I think lawyers and litigants alike can agree that Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts are definitely not the most magical place on earth, but one of the things they do have in common is long lines and even longer wait times.

Thanks to a partnership between Boston College MBA program and Probate and Family Court the courts might be getting a little more magical in the near future.

The partnership is designed to evaluate and improve the operation procedures currently in place in the Probate and Family Courts. One of the suggestions currently being bantered around, according to Mass Lawyers Weekly is “amusement park style queuing”.

The hope for the project is to increase efficiency for the staff, as well as lawyers and litigants, and hopefully decrease the amount of time people have to wait to get their case heard. This might sound like a small improvement to those of you who have never spent an eight (8) hour day in the family courts waiting for your case to be heard, but trust me this type of an improvement would have a huge impact in reducing the costs of legal fees in litigation and improving the overall experience for lawyers and litigants.

While the idea of roped off lines and ticket checkers isn’t quite the type of improvement I am hoping for, I applaud the effort being made by the Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts to improve efficiency.

The courts are seeing an increasing amount of litigants trying to handle their cases themselves because of the costs associated with litigation. If the courts are able to keep the wait times and by extension the legal fees generated by waiting in a court house all day down, then hopefully more people will be able to hire attorneys to help them through the process. The court’s efficiency will also improve because they will be dealing with attorneys who already know the system (hopefully) and don’t need as much help and attention from the clerk’s office.