To continue from Part I, Judge Weissmuller stated that in his experience proctoring the GAL training, the issue came up with costs associated with delays and with status conferences to get GALs paid. The lack of contact, delays in getting to court. It may be that monthly stipends are a good idea to make sure all these people get paid.
But still, it seems with all these people involved, the conflict is increasing, and when we heard from people who testified and in the organizations I've been involved in and among those who have contacted me while I've been on this task force, the fact that parents have to pay to see their children is frustrating, that they are, in fact, not seeing their children, and still the process for access is slowed down, this is a problem. A GAL is not going to do work he or she is not paid for. On the other hand, litigants don't want to keep paying when they don't see any benefit, and the fact that your children are in the mix, it is human not to be happy with this.
If you are low income, it will bankrupt you. If you are high income, GALs get paid at a higher rate. There is a flexible standard. It will impact that Newtown family because it will cost them more. I don't think we need 20 percent of all the bills, although that's a firm baseline. I don't see that asking about bills is attacking Dr. Roeder. The question is, how do we get information in a dollars and cents way so we can go to the legislature and say this is the problem.
But still, it seems with all these people involved, the conflict is increasing, and when we heard from people who testified and in the organizations I've been involved in and among those who have contacted me while I've been on this task force, the fact that parents have to pay to see their children is frustrating, that they are, in fact, not seeing their children, and still the process for access is slowed down, this is a problem. A GAL is not going to do work he or she is not paid for. On the other hand, litigants don't want to keep paying when they don't see any benefit, and the fact that your children are in the mix, it is human not to be happy with this.
If you are low income, it will bankrupt you. If you are high income, GALs get paid at a higher rate. There is a flexible standard. It will impact that Newtown family because it will cost them more. I don't think we need 20 percent of all the bills, although that's a firm baseline. I don't see that asking about bills is attacking Dr. Roeder. The question is, how do we get information in a dollars and cents way so we can go to the legislature and say this is the problem.
Attorney Sue Cousineau said she agrees that folks are spending money that they should not spend. Litigants should have initial orders so folks are aware of the cost up front and fees are monitored all the way down the road instead of presented as a lump sum at the end.
[Of course, in the middle of crisis, at the beginning of litigation when your attorney presents you with an initial modest retainer and even a fairly innocuous per hour charge--like mine was $150.00 per hour--could even imagine how an attorney GAL can rack up major charges just playing around with bill structure and sticking themselves into every possible aspect of their case so that the final bill is way beyond anyone's imagination.]
Attorney Cousineau continue to state that timeliness in terms of getting heard and disposed of in access issues will impact cost. Because if a parent is restricting the other parent's access to the child and it is dealt with within the month, also late but better, that would reduce the expense. It is also important to note, stated Attorney Cousineau, that Elizabeth Thayer trained other non profit groups in the Peace Program procedure but they were shut down.
[Of course, in the middle of crisis, at the beginning of litigation when your attorney presents you with an initial modest retainer and even a fairly innocuous per hour charge--like mine was $150.00 per hour--could even imagine how an attorney GAL can rack up major charges just playing around with bill structure and sticking themselves into every possible aspect of their case so that the final bill is way beyond anyone's imagination.]
Attorney Cousineau continue to state that timeliness in terms of getting heard and disposed of in access issues will impact cost. Because if a parent is restricting the other parent's access to the child and it is dealt with within the month, also late but better, that would reduce the expense. It is also important to note, stated Attorney Cousineau, that Elizabeth Thayer trained other non profit groups in the Peace Program procedure but they were shut down.
Dr. Elizabeth Thayer stated that the Children's Law Center Families in Transition program has been shut down and people have been forced to obtain private pay. The Focus on Kids program is down as the result of a good administrative overview, so we don't have money going into those things. The Children's Law Center is throughout the State and we can really do this. we need to get in a lot earlier so we might not need GALs. Divorce is a really stressful time for people and why not pay attention to that so we don't need all these specialists. This is a huge factor to tell the legislature.
Attorney Sue Cousineau stated that Hartford has a pilot program for early intervention, but Dr. Elizabeth Thayer said that was only for one day. Attorney Sue Cousineau continue to say once we have a case where one parent is restricted from access, we should have someone in quickly because the longer the situation lasts the worse it is. We need to get that done. Unfortunately, post judgment there isn't a tracking system like the one available during the pendent lite period. These things can linger, they can be continued to the point where they are not meaningful.
