Families come here seeking healing for their broken lives.

   Most don't find it.

   Instead, they find a broken system. Courts that are too crowded, too distant, too disorganized. Courts that humiliate instead of heal. Courts that dehumanize.

   Here's a case: A 13-year-old with the build of a high-school linebacker admits he sexually abused a 10-year-old boy from his neighborhood.

   How do you "fix" these two children? How do you – in snapshots from court officers, family members, school reports – find a truth that can be a foundation for two families?

   And the stories are not just about big-time evil. Sometimes the court is just humiliating in its process.

   A lawyer, who represents a woman in a battle over custody of a 4-year-old girl, hands a book of bedtime stories to the woman's ex. He's 26, the father of the girl. He has a good job and an apartment.

   But can he read?

   The lawyer believes that being able to read could mean the difference between life and death if the child needs emergency care. He wants to test the father. In public. In court.

   So the man takes the book. Stumbles. Struggles. And all the world looks on.

   Still – he wins custody.

   And the humiliating test? "What was the point of that?" the father later asks.

   ***
   Virginia Coe, a grandmother and former auto mechanic, called the cops one night when a scrap with her daughter scared her.

   When the police came, it also triggered an investigation by Child Protective Services. Coe's three grandsons wound up in foster care while she fought to take custody of them. She had to go to parenting classes. She bought a new home, and the Department of Social Services had to inspect it. The inspection turned up deficiencies. So Coe worked to fix them, putting in new floors with her own hands and doing other repairs. She had to convince Social Services she was a fit mother.

   It took her nearly two years to get them back.

   Even now, happily busy raising the three boys, she says she wouldn't go through Family Court again. For her, the happy end doesn't justify the means.

   "I would've shut my mouth," Coe says. "I never would have let anyone know anything. I would have taken a beating.

   "What I went through? I wouldn't want to see a dog go through that."

   That's one person's lament. But Family Court has a long reach. People from all walks of life wind up here. This is what kind of decision power the court has:

   -- Custody of children.
   -- Orders of protection.
   -- Ending – forever – a person's parental rights.
   -- Trying, convicting and sentencing children up to the age of 15.
   -- Deciding on PINS petitions – when a child needs more supervision than is given by a parent or legal guardian.
   There's more, but you get the picture.

   ***
   From the very top of the judicial heap in New York state, this is what Chief Judge Judith Kaye says: "Frankly, nothing has been a greater challenge for me these past 10 years as chief judge than the court system's efforts to streamline family justice."

   Virginia Coe speaks for many of those whose lives are measured in family courts every day:

   "I'm a cardboard box sitting there. I have no emotions," Coe says. "I'm nothing."

   ***
   The system is big. It's broken. And anyone who's been in or near one of its courtrooms knows that.

   Here are the reasons:

   -- Bureaucracy trumps convenience.

   A mother seeks an order of protection so she and her kids can feel safe at night. It's not a simple process. She has to go to Family Court for custody, Supreme Court to divide property, criminal court to get justice. Each visit means time, energy and perhaps most of all, money.

   -- There's a shortage of judges.
   There just aren't enough judges in Orange County Family Court. The state recently added new judges – but those went to family courts in New York City.

   In Orange County, this contributes to a "hurry-up-and-wait" syndrome: People go to court for a 1:30 p.m. appointment, and they're still waiting at 4:30 p.m. Rarely can cases be decided in one hearing, so the process inches forward, with trials adjourned and resumed over a course of weeks, even months.

   -- There's no shortage of lawyers – except for people who can't afford one. The attorneys who represent poor people are just now getting their first pay raise since 1986.

   -- The range of cases the judges handle is immense. How can the people whose lives are affected tell if the judges are doing a good job?

   -- Probably the most profound problem of all: Family Court judges have to sort out the most intimate details of peoples' lives in a setting that leaves people feeling more bruised and unsettled than healed.
   
   A problem solved – after 17 years

   From 1986 until the 2003 budget was adopted by the state Legislature, the rate was $40 an hour for in-court legal work and $25 for out-of-court work.

   The law requires counties to pay those fees. And about half the cases that come through Family Court in Orange County involve people who are either representing themselves or are represented by a lawyer, whose fees must be covered by the county. That's the estimate of Family Court Clerk Elizabeth Holbrook.

   Forty dollars an hour, let alone $25, doesn't even cover overhead like rent, law books and legal secretaries, let alone allow a lawyer to see any profit. So the pool of lawyers who could afford to work for the indigent was rapidly shrinking before the state Legislature finally boosted the rates to $75 this year.

   That's still less than the $76.90 a local Saturn dealership charges to work on a car for an hour.

   The people who need lawyers assigned to their cases won't notice an impact in the mid-Hudson for three or four months. That's the prediction of Administrative Judge Francis Nicolai, who supervises the courts in the 9th Judicial District. The district includes Orange, Rockland, Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties.

   The new rate for in-court work is still about a third of the $250 an hour billed by many experienced, local private lawyers.

   "I would hope if the economy improves, the Legislature takes up the issue again," Nicolai said.

   Barbara Strauss, a Goshen lawyer who spends a lot of time in Family Court, made this observation about the struggle to get the rates increased:
   "If you want to have a society in which every expert is asked to do pro bono [free] work as their contribution to society, go for it. Let's make the pharmacist give away some free drugs, and the accountant can do some taxes for poor people," she said. "Let's ask the optometrist to give away some free eye care."  
   
