Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘family law’

“BBB pulls ad after flak from attorney groups”

The Denver and Colorado bar associations have succeeded in getting the local Better Business Bureau to yank from the airwaves a 15-second ad premised on the notion that there might actually be some attorneys out there who exploit their clients. “You inherited a fortune … You hired a lawyer … Now it’s his fortune,” the announcer says in the ad. Declaring the ad offensive, the bar associations demanded a hearing before the BBB’s own unfair-advertising panel. Jean Herman, president and chief executive of the Denver/Boulder BBB, agreed to pull the ad, saying, “I don’t agree with them … but I don’t want to go around ticking people off”. Ad spots warning about bad plumbers, mortgage lenders and limousine drivers will continue as usual in the BBB’s “Check With Us First” campaign. Interestingly, Greg Martin, deputy executive director of both bar groups, said the groups would not agree to a suggestion that the offending line be amended from “You hired a lawyer” to “You hired the wrong lawyer.” “Obviously, our goal was not to have that ad on TV anymore,” Martin said. (John Accola, Rocky Mountain News, Mar. 13). David Giacalone (Mar. 16) has an excellent analysis. Of course, it remains perfectly normal and acceptable for lawyers’ own ads to promote the idea that other people’s professions and businesses are injurious and not always aboveboard.

Be sure to check out the last few sentences of the Rocky Mountain News article, in which Martin, the bar official, blasts the whole idea of applying to lawyers the BBB approach of documenting a record of complaints so that consumers can see for themselves which operators have numerous unresolved grievances outstanding. Martin says the BBB lacks any “special knowledge about attorneys” and says the profession is already highly regulated by its own (with emphasis, as we might add, on its own) disciplinary committees. Now suppose that some other profession or industry — medicine, say — were to assert that its mysteries are so esoteric, and its success in self-regulation so complete, that lay observers should not presume even to compare notes with each other on their bad experiences with it. Hard to imagine, these days, isn’t it?

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U.K.: Fathers stage law firm protest

Fifteen members of a group called Fathers 4 Justice stormed the offices of solicitors Parker Bird in Huddersfield, England, citing the firm’s “major contribution in the pouring petrol on the flames in divorce and childcare cases”. Locking the door behind them, chanting and waving flags until police arrived, the men said they had bestowed a “Golden Petrol Can” award on the law firm and a spokesman said “We feel that many solicitors manipulate family law against fathers.” (“Angry fathers in law firm protest”, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Feb. 26)(via Law.com). David Giacalone comments (Feb. 26): “I’m surprised this sort of protest hasn’t happened more often in the USA.”

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Underage father on hook for child support

“A man who claims he was seduced and exploited in his early teens by an older, married woman must pay child support to the state for the illegitimate son he gave her” according to the Michigan Court of Appeals. The relationship between the two was not revealed until after the statute of limitations for statutory rape had passed, but in any event the appeals court held that the lack of legal (or even actual) consent is irrelevant to the issue of child support. (Chad Halcom, “Man, 14 when he fathered boy, must pay support”, Macomb Daily, Feb. 21) (via Bashman).

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They came to stay

Careful about letting a friend or relative crash at your house: various Floridians found themselves in for legal complications when temporary guests decided they didn’t want to leave. Calling the sheriff doesn’t necessarily work, and it’s legally hazardous to have locks changed, cut off utilities or put the interloper’s possessions out on the street. (Marcus Franklin, “Law slanted in favor of unwelcome guests”, St. Petersburg Times, Feb. 17).

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Dad-blamed paternity laws

“When the government accuses you of fathering a child, no matter how flimsy the evidence, you are one month away from having your life wrecked.” What if you’ve got DNA evidence conclusively proving you aren’t the dad? Sorry, but that won’t necessarily help. “The system aimed at catching ‘deadbeat dads’ illustrates how a noble-sounding effort to help children and taxpayers can trample the rights of innocent people.” (Matt Welch, “Injustice by Default”, Feb.)(see Aug. 7-8, 2001; May 22, 2000).

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NYT on Bronx courts

New York Times probes patronage-ridden Bronx courts: “Last summer, Justice Douglas E. McKeon, up for re-election to State Supreme Court in the Bronx, decided he needed to raise some campaign money. … fearing a tough fight, his campaign obtained a membership list from the state trial lawyers’ association and used it to send solicitations to Bronx and Manhattan trial lawyers. The lawyers donated by the dozens.

“Among the largest donors were law firms and lawyers who routinely file malpractice lawsuits against the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the public hospitals. The judge is the Bronx justice assigned to cases against the corporation, handling a lengthy list of malpractice suits charging that patients were neglected at Jacobi, Lincoln, North Central Bronx and other hospitals. …

“In all, the 150 or so donors to the McKeon committee have some 300 current cases before him, according to a comparison of the donor list and an electronic database of court records compiled by LexisNexis. Justice McKeon’s fund-raising strategy is common” both in the Bronx and in the rest of New York. Also many details on judges’ dispensing of lucrative guardianships to favored attorneys (see Nov. 11; Dec. 20, 2001) (Clifford J. Levy, Kevin Flynn, Leslie Eaton and Andy Newman, “A Bronx Judiciary Awash in Patronage, All Legal”, New York Times, Jan. 3)(see Dec. 20, 1999; May 1, 2000). The Bronx has the reputation of awarding the highest medical malpractice verdicts in the country.

