Family litigation takes time. Some delay is inevitable and some is justified. Judges have crowded calendars. Lawyers have conflicting trials. Discovery takes time. Serious child-safety allegations may require investigation before an interim restriction can responsibly be lifted.
The mistake is not that delay exists. The mistake is treating delay as though it were merely administrative. In family law, time changes the case.
Family-Law Time Loss Is Often Irreversible
A delayed commercial judgment can often still award the money that should have been paid, sometimes with interest. Family time does not work that way.
If a parent goes six months without ordinary parent-time and later persuades the court that the restriction was unwarranted, the court can restore the schedule going forward. It cannot restore the school mornings, dinners, practices, weekends, birthdays, and ordinary conversations that did not occur while everyone waited.
Financial orders can cause similar damage. A spouse may eventually obtain a better allocation of support, debt, or property, but that does not necessarily repair depleted savings, damaged credit, retirement withdrawals, or legal fees incurred under an unsustainable interim arrangement. Sometimes delay reduces what the eventual remedy can accomplish.
Sometimes Delay Is Necessary
There is an obvious counterargument. Suppose parent-time has been restricted because of credible evidence of abuse, domestic violence, serious substance misuse, or another immediate safety concern. The restricted parent may regard every additional week as an injustice, but the temporary arrangement may be protecting the child.
Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 106, in modification proceedings, expressly permits temporary changes to custody or parent-time to address “immediate and irreparable harm” or to ratify changes made by the parties, so long as the modification serves the child’s best interests. Utah R. Civ. P. 106(b)(1)(B).
The argument, then, is not that temporary restrictions should be lifted merely because time passes. It is that the cost of delay should be identified and justified rather than assumed to be zero. Sometimes caution justifies that cost. Sometimes it does not.
Temporary Arrangements Create Real-World Continuity
Children live under temporary orders in real time. They adapt to schedules, parents reorganize work and transportation, and school and activity routines develop around the interim arrangement.
Utah law recognizes continuity and stability as relevant to a child’s welfare. Elmer v. Elmer explains that the weight given to continuity depends not merely on duration, but also on the child’s age, relationships, and how well the child is thriving. 776 P.2d 599, 604 (Utah 1989).
That distinction matters because duration alone is not the point. The concern is actual stability that benefits the child.
Harper v. Harper illustrates a related principle by analogy. There, a temporary custody order remained in place for roughly two and a half years, yet the Court of Appeals held that the temporary arrangement did not itself establish the changed circumstances necessary to modify the permanent decree. 2021 UT App 5, ¶¶ 17–19.
Harper was not deciding how much weight continuity should receive in a best-interest analysis. But it supports a useful caution: the mere duration of a temporary arrangement should not be confused with proof that the arrangement is substantively correct.
If the child is actually thriving, that matters regardless of why the arrangement lasted. The point is not to discount genuine stability. It is to resist treating the passage of time itself as proof of fit.
Delay Changes Leverage
Suppose one parent currently has substantially more parent-time than the other seeks in the final order. Another four months under the existing schedule does not affect both parents equally. Suppose one spouse remains in the marital home while the other carries the cost of a second residence, or one party controls most liquid marital funds while the other finances litigation from income or debt. Time changes bargaining power.
That does not mean the party benefiting from the existing arrangement caused the delay. The problem can be structural. And sometimes delay is strategic.
Utah Rule of Professional Conduct 3.2 requires lawyers to make reasonable efforts to expedite litigation consistent with the client’s interests. Its comment recognizes that delay should not be used merely for counsel’s convenience or to frustrate another party’s attempt to obtain rightful relief. So even the professional rules recognize that delay can create substantive advantage.
Some Delay Is Built Into the System
Lawyer scheduling is only part of the problem. Family litigation may involve custody evaluations, PGAL investigations, discovery, multiple motion hearings, and review of commissioner recommendations.
Rule 108 is a good example. A commissioner’s recommendation becomes the order of the court unless and until modified. A party has 14 days to object, but the recommendation remains operative while review proceeds. Utah R. Civ. P. 108(a).
That means time may favor whichever party benefits from the recommendation. No misconduct is required. The structure itself can create the advantage.
What Should Change?
The answer is not simply “move faster.” Rushed hearings can produce bad decisions, and due process sometimes requires more time. The better question is how to reduce unnecessary delay without sacrificing fairness.
1. Separate the urgent issue from the whole case
A full child custody dispute may require months of discovery and investigation. That does not mean every narrow issue must wait.
Courts should make greater use of short, focused hearings where continued delay is causing concrete harm. A thirty-minute hearing on whether a specific restriction should remain in place is different from trying the entire custody case.
The safeguard is straightforward: require the party seeking expedited review to identify the specific harm caused by waiting and explain why the issue can be decided reliably on a narrower record.
2. Count the interim cost of a continuance
When a party asks for a continuance, the court should consider not only why the hearing cannot proceed, but what happens during the delay.
The party seeking the continuance should explain why it is necessary. The opposing party should identify concrete prejudice from waiting. The court can then consider whether some lawful interim adjustment is warranted.
That does not mean every continuance should disturb the status quo, nor should legitimate preparation be sacrificed in the name of speed. It means the cost of additional time should be part of the analysis.
3. Accelerate review of consequential temporary orders
If structural delay is part of the problem, reform should address structure too.
A useful change would be a target hearing or ruling window for Rule 108 objections involving substantial parent-time restrictions, custody changes, or other orders causing significant ongoing prejudice. Rule 108 already gives the objecting party a short deadline. The system could impose a corresponding scheduling target for the most consequential recommendations.
That would not require every objection to leap to the front of the calendar. It would recognize that some temporary orders grow more consequential every week they remain in force.
The Cost of Delay Should Be Counted
Delay is sometimes necessary. It can protect children, permit adequate investigation, and protect due process. But delay also changes leverage, finances, relationships, and sometimes the facts the court later confronts.
A sensible system should therefore ask three questions: Is the delay necessary? Who bears its cost? Can that cost be reduced without compromising fairness?
That is not a demand for rushed justice. It is a demand that time itself be treated as one of the things the justice system is responsible for managing.
If a temporary parent-time restriction remains in force while review is pending, the system should not be indifferent to whether review occurs in three weeks or six months. In family law, the calendar can become part of the outcome.
What Can You Do About Delay Right Now?
Litigants cannot control the court’s calendar, but they can help their lawyers distinguish between delay that is unavoidable and delay that should be challenged.
First, identify the concrete harm caused by waiting. “This is taking too long” is less useful than “I have had no overnights for four months,” “I am paying both the mortgage and separate rent,” or “the temporary restriction is preventing me from attending school and medical appointments.” Specific prejudice gives the court something real to evaluate.
Second, help your lawyer narrow the issue. Sometimes the entire case is not ready, but one urgent question is. A focused request concerning parent-time, use of the home, access to funds, or another discrete problem may be easier to hear promptly than a sprawling motion involving every dispute in the case.
Third, preserve evidence while you wait. Keep calendars, messages, payment records, school information, and other documents showing what the temporary arrangement is actually doing to the family. Delay can change the factual landscape, so contemporaneous records matter.
Finally, ask your lawyer the right questions: Is this delay actually necessary? Who requested it? What happens under the existing order while we wait? Is there a narrower issue we can ask the court to hear sooner? If a commissioner has entered a recommendation that is causing continuing harm, is there a Rule 108 objection or other review procedure available, and what deadlines apply?
Clients cannot eliminate delay. But they can help make its consequences visible, which is often the first step toward reducing them.
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