DO NOT HIRE A HAZARD ATTORNEY
Happy New Year. . . Have a great year.
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue."
B. Goldwater
Monday, December 31, 2007
Happy New Year - FREE advice to Divorcing Fathers
If you are a father going through a contentious divorce in Thurston (aka Hazard) county, the single best piece of advice I can offer is DO NOT HIRE A HAZARD ATTORNEY. That will save you a minimum of $30,000 in attorney fees. Chances are you were sneak attacked and scrambled to get representation. 1 in 4 men are in your shoes. But, take a breath, pause and get out of this county for real representation. There is an established network and system designed to fleece your wallet and rights. The local attorneys are not going to ruin their gravy train over something as trivial as your legal, parental and constitutional rights. Hazard attorneys will sell you out and throw you under the bus with a smile. They do not give a rip about "the best interest of the children" either. That is a joke. It is about county court revenues, grants, DSHS dollars on the books, Feminist/Lesbian Power & Control and, above all else, billing the crap out of you for a multitude of trips back and forth to the court house by your ex wife's attorney getting her wound up like a cheap clock.
DO NOT HIRE A HAZARD ATTORNEY
Happy New Year. . . Have a great year.
DO NOT HIRE A HAZARD ATTORNEY
Happy New Year. . . Have a great year.
3 comments:
I couldn't agree more with Angler's posting. Men, just know for whatever it's worth that there are a few good women who are fed up with this just as much as you are and want to see change. Regardless of what the media and county portray, we believe that men and father's are a very valuable part of the family.
From Wa Shared Parenting -
Bill Harrington - Former Commissioner, United States Commission on Child and Family Welfare, Pl 102-521, 20 year Assessment of Washington State Parenting Reform Act
December 21st, 2007
On December 31st, 2007, Washington State will conclude 20 years of life and work with the Parenting Reform Act of 1987.
During the 1987 Legislative Session in Washington State, a package of new “Divorce Reform” laws were passed called the Parenting Act. The legislation was nationally recognized for the goals and INTENT for totally transforming the dissolution process of divorce; both as it affected the parents as well as predicted better outcomes for children.
Washington State justificably was positively recognized for this legislative achievement. Researchers and advocates all wanted to know how the law was going to be implemented and how it was going to actually work. Discussing the law, and the INTENT, was a big part of my work on the United States Commission on Child and Family Welfare during our work in 1994-1996. Our Report - Parenting Our Children, In the Best Interest of the Nation - spoke in detail about the Washington State experience. We provided recommendations for other states to use the Parenting Plan process. My Minority Report focused in more detail on fatherhood issues not addressed by the Commission majority.
Recent news in 2007, following the theme of the above report and recommendations, has celebrated the notion of “Collaborative Divorce”. All over America, parents, researchers, and interested citizens keep looking and working for better ways of handling the mostly disastrous consequences of parental separation and divorce.
Sadly, the Washington State contribution to a better dissolution world has failed to materialize. The real INTENT of more “shared parenting” was never implemented and the more socially sensitive language was never put in place on a routine basis. Today, in December of 2007, the outlawed words of “custody, visitation, primary parent, and non-custodial parent” are everyday features of language in our Family Law courtrooms.
Not so shockingly, the Washington State Supreme Court on December 6th 2007, released its opinions in Marriage of Michael and Brenda King. This was the divorce case of a mother, Brenda King, feeling she was discriminated against because she did not have a FREE, court-appointed lawyer for her Divorce Trial. She was limited in her Parenting Plan to “only” Every Other Weekend for her 5 children. In both the Majority opinion and the Dissent, the language used is the same outlawed terminology - custody, visitation, Primary parent, etc.
My question or assessment is direct and to the point - if the Washington State Supreme Court can so recklessly and whimsically violate, and fail to grasp the wonderful revolutionally INTENT of the Parenting Act of 1987, and fail to respond to the legislative mandate for change in language, how can the Supreme Court, and any judicial officer in any case, reasonably expect any parent, or anyone else involved in Family Law, to respect and follow the law or signed court orders?
