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21 verbatim mandatory provisions from OCAD 2023-03 Procedure for Unified Family Court One Family and One Judge - Vacates OCAD 2016-05.
First Judicial Circuit. Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
Verbatim from the order's own text layer, harvested 2026-07-24; whitespace normalised only. No OCR was used. Only sentences containing mandatory language (shall, must, may not, no later than, within N) are reproduced — the full document is in custody and is the controlling text. • OKALOOSA COUNTY PROCEDURE FOR UNIFIED FAMILY COURT ONE FAMILY AND ONE JUDGE WHEREAS, in accordance with Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.003, Coordination of Related Family Cases and Hearings, which states in pertinent part that “all related family cases must be handled before one judge unless impractical”, the following procedures are implemented in Okaloosa County, Florida, effective June 5, 2023, and WHEREAS, Family Law cases include: dissolution of marriage; annulment; support unconnected with dissolution of marriage; paternity; child support; uniform interstate family support act; custodial care of and access to children; proceedings for temporary of concurrent custody of minor children by extended family; adoption; name change; declaratory judgment actions related to premarital, marital, or post-marital agreements; civil domestic violence, repeat violence, dating violence, stalking, and sexual violence injunctions; juvenile dependency, termination of parental rights, juvenile delinquency; emancipation of a minor; children in need of services/families in need of services; and truancy; • These administrative policies and procedures shall be effective June 5, 2023. 2. • Administrative consolidation pertains to the grouping of two or more cases which shall track together (i.e., hearings are set at the identical time; certain filings and Orders are filed and issued in each case). • (1) any documents pertaining to a subject matter in an individual case that has been administratively consolidated shall be filed only in the individual case that such documents relate to; • (2) any documents pertaining to two or more cases in an administratively consolidated case shall be filed in each of the cases to which such documents relate to; and (3) any notice filed in an administratively consolidated case shall include all case numbers that that notice pertains to. 5. • Orders for Administrative Consolidation shall be filed in each of the related cases. 6. • The UFC Case Manger assigned will prepare a weekly list of related cases on the docket for each assigned Family Law Judge, no later than the Friday preceding the following week. • Any case that needs to be transferred and administratively consolidated must be noted. 7. • The UFC Case Manger assigned to the Judge handling Shelter and Detention Hearings will review cases daily for the assigned Judge and provide a list of any related cases prior to any scheduled hearing. 9. • Shall the UFC Case Manager become aware of such a situation, the UFC Case Manager shall: a. • The assigned Judge shall refer the matter to the supervising attorney for the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and Children’s Legal Services (CLS) for review and recommendation as to whether jurisdiction should be relinquished; c. • Shall DCF and/or CLS recommend that the Court relinquish jurisdiction, CLS shall file a Motion to Reopen and Relinquish Jurisdiction and set an expedited hearing on such motion; d. • DR cases shall not be transferred to the assigned DP Judge unless jurisdiction will not be relinquished in the DP case; e. • All parties in a DP case must seek relief or request relinquishment of jurisdiction; g. • Any initial DVI return hearing, even with a related DP or DR case pending before another Judge, shall be heard by the assigned Judge. • The UFC Case Managers assigned shall consult with the Judge to determine if the initial DVI return hearing is to be scheduled on the docket of the assigned Judge who has related DP or DR case. • If so, the DVI case shall be transferred, and a return hearing shall be set on the assigned Judge’s docket. 12. • All Child Support cases shall be transferred to the assigned DR Judge. • Any open or -- 3 of 4 -- closed DOR and/or DR cases for child support shall be transferred to the assigned Judge handling any open DP or DR dissolution of marriage action(s), support unconnected with dissolution of marriage, or paternity. • The Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) and DCF shall each provide information to the assigned Judge on any juvenile crossover cases. 14. • Joint hearings on related cases may be ordered shall the assigned Judge find such hearing practical.
OKALOOSA COUNTY PROCEDURE FOR UNIFIED FAMILY COURT ONE FAMILY AND ONE JUDGE WHEREAS, in accordance with Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.003, Coordination of Related Family Cases and Hearings, which states in pertinent part that “all related family cases must be handled before one judge unless impractical”, the following procedures are implemented in Okaloosa County, Florida, effective June 5, 2023, and WHEREAS, Family Law cases include: dissolution of marriage; annulment; support unconnected with dissolution of marriage; paternity; child support; uniform interstate family support act; custodial care of and access to children; proceedings for temporary of concurrent custody of minor children by extended family; adoption; name change; declaratory judgment actions related to premarital, marital, or post-marital agreements; civil domestic violence, repeat violence, dating violence, s
Reviewer note: Document sha256: f82def2b7feb7e54cd9bb2688c858edbf780a32309bb02616233268c257afe87 (30715 bytes). BenchPath harvested this circuit itself because no research corpus existed for it. Extraction is conservative: mandatory-language sentences only, so this rule is a faithful subset of the order, never a summary of it.
Parties in dissolution and most family financial cases must exchange a financial affidavit and specified financial documents within 45 days of service of the initial pleading, file a certificate of compliance, and supplement as circumstances change.
Small claims cases (up to $8,000) begin with a mandatory pretrial conference where the court narrows issues and typically orders mediation. Failure to appear can result in default or dismissal.
CV-E runs a structured 150-day case management conference track with published CMO templates for jury, non-jury, and complex settings, plus a projected-vs-actual trial period system and 2026–2027 published trial calendars.