The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently issued new parent coordination rules designed to reinvent coordinators and reintroduce them into the custody process, while cutting out the ambiguity and ad hoc application that plagued the system in its previous incarnation.

After a run as an extra-judicial tool of the family courts, parenting coordination was eliminated by rule in 2013. The legislative death knell of parent coordination followed concerns about the due process rights of the parties in custody cases and the validity and enforceability of coordinator decisions. These issues overrode any perceived or actual utility the process provided by filtering out high-conflict cases involving low priority issues. There was also the Superior Court case, A.H. v. C.M., (Pa. Super. 2012), a few months prior the abolishment of parent coordination that established the right to a de novo hearing from a parent coordinator’s decision. This decision limited the finality of parent coordination decisions —and thus some of the process’ immediacy and effectiveness—albeit in favor of a stricter application of due process.

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