The 1987 Family Law reform goals were simple, straightforward, and compelling -
1 - Stop the “win-lose” adversarial process.
2 - Stop divorcing the child(ren) from the Second-Parent and extended family members.
3 - Keep the Second-Parent, mostly fathers, involved in a more encompassing parenting process by defining rights and responsibilities, and specific residential schedule of the children vis a vis, mothers and fathers.
4 - Change the language !! OUTLAWED were value-laden terms like Custody, Visitation, Primary Parent, and Non-Custodial Parent. Social science researchers are familiar with the saying - :Change the language and Change the Culture”. Washington State spoke magnanimously of the more “Collaborative” dissolution system now put in place in 1987.
5 - Create a new document that is child centered - the Parenting Plan.
Tragically, of these 5 lofty and much desired goals - only one (1), and that is #-5, the Parenting Plan document, has really been implemented. Today, it is a feature of every Family Law case involving children. This sad and tragic assessment comes from 20 years in the trenches of Family Law all over Washington State.
Some parents - GOOD mothers and fathers, maybe 25% to 35%, simply choose to ignore the Court orders, and allow a more even distribution of the child’s time and responsibilities. They cannot believe, or morally accept, the limited orders signed by the Court.
Anyone searching the internet for Shared Parenting or Divorce Reform or Parenting Plan comes into contact for references to Washington State. Initially the positive attention to my home state was much deserved. Today, that reputation is not justified. When you read the INTENT document, a 40 page theseis from 1987, there is a listing of current problems in Family Law, affecting everybody, including the professionals in the system, and why major changes were clearly needed. An honest assessment today, would make the 1987 list look almost identicial. The worst thing of all is the declining outcomes overall, for Children of Divorce. We are not doing justice, or anything close to it, for approximately a new 30,000 children each year, whose parents take them through divorce proceedings in the Evergreen State.
In my humble opinion, and I have been involved in this process from differing perspectives for the full 20 years, there are clear reasons for this failed Family Law reform process.
First, eliminating gender bias and achieving positive social change are hard to come by, even when most are committed to making the changes occur. Superior Court judges and Family Law lawyers are creatures of the system. Trained by precedent and learning from so-called experienced practitioners, judges and Family Law lawyers find it hard to accept new laws and new ways of doing things. Family Law is generally known for winners and losers, and most people involved in the system are miserable, so how much of an effort do you go to, to really help an individial family in an individual case?
The Supreme Court should have been mandated, as a Rule of Professional Conduct, for each and every Family Law lawyer, to read the 1987 INTENT document on an annual basis. The same is true for judges. The Judicial Canons of Ethics should require an annual reading of this document for all Trial Court Judges and Court Commissioners who handle Family Law proceedings. Most of these professionals today do not even know the INTENT document even exists, and if told, they would say - SO WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ?
Second, and perhaps most seriously, from a 20 year review, is also in 1988, Washington State implemented a new financial Child Support Guideline system. In Washington, the amounts ordered to be paid starting in 1988 were sometimes double or triple of child support amounts awarded prior to 1988.
In Washington, we had a law that if the Second-Parent, again mostly fathers, had their children living with them for 90 overnights or more, during a calendar year, there was an automatic downward deviation. Obviously this was not for welfare, IV-D cases. This one part of the system worked without conflcit.
However, with the dramatically increased financial child support awards; children became more clearly seen as FINANCIAL HOSTAGES. Family Law judges, Family Law lawyers and most moms, joined together to keep the existing biased parenting schedules awarded in Parenting Plans. This means “Every Other Weekend” for the Second-Parent, mostly fathers, that had been effectively outlawed by the 1987 Parenting Reform Act. Obviously, again, this was for cases where the Second-Parent was a legally fit parent, and worthy of being involved in the children’s lives without restrictions. In Washington issues over restrictions are in RCW 26.09.191.