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“Insult to Injury”

In recent decades, influenced by feminist views, the law’s treatment of domestic violence has swung toward a “mandatory arrest, mandatory prosecution” model in which the full weight of criminal law is brought to bear on alleged batterers even if the victim would prefer not to press charges; reinforcing this model are mandatory-reporting laws requiring medical and other professionals to report on cases of likely battering. In Insult to Injury: Rethinking our Responses to Intimate Abuse, however, NYU social work and law professor Linda Mills argues that in practice this model often works against the interests of actual victims of domestic violence, undermining their power to improve their situations and discouraging them from seeking medical attention or other forms of assistance. Description and prologue from Princeton Univ. Press; reviews by Cathy Young (Reason), Clay Evans (Scripps Howard), Trish Oberweis (Law and Politics Book Review)(see Mar. 16 and Mar. 29, 2000; Mar. 4, 2002).

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The judges’ friend and the $225,000 swivel chair

Well-reported New York Times piece on local attorney Ravi Batra, who “for much of the past decade … has been a particularly potent force in the clubby corridors of New York City courthouses. He played a role in picking State Supreme Court judges. Lawyers seeking an edge in the unfamiliar world of Brooklyn courts hired him as their guide. Judges who controlled court appointments — where lawyers typically manage the assets and welfare of the elderly, the young or of troubled companies — gave him 150 of these, worth more than $500,000 in fees.” In one case, involving “a wealthy 94-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease”, Batra nicked the woman’s estate for $84,753 in fees: “The investigators noted that he charged $100 for each of 80 short phone calls and never listed their subject matter.”

Keep reading and clicking through the fourth and last page of the story to reach what may be the most piquant Batra exploit of all, his lawsuit against the hapless owners of a Brooklyn furniture store after he fell out of a swivel chair they sold him. “He said the fall had left him with herniated disks, loss of height, worn-down teeth, heart damage and frustration and anger that ‘leaks out in certain relationships,’ according to court papers.” He wanted $80 million, not only for pain and suffering “but also for a patio bar and a game room with table-tennis and air-hockey tables ‘to permit activity without injury or waste of travel time,’ the papers said.” Eventually he settled for $225,000 on the claim. But lawyers for the furniture store weren’t told at the time that Batra was friendly with Manhattan judge Diane Lebedeff, who heard the case and who issued a number of rulings in Batra’s favor: for example, she gave him several court appointments, including the lucrative case of the woman with Alzheimer’s. Both Batra and Judge Lebedeff deny improper influence (Kevin Flynn & Andy Newman, “Friend of the Court: Cozying Up to Judges, and Reaping Opportunity”, New York Times, Nov. 11). More: for Batra’s side of the story, see the comments section on Legal Reader’s Nov. 11, 2003 post. Update Nov. 15, 2004: Batra sues TV’s popular “Law and Order” saying it defamed him by portraying him as a crooked attorney in a fictionalized but recognizable episode; Apr. 15, 2005: Judge Lebedeff censured.

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“Man Ordered to Speak English to Daughter”

Nebraska: “A Hispanic man who spoke to his 5-year-old daughter in Spanish has been ordered to use primarily English around the girl as a condition of his visitation rights.” Ruling on a request by the mother, a Sarpy County judge decreed that Eloy Amador should “primarily” use English when conversing with his daughter, although it was all right to switch to Spanish for purposes of instructing her in the use of that language. (Jean Ortiz, AP/Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 14). More: Jim Boulet at NR Corner comments on the ruling and provides this link to a very curious 1995 court decision from Amarillo, Tex. in which a “judge overseeing a child-custody case told a Mexican native that speaking only Spanish at home constituted abuse of her 5-year old daughter. ”

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Imputed income? Hand it over.

Gene Healy on discovering the topic of family law: “Here was an interesting area of law; and by interesting, I mean insane. … what really woke me up was the concept of ‘imputed income’ for alimony and child support. That means, not your actual income, but what you could make if you were really giving it your all and living up to your potential.” Thus in a Virginia case, a divorced man subject to heavy support obligations knowingly switched to a lower-pressure, lower-paying job. “Tough, said the judge. You’re liable for what you could make, not what you actually make. And that’s the law. Guys, if you want that wonderful pulse-racing, chest-tightening feeling you get from the kind of bad dreams where you show up late for an exam you didn’t know you were scheduled for — then click this link to a California divorce lawyer’s page.” (“The Marriage Strike”, AFF Brainwash, Aug. 31)(& letter to the editor, Sept. 18).

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