s stability by minimizing unnecessary hearings

  
  

Technology can help. AI-assisted case review could flag late filings, excessive page counts, and patterns of behavior that suggest procedural abuse. Trained mediators should be integrated into hearings to help seize opportunities for resolution instead of deferral.

Until these changes happen, the system will keep rewarding those who escalate and punishing those trying to move forward. And every extra month a case drags on is another month children live in the shadow of conflict.

Family court should be a path out of the fire, not a system that keeps pouring fuel on it.