Taken together - outdated BIAS, especially against the critially needed and valued, involved fathers, and $$$, in terms of dramatically increased financial child support awards, worked unseemly together to undermine the much needed, real parenting revolution, of the INTENDED Parenting Act of 1987.
Children of Divorce in Washington State are the real losers in this 20 year Assessment.
Noone in the system can say the present system is anything to rave about. We have nothing but LOST OPPORTUNITY to acknowledge and show for 20 years of experience. This is why Senate Bill 5234 and HB 2345 are so deserving of attention in the 2008 session of the Washington State Legislature. The struggle to achieve meaningful “Shared Parenting” still awaits legislative votes or a vote of the people.
For me, the folks at www.WashingtonSharedParenting.com have provided a blog opportunity for me to write about my observations and interactions of the Family Law system and outcomes for Children of Divorce. One specific project we have launched is an online petition to better demonstrate the widespread support that exists for Shared Parenting, anything more than 16% of annual overnights. This is the miserly national average for Second-Parents, again mostly fathers. The petition is at the top right side of the Washington Shared Parenting homepage. The petition will last at least through the full year of 2008 so anyone or everyone interested in justice for Children of Divorce in Washington State is encouraged to sign and join the campaign.
from:Wa Shared Parenting Web Site
Fathers rights attorney? Stop it, your killing me!
January 6th, 2008
family-abuse-parking-only.jpgWe get so many people coming to this site that are searching for answers to solve their legal family court issues that it is sad to see some of the search strings. Some make me laugh, because so many believe justice can actually be served in family court, where a bunch of commissioners that are not accountable to the citizens via being elected to office, rule over a court hearing where they are actually paid by a state agency to oversea any hearing that effect the states revenue.
Okay, this search string today was asking from google “Father’s Rights Attorney in Washington State”. The link will show you what the results were that they found. Sometimes I wish I could reach out through these search strings to talk directly to the person making the request, and for several reasons.
First, I suspect they will find none. They will certainly find some advertising, but I suspect they will find any that will actually go into court, with a blank slate and actually fight 100% for their rights. Remember, these are members of the bar, and they have to go into court regularly to make a living. The last thing most of them will do is go in and question the authority of a judge, or the organization paying his salary, to the level required to bring justice to you as a parent, and it can go both ways - for men and women. It just doesn’t happen.
Here, lets look at an example. The pattern form used by all the prosecutors that file contempt of court for family matters, includes a statement that if they fail to appear, an warrant will be issued for their arrest. Ask any attorney representing you to find that in our States Laws. They won’t find it, it doesn’t appear. It’s not a law that is available to them. However, under federal title IV-D, it is required that the child support agency, who pays for these judges and these prosecutors, use this language in order to get reimbursed for their expenses.
So, your attorney gets this form, and demands that you have to be in court. Yet, she/he is ill advising you, since there is no requirement under Washington State law that you attend this hearing, in fact, that is exactly what your attorney is being paid to do - represent you in court. By demanding you attend, are they committing malpractice? Are they doing this just so they don’t have to do their job of standing toe to toe with the commissioner and prosecutor to fight for your rights, to protect their image in the courtroom, and follow the status quo.
If that wasn’t the case, why has this practice not been challenged in the courts more, why hasn’t the bar’s family law committee addressed this violation of peoples rights, and why does it continue.
As a citizen, don’t expect your attorney to go in and fight for your rights. THink of them as a megaphone, and you need to be in control of what they say, and how they say it. IF they aren’t going to represent you in the way necessary to protect all of your rights, its time for a new attorney.
And a word to the wise, those that advertise they protect men’s rights, they understand the advertising niche they are in, looking for people that are desparate to protect their rights, willing to shell out money that would be better served in the bank for the future of their children.
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