Family law is not for the faint of heart, and institute teaches best principles and methods ~ Tulsa World
Family law is a tough practice.
Children’s futures are at stake. Homes and any monies involved are being divided. Cases turn ugly in a moment, and attorneys representing their clients must be prepared for these sometimes unexpected mood shifts.
Some Tulsa attorneys admit they would rather try a number of heinous murder cases rather than one family law case.
The researchers predicted that, after the children whose parents weren’t divorced, the children who lived with one parent would exhibit the fewest issues. However, these children were actually significantly more likely to experience various health problems
Judges have been heard to say they dread the controversial and contested family law cases because no one clearly is the winner and everyone loses when all cards have been played.
Even attorneys involved in a family law practice have difficult times because of the twists and turns a case might have. Shane Henry, who practices family law with the Fry and Elder Law Firm, said he consistently lost cases during his first three years in practice and knew he needed additional training.
di·vorce – dəˈvôrs/ noun ~ the legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other competent body.
verb ~ legally dissolve one’s marriage with (someone).
A divorce can be many things. It is a legal proceeding to end a marriage. Divorce laws differ from state to state regarding the requirements and reasons or grounds for a divorce. The mechanisms and procedures for obtaining a divorce differ from state to state as well. In every state there is a legal requirement that a divorce proceeding be filed to end the legal marriage between a couple.
This means, if the state-as in a judge- wants to infringe or terminate this fundamental liberty interest, he or she had better apply the process due to a parent first. Otherwise, its action is explicitly forbidden. Id. at 721. If the state cannot show that it has a narrowly tailored compelling interest, then the state cannot touch the fit parent’s right at all. Ibid. No other avenue is constitutionally available to accomplish state action, which will adversely affect a parent’s fundamental liberty interest.
If a parent appeals an adverse action by a state which has affected his or her fundamental liberty interest, the reviewing Court must apply the Strict Scrutiny standard of review, to determine whether the state action was indeed achieved without the state showing that it had a narrowly tailored compelling interest to take the action it did. Id. This is a compulsory standard. It’s not an option. Nowhere does it say that if the reviewing Court has sat down and collectively decided, for whatever arbitrary reasoning, that it should apply a lesser standard, that it can do so.
That being said, tell me. Where exactly do Grandparents’ “Rights”, come from? When a parent is brought before a Court and his or her fundamental liberty interest is at stake, there are only TWO competing interests here- the parent’s and the state’s. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 759-60 (U.S.N.Y., 1982). If the parent is fit, then the child’s interest, coincides with his or her fit parent’s. Id. at 745, 748, 760-761 (1982). The child’s interest does not stand alone. As such is the case, where exactly-constitutionally- does the Grandparent’s so called “interest” fit into the equation? I can tell you where-nowhere- because they don’t have any “rights”- not under these United States’ Constitution..
The Justices who decided Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), deliberately failed to apply the Strict Scrutiny standard of review, to the threatened fundamental liberty interest of the mother in that case for this precise reason.
Instead, it applied a less stringent standard, having nothing to do with the 14th Amendment, so that it could leave room for the individual states, to concoct their own particular processes by which each could infringe or even, as in my case, terminate the liberty interests of fit parents, by averting the Due Process Clause. In other words, applying the wrong standard gave state legislatures the power to enact laws granting such “rights” to grandparents to intervene into divorce and custody disputes. Under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, this “standing” does not exist.
Because of the Troxel Court’s “instructions” as the state of Georgia refers to the case, Clark v. Wade, 273 Ga. 587, 603-604 (2001), this state claimed that it had the power to sever my custodial relationship with my child, remove her from my home, terminate my legal rights to her and “award” “custody”, to her paternal grandparents- all without finding me unfit. Isn’t that something? After serving my country and vowing to die if need be, to defend the United States Constitution, my own rights were snatched right from under me. It said that it had the parens patriae power to do what it thought was “best” for my child. It had and has, no such power. Neither does any other state.
Here’s why.
Number 1., Washington, 521 U.S. at 721 says the state can’t do anything with a child without first proving that it has a narrowly tailored compelling interest.