Attorney Sharon Dornfeld stated that in custody cases where parents are having difficulty resolving custody issues, parental access issues, there are ways to resolve that without going before the judge. There is family relations that does mediation and conflict resolution conferences that are taxpayer funded and not charged to the public. If that fails, family relations may be asked to do an evaluation, an issue focused evaluation, or go the whole nine yards and do a full evaluation. The parents can discuss it and get recommendations.
[Of course, a good many litigants have no access to family relations and are repeatedly excluded from the services of family relations throughout the conduct of their cases even though there are large signs on the walls of the courthouse stating the ALL litigants must report to family relations before going before the judge. I think it is outrageous that attorneys hoping to extend their involvement and pad their bills by maintaining conflict between parents, deliberately evades family relations as a means to do so]
Attorney Sue Cousineau continued to state that there are attorneys who act as special masters in the courthouse--one male and the other female--both of whom with review a case brought in by other attorneys.
[again, I had no access to this service, and why would attorneys facilitate my use of such services since they are having such a great time running up big bills. I would be interested in knowing how many people, what percentage of high conflict divorces go to special masters and which attorneys are the ones sending people there because I never saw hide or hair of a special masters attorney!]
Further mental health professionals volunteer their times to resolve cases. And they have a pretty high rate of success.
[Of course, when Attorney Dornfeld includes mental health professionals as part of the success rate, I'd like evidence of that. One of the factors we litigants are observing is how mental health professionals fabricate evidence, exaggerate and awfulize parental behavior, and often become involved in the process of denying parents all access to their children based upon spurious psychological theories. So the role of mental health professionals definitely requires much more investigation].
[Of course, a good many litigants have no access to family relations and are repeatedly excluded from the services of family relations throughout the conduct of their cases even though there are large signs on the walls of the courthouse stating the ALL litigants must report to family relations before going before the judge. I think it is outrageous that attorneys hoping to extend their involvement and pad their bills by maintaining conflict between parents, deliberately evades family relations as a means to do so]
Attorney Sue Cousineau continued to state that there are attorneys who act as special masters in the courthouse--one male and the other female--both of whom with review a case brought in by other attorneys.
[again, I had no access to this service, and why would attorneys facilitate my use of such services since they are having such a great time running up big bills. I would be interested in knowing how many people, what percentage of high conflict divorces go to special masters and which attorneys are the ones sending people there because I never saw hide or hair of a special masters attorney!]
Further mental health professionals volunteer their times to resolve cases. And they have a pretty high rate of success.
[Of course, when Attorney Dornfeld includes mental health professionals as part of the success rate, I'd like evidence of that. One of the factors we litigants are observing is how mental health professionals fabricate evidence, exaggerate and awfulize parental behavior, and often become involved in the process of denying parents all access to their children based upon spurious psychological theories. So the role of mental health professionals definitely requires much more investigation].
Attorney Dornfeld continued on to state that we don't hear about a lot of matters that do get resolved through these services. Things are taken care of between parents as it should be. Lots of people, often on a volunteer basis, who try to get issues resolved before it gets before the judge do get good results. However, there are only so many hours in a day, only so many judges, and the situation is complicated by self represented parties who don't know court procedures.
[Here I feel that I must interject that self represented parties are here because they have been defrauded by unscrupulous attorneys and they are sick and tired of that. It is not so much that they don't know court procedures so much as they are unwilling to be manipulated and silenced by attorneys any longer and are unwilling to be strong armed into agreements they dislike. Furthermore, these self represented parties are individuals who believe strongly that the judge should obey the law, that the court clerks should obey the law, and that denying them their due process, constitutional and human rights is illegal and wrong and they refuse to put up with it. These self represented folks are fueling this inquiry into the abuses of family court and rightly so.]
[Here I feel that I must interject that self represented parties are here because they have been defrauded by unscrupulous attorneys and they are sick and tired of that. It is not so much that they don't know court procedures so much as they are unwilling to be manipulated and silenced by attorneys any longer and are unwilling to be strong armed into agreements they dislike. Furthermore, these self represented parties are individuals who believe strongly that the judge should obey the law, that the court clerks should obey the law, and that denying them their due process, constitutional and human rights is illegal and wrong and they refuse to put up with it. These self represented folks are fueling this inquiry into the abuses of family court and rightly so.]