   Bureaucracy

   Michelle is 37. She's a homeowner. She's a mother. And she's fed up with bouncing all over the system.

   She's been stuck in the court web since 2000, when she and her boyfriend split up. They have a child in common. She brought her ex to Family Court to prove he was the father.

   And she brought him there to work out custody.

   But in the local village court, in Washingtonville, a criminal case was pending against Michelle's ex – a charge that he'd violated an order of protection.

   Family Court is in Goshen – about a dozen miles west of Washingtonville.

   Between Family Court and local court, Michelle figures off the top of her head that she's been through seven orders of protection. And the more courts that are involved, the more a person's routines get disrupted. Going to court means planning transportation, arranging for child care, taking time off work.

   "It affects my time with my kids," she says. "It affects my well-being."
   
   Judge shortage

   Orange County has three Family Court judges. But there are four courtrooms in the Family Court wing of the Orange County Courthouse. A few years ago, Orange County was slated to have a fourth Family Court judge. That fourth position would be divided between family and county court. But that judge was never assigned, because approval never came from the state Legislature.

   The Supreme Court is also understaffed. The state Constitution calls for one Supreme Court justice for every 50,000 people. So Orange, with a population of 356,000, should have seven Supreme Court justices. It has three.

   For several months last year, two Family Court judges were also assigned divorce cases, to help keep dockets clear in Supreme Court.

   The problem is exacerbated by Orange County's growth rate. Surrounding counties like Sullivan, Ulster and Rockland are growing, but Orange is the fastest-growing county in New York state.
   
   Hurry up and wait
   When someone like Irene Morgan of Port Jervis has an afternoon appointment at Orange County Family Court, she'll take a half-day off work. The court appearance might last all of 20 minutes. But she may have to wait all afternoon to be called into the courtroom.

   Morgan makes $6 an hour working at a factory in Port Jervis, packaging cosmetics. She's at Family Court to try to get custody of her children.

   "I could've stayed at work, but God forbid I leave," Morgan said resignedly, shifting her feet in one of two Family Court waiting rooms.

   In the two years she's been coming to Family Court, her case has never been heard at the scheduled time, she says.
   The delays also yank at the consciences of lawyers.

 
   Bill Larkin III is a name partner in a big Orange County firm. He charges $250 an hour.

   Most of the time, he is folksy and unflappable. But the subject of Family Court sends his voice climbing in frustration.
   "I was here the other day, waiting for three hours. So my client also had to wait three hours. I can't in good conscience charge my client for three hours for waiting."

   Family Court in Orange County has begun setting different starting times for morning appointments. The afternoon appearances, however, are all set for 1:30.

   The calendar rules are set by agreement of the three judges and the Family Court's chief clerk, Elizabeth Holbrook.

   The judges and Holbrook say they're aware that other counties have staggered calendars and that many lawyers favor that system.

   The flip side of the argument, Holbrook says, is that if lawyers don't show up, if clients arrive late or there are scheduling conflicts with other courts, the staggered calendar gives everyone less flexibility.

   Another factor, one that's out of the judges' control, is that Orange County doesn't have much public transportation.

   As far back as 1985, there were calls for a Family Court judge to sit in Newburgh instead of Goshen because of the lack of transportation.

   The calls fell on deaf ears. All the Family Court judges still sit in Goshen, 26 miles southwest of Newburgh.

    Strauss said members of the bar association plan to meet in the fall with the judges and as many of the Family Court players as possible to discuss the calendars and other efficiency issues.
   
   Who judges the judges?

   And then there are the quality-control issues.

   There are three Family Court judges. There are no juries. How good is the work of the judges? How fair are they?

   One seems indecisive. Another seems better suited for criminal court. A third seems ideal for the job but can be unpredictable.

   That's what an unscientific poll found about Orange County's three Family Court judges.

   There are few objective ways to measure a judge's performance.

   None of Orange County's Family Court judges has ever been disciplined by the state's Commission on Judicial Conduct. Nor have their courtrooms been observed by the Fund for Modern Courts, which has evaluated judges and hearing examiners in Rockland and Dutchess counties.

   Judge Andrew P. Bivona has been a Family Court judge since 1989. An electronic search of court records shows that his decisions have been appealed 62 times to the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court. As of April 1, 19 cases had been reversed and returned for a new Family Court trial. Another was upheld but modified by the higher court.

   Eleven of Judge Debra Jenkins-Kiedaisch's cases have been upheld, one reversed and two modified since she took office in 1996.

   There are no records available on appeals of cases in which Judge Carol Klein has presided. She took office in 2001.

   In Rockland and Dutchess – the mid-Hudson counties with populations most comparable to Orange's – the Appellate Court has upheld most of the cases sent to it on appeal.
   
   Healing in an adversarial setting

   Most courtrooms are adversarial places.

   When Family Court was created in 1962, it was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be a place where a judge could help mend a broken family.

   It was supposed to be a place where the subtleties of a family's foundation, promise and heart could soften the black-and-white edges of the law. A place where one could ask, "What's best for the children?" and find an answer that didn't necessarily end in right vs. wrong.

   It has not reached or even neared those hopeful goals.

   Virginia Coe's lament is typical.

   "It seems so cold," she says. "It's like your feelings don't matter.