Sonoma County's family court is a closed professional network. The judges who decide your case trained as prosecutors or as the same minor's counsel and court-connected professionals they now appoint. The attorneys who appear before those judges were trained in programs those judges ran. The evaluators and minor's counsel who shape the outcome of your case were selected from a pool published by an organization that also trains the judges and lobbies the legislature. The families who enter this court are not part of any of these networks.
This survey exists because a pattern cannot be dismissed the way a single story can.
About this project
Family court is one of the most consequential legal systems in this country and one of the least watched. In Sonoma County, hearings are closed, rulings go unpublished, and the people who pass through carry what happened to them in private while the court stays exactly as it was.
FCASP exists because one person's account can be explained away, and fifty people describing the same thing cannot. This survey is designed to produce the kind of data that changes that math: anonymous, aggregated, and harder to argue with than any individual complaint.
No names are collected, no case numbers, no identifying information of any kind. Participants receive a single-use access code distributed through community networks and answer questions about what they experienced in Sonoma County family court: which concerns were raised, which were ignored, and what happened to the people who raised them.
Participate in the Sonoma County Survey
Your anonymous responses document patterns. Individual stories can be dismissed. Documented patterns cannot.
Where can I get help?
Resources for Sonoma County litigants, survivors, and families navigating the court system.
See resourcesFCASP documents family court patterns across multiple counties
FCASP documents family court patterns in additional counties by request. Current coverage spans California, Oregon, Virginia, and several other states.
Don't see your county? Submit a county for inclusion