NY Divorce Consultants Fighting the corrupt New York Divorce Industry!

Letter to Senator Suzi Oppenheimer on Failures of Divorce Reform

Dear Senator Oppenheimer,

My civil right to due process as guaranteed by the 14th amendment has been severely violated in NY State Supreme Matrimony Court. As a result I have lost all of my assets, I was denied a fair trial or representation and I have been turned into a criminal. The Supreme Court ‘precluded’ me from presenting financial evidence as pro se when I couldn’t afford an attorney and as a result I cantn’t pay tax liabilities to NY State, my home nearly foreclosed and now I am penniless and in dire straits.
While I have lost all my property in an unjust court I know of others who have completely lost access to their children in similar situations. It is truly criminal what New York State does to ordinary citizens who are constitutionally bound to Supreme Court to settle matrimony issues.

Current divorce reform completely misses the mark. While you argue esoteric legal issues like fault or maintenance formulas you have lost the forest for the trees. As a citizen who has been criminalized by this unjust court, and as someone who has seen many people lose their children to the unjust court here are my suggestions for reform.

1) Regulate the Divorce Industry. We have a billion dollar industry in New York in divorce that has less regulation than hair dressers. Lawyers are allowed to charge whatever they want and the court will back them up with draconian measures. How do we allow any industry to bill beyond the liquid assets of their customers for mundane work that is created by the State? Imagine a contractor that walked into your house, ripped down the walls and then started billing you at $350 an hour until they owned your house and had a court that back them up? This is what we have in divorce. Residential Real Estate attorneys used to bill hourly and now they bill flat fee in New York, why can't matrimony change? We need laws that force attorneys to bill at rates commensurate with their customers ability to pay and the court needs to enforce this. How can a court order an attorney bill of $85,000 when a citizen has less than $10,000 of assets? We are forced into this court, it can’t be a suckers court where we allow a wild west mentality to permeate.

2) There is currently no state registration for custody evaluators nor are there any standards for who these people are. Custody evaluators are chosen by attorneys and judges, hence, their relationship to attorneys takes precedence over their commitment to citizens. This misalignment of interests destroys families. Custody evaluators should be assigned randomly, not based on golf-course politics. They should register with the State, like a hair dresser has to, and they should be licensed with clear guidelines of education. Their reports should be standardized and there should be an anonymous, automatic peer review process when there is a recommendation of complete removal of a parent in a children’s life. Currently the onus is on the wronged parent to disprove an evaluators report and this is nearly impossible. This is hugely expensive and since evaluators need both lawyers to hire them one day they are more concerned with upsetting attorneys than uncovering the truth. A forensic report can cost upwards of $7,000 and easily exceed $15,000. A parent who can’t afford this faces the loss of their children. We need to realign the interests of the evaluators to work for children and not attorneys.

3) There is huge economic discrimination in the supreme court. The poor or under-employed are denied access to supreme court if they can’t pay retainer fees. They are forced to settle their differences in family court, ignore the courts or go to flat-fee divorce mills. People who run out of money in the process of divorce and are forced pro se are completely screwed under the current system. The New York State constitution forces us into a court without representation that is impossible to navigate as a citizen and dolls out punishments that far exceed many criminal punishments.

4) We need to legislate the end of hourly billings for divorce and we need courts to enforce reasonable and just fees. We need automatic public assistance for those in jeopardy of losing their children or all of their property or we need an alternate venue for those who can’t afford the court. Mediation is not the answer. Mediation offers no costs savings since it requires three attorneys who bill at $250 – $700 an hour. Collaborative Divorce is similarly expensive. Both of these mechanisms are half-hearted attempts by the legal industry to help families, however, they ignore the central problem that the legal industry is destroying families with ridiculous billings. We need protection from predatory billing of divorce attorneys in New York.

5) We need to institute a system that verifies statements of net worth. Why spend $50,000 or more in discovery and endless court time on the statement of net worth when a simple credit report and income verification would suffice? New York State clearly has the ability to do this as they do with taxes, why can’t the same technology be applied to verify the statement of net worth? We suffer tremendously because the courts refuse to look at basic evidence that is easily available and rather relies on representations of attorneys rather than simple fact.