2. The state can’t achieve such interest without following the bifurcated steps established in Santosky, 455 U.S. at 745, 748, 760-761 .
3. Before we even get to any of all this, the state is explicitly prohibited from applying the best interest standard between a parent and a third party to begin with. Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 303-304 (1993).
Nevertheless, there are parents across America whose constitutional rights to their children have been deprived by state action, under color of law. This has been a collective, nationwide violation, extending from the top of our judicial system, to the bottom. This is the state of America today.
But for the United States Supreme Court’s decision in 2000, I would not have been robbed of my right to continue to have the home that I had established for my child, or my right to continue to raise her, so long as I was fit.
I know that such willful deprivation is actionable under federal civil and criminal law against state officials. I also know that one must request relief from the very defendants and perpetrators who have violated him or her- a futile effort that I learned the hard way. My question is, what happens when the willful deprivation comes from the top?
***I am a paralegal. I am not a licensed attorney. Anything I’ve posted here or on this site, may not and should not be construed as legal advice. If you are in need of legal advice, please consult with a licensed attorney. If you are in Cobb County, Georgia, good luck.
The deeper you get, the more foolish you become until you are likely to face bankruptcy in the end
Still Spending Money on Useless Family Law Lawyers?
Programs to Help Families in Conflict.
Here’s a Solution. | Leon Koziol.Com
300,000 lawyers in California alone, more than a million nationwide and a comparable number of candidates in law school. That’s a lot of lawyers anxious to find employment. If you have an ax to grind with your ex, some score to settle for ego purposes, or you just like to fight for attention, then you make a perfect employer for a divorce or family court lawyer prepared to manufacture controversy for profit. Even if you’re not a fighter and more of a reasonable type, there is no shortage of issues and not enough money to satisfy a lawyer once you’ve hired one.
That’s just the way it is in our nation’s domestic relationscourts. The deeper you get, the more foolish you become until you are likely to face bankruptcy in the end. Once they get you in the door, the system makes you think it’s all for your children’s “best interests,” but those same children may easily lose the funds for a good college education. Worse yet, you may have to start all over again building a new life, a new savings account and a logical explanation for sacrificing so much for so little.
That’s why parental advocate, Dr. Leon Koziol, has been crusading for reform. On March 1, 2015, he released an alarming report describing the complexities of today’s domestic relations courts and the vast harm they are causing to our families, moral fiber and productivity in the workplace. On March 18, 2015, he will begin a promotional tour in Nashville regarding his reform efforts. Already the responses have been coming in for answers to the many problems faced by victims in these courts. To address them, he will be sponsoring a series of conference calls.
The following topics will be featured for those wishing to participate at no cost:
Many custodial parents, lawyers, parenting plan evaluators, supervised parenting services, States, friends of the Court social workers, many Courts, and others; are making money by using children as an excuse to exploit non-custodial parents, causing irreparable harm to both children and their parents in the process.
I, and a rapidly growing base of many others, would like this to stop. More specifically, we are asking for five primary reforms to Family Law.
One of the huge problems we have in our fight for Family Law Reform is the problem of “enablers”.
We’ve got so many people enabling and empowering the horrific behavior going in within Family Law.
We’ve got lawyers counseling clients that it’s right and good for them to limit or eliminate the relationships between children and NCP’s to gain freedom and child support. We even have lawyers who will subtly coach clients on how to make false allegations to gain an advantage.
We’ve got judges who absolutely detest hearing custody disputes, so they use a variety of direct and indirect methods to make the cost of enforcing visitation prohibitively expensive (child support, litigation, procedure, unequal enforcement of family court orders)
We’ve got court-appointed social workers who are making a killing by mining data the necessary data to support a decision they already know the Court wants to make.
Author of Access Denied, The Wretched, The Roots of Evil, The Ghost of Clothes, Omonolidee, First Words and Unzipped: The Mind of a Madman, along with numerous short stories, poems and articles.
Some Tulsa attorneys admit they would rather try a number of heinous murder cases rather than one family law case.
