Are "Friends" Friends? Social Media and Law

Is being a Facebook "friend" of the judge, the same as being "friends with the judge"?  Florida seems unsure, and blawger Ilya Somin has some additional thoughts on Florida's view.  As someone who's friends, and "friends",  with a judge (I'm also married to her), it's of some interest.  A tip of the mortarboard, per usual, to Prof. Volokh, now over on the Washington Post's platform.

All of You: Time to Pester Your Elected Representatives

Those of you who've followed this blog for more than a post or two have long since tired of my, and others' yelling about the fact that trial courts, and particularly family law trial courts, have been getting a raw deal in terms of funding.  Now, it's official.

Kentucky Nixes Arbitration in Family Law, As, Among Other Things, Classist?

The Kentucky Court of Appeals has held that an agreement to submit all or a portion of a family law dispute to binding arbitration, without independent review by a sitting "real" judge, is an impermissible delegation of the court's power.

Among the more notable comments the court made, however, was the following, made without any citation of further authority:

Notwithstanding that the parties agreed to pay the arbitrator fees, what is most distressing about this scenario is that arbitration is obviously not a viable alternative or available to parties with lower incomes who can not afford to pay an arbitrator the sum of $225 per hour. This effectively creates a class system within Jefferson Family Court proceedings where more affluent individuals have the opportunity to pay for a “private judge” to conduct their proceedings – while
parties of lesser means and income must have their case heard by constitutionally elected judges in perhaps a less expeditious time frame.

Regardless of how noble the intent of utilizing arbitration in divorce proceedings, such a system that permits affluent individuals the opportunity to expedite the disposition of their domestic
relations cases in family court that is otherwise unavailable or cost prohibitive to persons of lesser incomes, appears to be both unconscionable and unconstitutional on its face, in our opinion.

Now I know, from reading the rest of the opinion, that commercial arbitration is permissible in Kentucky, and I'll bet that, whether they know it or not, Kentucky bank customers, HMO patients, customers of real estate brokers, and lots of other folks have entered into arbitration agreements regarding the services of those providers, just like their California cousins.

I also know that there are a significant number of folks in Kentucky who end up going to family court without a lawyer, because they can't afford to hire a lawyer. I'll also guess that in general, they don't do as good a job in presenting their cases as attorneys would have done for them.

So, seems to me, there's a "class system" in place already. It also seems to me that if litigant couples have the resources and the mutual willingness to take their cases "out of the system" to an arbitrator, mediator, psychologist, clergyperson, or even a guy who'll adjudicate their dispute using a Ouija Board, this actually works to free up scarce judicial system resources for everyone else.

Am I missing something?

A tip of the big grey fedora to Diana L. Skaggs of Kentucky for the pointer.

For Those Who Thought I was just Goofing Off In New Orleans

AFCC Annual Meeting, New Orleans Saturday, May 30, 2009, 9:15 am (now available for download) "You Signed WHAT?" Mental health professionals have an ethical obligation to provide an “informed consent” process to the families they serve and attorneys are obligated to advise parents and protect their rights. This includes reviewing consent forms presented bymental health professionals. This interactive workshop will identify problematic provisions in consent forms encountered in practice and present essential elements of any informed consent process. Risk management strategies for both attorneys and mental health professionals will be discussed.

Lyn R. Greenberg, Ph.D., Los Angeles, CA

Richard Gould-Saltman, J.D., Gould-Saltman Law Offices, Los Angeles, CA

Michael C. Gottlieb, Ph.D., ABPP, Dallas, TX

Now They're Chopping Down The Totem Pole We're the Low Guy On...

In the wake of the vote-down of the Governor's various last-ditch "budget-rescue" bills, the Los Angeles Superior Court has announced that they will be closing all courtrooms one Wednesday per month, commencing in July, and continuing for the next fiscal year.

This is, in a word, not likely to improve the functioning of the family court system, and not likely to make it more responsive to the needs of the public.

As I've noted in these pages earlier, the system is already working short-handed and short-budgeted.

This change will mean that family law court calendars will be, on average, five percent longer, or one or two extra cases, per day, per judge. That may not seem like much, until you consider that family law judges are often already hearing fifteen to twenty cases per day. Assuming a judge is on the bench hearing testimony, or calling calendar, six hours per day (the rest of the time is to READ the reams of stuff) that's a total of 24 minutes per hearing per case. . . . whether or not anyone involved in the matter speaks English, or has brought along a real interpreter. . . . . .and whether or not anyone can coherently explain why they're in court, or what they want the court to do about it...

It means that the time before someone can get into court to address what they, at least, regard as important issues (where their kids stay, with whom; who pays to feed the kids; who stays in the house, when there's been domestic violence etc.) will be on average, five percent longer (custody hearings are already being set two months plus from the date of filing, with support hearings often following along with that delay).

It means, unfortunately, that the job of being a family law judicial officer, already generally recognized as a high-burnout judicial assignment, will be regarded as even less of a "plum", and even more of a "lemon".

Off and Running (at the mouth)

Herewith will begin all the news, thoughts, rumination and ranting about:

1. California family law,
2. family law, and why we have it;
   
3. law in general in this man's United States, and
4. pretty much anything else which crosses my radar

that you choose to read.

Some of the axes which will be ground, and idees about which I may be fixe * will likely include:

• Why do people get married? Why do they think they're getting married? Why should the state (both in the poli sci sense, and specifically the Golden State) be involved?
• Should it be harder to get married, and easier to get divorced?
• More people in California "go to court" about their family issues than for anything else besides traffic tickets. The California family court system, once the model for the rest of the country, is slowly being reduced to complete gridlock/system crash/meltdown. How do we make the family court system work better than it does? Why has no politician in recent memory won elective office on the campaign promise: "I'll make the family law courts work better, even if we have to spend money to do it!"?
• Why do we let folks who can't keep themselves out of jail, support themselves, or get and maintain a driver's license, raise kids, even their own? If we, as a society, think this is OK, how do we keep these folks from messing up their kids? Should we?
• Is raising a child to be a good citizen more important than raising him/her to be a good Christian/Muslim/Jew/Buddhist? Is it more important that children be happy, or successful? Is any of that the government's business?
  

So you know what you're getting. I haven't decided on a comments policy yet, but it'll be along soon, along with guest posters, links both useful and entertaining (to me, at least) and whatever else I cook up.


rfgs

*The version of the posting tool I'm using doesn't seem to feature multinational fonting, so I can make that look appropriately Francophone.