6) We need outside regulation of attorneys. The only way to complain about an attorney now is to file a complaint with other attorneys. Since the attorneys all know each other and even work in the same office buildings and floors how can we get justice when we are wronged by an attorney? We need discipline committees that are NOT run by attorneys and are NOT in the same locale as the attorneys. We need MANDATATORY responses by the complaint boards with time limits on responses and details of punishments. We need clear punishments for violations of ethics by attorneys, not an opaque process with zero punishment or response to complainants. Furthermore, we need these boards to have punishments with teeth. We allow attorneys to ruin the lives of New Yorkers and then we let them off free. We take contractors licenses, we close down dirty restaurants yet we allow this industry to self-police and operate with impunity? We can call the better business bureau to find out about a contractor or business yet we can’t see how many complaints have been filed against an attorney. Consumers who are forced to attorneys from an immensely complex system have no transparency as to who they are dealing with.

7) We need to alter the NY State constitution to change how matrimony judges are appointed. The current system is completely broken, the terms are too long and there are no consequences for unjust behavior. Judges ignore laws, ignore due process and issue unjust punishments and are not held accountable. The only accountability is an appeal or toothless judicial complaint. Appeal is a ridiculous option for a person of modest means. Citizens are bound by judges who make up rules as they go along and have no recourse whatsoever. Besides changing how judges are appointed we need a similar disciplinary committee for judges that is not made of peers. Peer disciplinary systems clearly don’t work for judges and attorneys and this needs to stop.

We need a change in the New York constitution that removes matrimony issues from the supreme court system. Clearly family issues do not deserve the same treatment as commercial issues yet when trying to appeal matrimony issues we are forced to the same procedure that Goldman Sachs or Citibank would be subjected to in appeals court. By creating a separate entity for matrimony that falls outside of the supreme court system we could greatly reduce costs to New Yorkers, increase access to the system to include the poor and middle class and we could seriously disrupt the unregulated divorce industry.

9) We need to quantify the true costs of the current system. You can’t hide behind budgetary woes to avoid change that will disrupt the divorce industry. You have no idea of the true costs of divorce and speaking with your office this is immensely clear. You simply have no clue what the current system costs New Yorkers and New York state. Sure, you know how much you budget for the court but here are some questions to ask. What is the cost to the system when you raid a college fund to pay an attorney that you can’t afford, yet have no choice to do so? What are the costs when your house slips to foreclosure because of attorney’s fees that are ridiculous? What are the costs when you force a citizen to take money from an elderly parent or relative to pay ridiculous lawyer bills? These loans are largely off the books and supreme court fully supports this, so long as the boys are paid it is your problem how you come up with the money. How can you quantify a cost of the emotional pain on a child that loses their parent? How much do we spend in school counseling and other problems that come up down the road from draconian measures when there is immense evidence that removing a child from a parent is massively detrimental to emotional health? What are the costs to New York when a pension is raided to pay an attorney that is charging a ridiculous rate? What is the cost when a parent needs public assistance because they lost all assets to attorneys or unjust rulings? These costs are immense yet you justify the current state of virtual inaction by turning a blind eye to the true costs of our current system.

I hope that you will read my documents and see past my emotion as there are real ideas here. I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you or your staff to discuss in more detail. We won’t fix this problem unless we think outside of the box. We need to massively disrupt the legal industry to see change and it will be a helluva fight to counter their wealth and power, but it must be done. This is an industry that has no propensity to self-regulate and it’s time to force some real, substantial changes for the benefit of the citizens and children of New York.

What are your remedies to an unjust divorce verdict in New York?

You've just lost your kids, you are locked out completely until they turn 18. You have lost all of your assets and are strapped with payments beyond your income. You are near jail for contempt for expenses that you couldn't possibly pay. What do you do?

Unfortunately stories like this play out in New York every week and unless you are extremely wealthy there is nothing you can do about it.

An appeal is virtually impossible for all but the rich. Even the cost of obtaining the full case record is several thousand dollars and there is no other route to clarity. Judges and lawyers in supreme court are unaccountable for their behavior to anyone but their own secretive governing bodies. You are fighting a completely opaque billion dollar industry as a private citizen looking for common sense.