North Bay, US divorces drop during pandemic

SUSAN WOOD
THE NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

<strong id="strong-435119d9ec51f387862bd04b8f702f8b">North Bay county courts see fewer filings</strong>

Family law data filed in three North Bay counties show divorce cases down last year compared to previous years.

In Sonoma County, filings have plummeted to 1,198 cases opened in 2020 compared to 1,511 in 2019; 1,597 in 2018; 1,526 in 2017 and a high of 1,661 over the last five years,

Marin County Superior Court followed suit, counting 548 divorce cases filed in 2020 in contrast to 691 in 2019, court administrator Cathi Larson reported.

With Napa County courtrooms closed for a whole second quarter of 2020, numbers for the first half of 2020 could be skewed based on the courts’ on-and-off schedule, CEO Bob Fleshman indicated. Still, the second half of the year showed a drop in “dissolutions” to 238, down from 253 in 2019.

The level of divorce cases in this past pandemic-laced year has experienced the kind of roller coaster ride a couple sees in a marriage.

First, the family law practice of Perry Johnson Anderson Miller & Moskowitz in Santa Rosa saw the divorce cases plummet between March 20, when the shelter-in-place order went into effect, through last May.

“It was the slowest time period I’ve ever had in my 20 years in practice,” Attorney Marla Keenan-Rivero told the Business Journal. “People were scared, asking: ‘What does this mean?’”

Today, Keenan-Rivero can barely keep up with the workload, logging in an average 12- to 14-hour days. The firm seeks another associate to help.

“We have more work than we can handle,” she said.

Keenan-Rivero attributes much of the surging workload of high-complex cases to a few factors.

Many people are leaving California because it’s “too expensive,” and they realize it’s easier to make a life-changing move and call off the relationship.

“And we have a lot of parents wanting to leave Sonoma County because they’re dissatisfied with the schools,” she said, referring to the district’s continuation of remote learning.

Keenan-Rivero believes another part of the increased demand for legal services has been pent up from courthouses being closed.

And since fewer people are getting married, it stands to reason fewer would get divorced.

Sonoma County Superior Court Executive Officer Arlene Junior said that statewide, case filings have been impacted by the last 14 months of the pandemic.

“Divorce filings have been trending down for many years. Fewer people are getting married,” Junior said.

The subject of matrimony is as complex as staying hitched.

<strong id="strong-643c97c9f2e425456691183682f58b1d">U.S. divorce and marriage rates</strong>

According to Statista research, the divorce rate in the United States stood at 2.7 per 1,000 of the population in 2019.

In that same year, the marriage rate in the United States was tallied as 6.1 per 1,000 people of the population. This is a decrease from 1990 levels, when the marriage rate was 9.8 marriages per 1,000 people.

“I think it's too soon to know for sure what's happening to the divorce rate during the pandemic. It seems lawyers are getting more inquiries than usual from potential divorce clients, but the states that have released 2020 divorce statistics are reporting a decline in divorce,” said Susan L. Brown, chair of sociology and co-director for the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

She added: “It's possible that the pandemic created a backlog of separations that make take some time to eventuate into divorces.”

<strong id="strong-435119d9ec51f387862bd04b8f702f8b">North Bay county courts see fewer filings</strong>

Family law data filed in three North Bay counties show divorce cases down last year compared to previous years.

In Sonoma County, filings have plummeted to 1,198 cases opened in 2020 compared to 1,511 in 2019; 1,597 in 2018; 1,526 in 2017 and a high of 1,661 over the last five years,

Marin County Superior Court followed suit, counting 548 divorce cases filed in 2020 in contrast to 691 in 2019, court administrator Cathi Larson reported.

With Napa County courtrooms closed for a whole second quarter of 2020, numbers for the first half of 2020 could be skewed based on the courts’ on-and-off schedule, CEO Bob Fleshman indicated. Still, the second half of the year showed a drop in “dissolutions” to 238, down from 253 in 2019.

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