Wanganui family lawyer Rob Handley said the changes had kept a lot of disputes out of court, but there had probably been more "without notice" applications since the changes were made.
Without notice applications do not require the complainant to notify the other party of their court application.
These had probably increased as it avoided the new Family Dispute Resolution process and most likely accounted for the rise in the number of Family Court cases, Mr Handley said.
The good news for Wanganui in the latest Courts of New Zealand figures is that Youth Court cases are down - 51 in 2014 as opposed to 64 in 2013 - following a nationwide trend with Youth Court cases at an all-time low.
Nationally, district courts had fewer new, ongoing and disposed criminal and civil cases than in the previous year.
Fewer new criminal cases nationwide could be attributed to the police's greater use of pre-charge warnings that aimed to divert lower end offences away from prosecution and court proceedings, the Courts New Zealand report said.
Court of Appeal and High Court cases were down, while the number of cases the Supreme Court heard was up.
Statistics New Zealand data showed conviction rates were the lowest in the 34 years for which statistics had been available.
Acting general manager of the justice sector Dean Rutherford said police, Ministry of Justice and Department of Corrections were working together and with other agencies to reduce crime and offending.
Crime rates in New Zealand, as was the case in many Western nations, had been dropping for many years and this had put the number of people charged in New Zealand courts at the lowest level since the statistics began in 1980-81, he said.
The sector's target - based on June 2011 crime levels - aims for a 15 per cent reduction in total crime, and a 25 per cent reduction in youth crime by 2017, Mr Rutherford said.