Attorney Dornfeld continued to state that the judicial process does some things very well, but it doesn't do well in handling cases in which there is a substantial emotional component. She stated you can't do a cost/benefit analysis easily here because people are talking about time with their kids and that is hard to separate out. To further complicate it, one parent is looking for separation from the other parent, while the second parent is not in favor of ending the marriage. There is resentment, bitterness, allegations of domestic violence, and before you proceed you have to investigate that. You end up in a situation where parents want to move at a distance. these are not black and white issues and there is almost no way of doing it without spending a fair amount of time with people in order to help them process through the emotional side of this. Mental health providers need to be available and they are not. A lot of issues before the court are really more appropriately and productively dealt with therapeutically. Some refuse and will not be in the same room as their ex and can't agree on who to send the kids to, and there is a cost factor. The situation is not black and white and is not easy.
[In regard to mental health professionals, there is a book out describing the mental health professional involved with family court as "Whores of the Court." And this is how such mental health professionals comes across to a good majority of family court litigants. How is it therapeutic for mental health professionals to come to court and, in the name of their profession, falsely trash the one litigant in favor of the other.
How many times do we see mental health professionals misrepresenting their findings to the court, and how many times do we have to see attorneys without any background in mental health unable to sift their way through mental health testimony in order to get at the truth. Mental Health Professionals deliberately word their assessments in order to make them vague and very hard to nail down.
The bottom line is that the influx of mental health professionals into family court has increased the level of fraud and racketeering and has shifted the focus from establishing the facts of a particular case, and establishing how those facts have relevance before the law, and exchanged it with massive amounts of hearsay testimony which should not be allowed in a court of law.
Instead of reducing conflict in divorce, the presence of mental health professionals has expanded not only conflict but also the expense and suffering associated with divorce extraordinarily. This is the dirty little secret that mental health professionals will not tell you. And as for Dr. Elizabeth Thayer, how many people fail her program, and how many abused women get forced into silence in her program. I'll tell you the answer to that -- a lot, a whole lot!]
How many times do we see mental health professionals misrepresenting their findings to the court, and how many times do we have to see attorneys without any background in mental health unable to sift their way through mental health testimony in order to get at the truth. Mental Health Professionals deliberately word their assessments in order to make them vague and very hard to nail down.
The bottom line is that the influx of mental health professionals into family court has increased the level of fraud and racketeering and has shifted the focus from establishing the facts of a particular case, and establishing how those facts have relevance before the law, and exchanged it with massive amounts of hearsay testimony which should not be allowed in a court of law.
Instead of reducing conflict in divorce, the presence of mental health professionals has expanded not only conflict but also the expense and suffering associated with divorce extraordinarily. This is the dirty little secret that mental health professionals will not tell you. And as for Dr. Elizabeth Thayer, how many people fail her program, and how many abused women get forced into silence in her program. I'll tell you the answer to that -- a lot, a whole lot!]
[And so, have we heard the members of this task force on questions regarding GALs and access up to this point. Not really. What we have heard are the Co-Chairs Attorney Sue Cousineau and Attorney Sharon Dornfeld blowing hot air and taking up a considerable amount of the task forces' time with their darned baloney. Seriously, these two will not let anyone speak, and for good reason, I would suppose. They don't care about resolving the conflicts in divorce, they don't care about parental access, they don't care about astronomical mental health professional, attorney and GAL fees. They just want to hot air this entire task force into shutting up.
Well, guess what, we are not going to shut up, and if we don't get satisfaction from this task force, we will continue on to the next level of advocacy. So I would recommend that Attorney Sue Cousineau and Attorney Sharon Dornfeld stop the filibuster because citizens in the State of Connecticut are not going to go away, they are not going to shut up, and they are not going to tolerate any more fraud and racketeering from the AFCC or from Family Court, Family Court Attorneys, or mental health professionals.]
Well, guess what, we are not going to shut up, and if we don't get satisfaction from this task force, we will continue on to the next level of advocacy. So I would recommend that Attorney Sue Cousineau and Attorney Sharon Dornfeld stop the filibuster because citizens in the State of Connecticut are not going to go away, they are not going to shut up, and they are not going to tolerate any more fraud and racketeering from the AFCC or from Family Court, Family Court Attorneys, or mental health professionals.]
(To Be Continued...)
RELATED ARTICLES:
Part I of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-december-10-2013-part-i.html
Part III of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-december-10-2013-part-iii.html
Part IV of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-december-10-2013-part-iv.html
Part V of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-meeting-december-10-2013_16.html
CT-N Recording!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-meeting-december-10-2013.html
RELATED ARTICLES:
Part I of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-december-10-2013-part-i.html
Part III of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-december-10-2013-part-iii.html
Part IV of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-december-10-2013-part-iv.html
Part V of task force meeting
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-meeting-december-10-2013_16.html
CT-N Recording!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/12/task-force-meeting-december-10-2013.html
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