Worst New York Legislation of 2010 – Divorce Reform Act of 2010
In cases you haven't read the joke of a reform bill that Suzi Oppenheimer sponsored to the New York State Senate, here is a link
Here is a letter I wrote to Senator Oppenheimer, I'll post answers if they come. This bill should have been entitled 'Divorce Attorney Billing Protection act of 2010.' This bill is the biggest piece of shit imaginable and leaves the unregulated billion dollar divorce industry of New York untouched.
Dear Senator Oppenheimer,
I have read your legislation that you ridiculously call the Divorce Reform Act of 2010 and I am appalled. It should more aptly be called the 'Matrimony Lawyers Protection Act of 2010' because this seems to be all that it does. You protect the obscene, hourly billings of the billion-dollar divorce industry and LEGALLY PROTECT that practice of hourly billing in section 6 of your bill.
The root causes of problems in NY Divorce are simple - an unregulated divorce industry that easily bills over $1Billion per year in New York and a corrupt Supreme Court that supports this industry. New Yorkers that enter the divorce system are stripped of tremendous amounts of wealth and can completely lose access to their children without ever having been convicted of a crime or with proper representation. Your reform does nothing to address these root cause issues. Fault is a legal smokescreen that doesn't address the abuses of the divorce industry and the numerous civil rights violations that the New York Supreme Court commits against its citizens.
First of all, I demand to know the true authors of this bill and I demand to see a list of your offices contacts withe New York Bar lobbying groups because clearly they have written your statue. I demand to see the minutes of the working committee that developed this bill and I demand to be pointed to legislative sessions where this bill was argued along with a list of experts consulted for the creation of this bill.
I will ask you a few common sense questions and I would love to hear your responses.
In your bill you maintain that the monied pouse MUST pay all attorneys fees. You further maintain that these fees MUST BE HOURLY and must be RATE ORDINARILY AND CUSTOMARILY CHARGED BY THE ATTORNEY.
1) Did your office do any research as to what is the customary rate of a matrimony attorney in your district?
2) Assuming a monied spouse with a $100,000 a year spouse and non-monied spouse with a $50,000 job how can they afford to pay 2 $15,000 retainer fees as your bill mandates?
3) Did your office do any research to quantify the RATE ORDINARILY AND CUSTOMARILY CHARGED BY THE a court appointed custody or business evaluator?
4) Is your office aware that a typical custody evaluator in New York charges $250/hour, more than double what most psychologists would get in private practice? Are you aware that custody evaluators typically demand payments of $7,000 cash, up front, before they will even begin an evaluation?
5) Is your office aware that New York now provides more screening to substitute teachers than we do to the custody evaluators appointed by the court?
6) is your office aware of any registration process by which a forensic evaluator would register their credentials with NY State?
7) Has your office considered that there are no penalties for lying on the Statement of Net Worth that a judge would supposedly use as a strong basis for awarding counsel fees?
Has your office considered that the Statement of Net Worth does not make litigants list wealthy friends or family members who may be paying attorneys fees as is frequently the case in cases where civil rights are violated?
9) Has your office considered that New York State does not require anything as basic as a credit report to verify a Statement of Net Worth?
10) Is your office aware of the rates of a typical legal guardian in your district?
I am writing a larger report on this issue and I hope that at the completion of my report you will allow me to present it to you or your staff. The bottom line is that New York is violating the civil rights of it's people with faulty legislation and it is time that this ends or that New York be brought to justice for all of the children it has ripped away from parents who can't afford representation.
Is Collaborative Divorce Worthwhile?
NY, home to the worst matrimony laws in the country also has the most divorce scams. One of these is collaborative divorce. Collaborative divorce is a great concept BUT it ends up being an extremely expensive solution that requires you to write off a court option and use only a select group of collaborative specialists. In short, I think collaborative divorce is a waste of time and money, here's why.
First of all, the primary problem with divorce in NY is the costs. NY State Supreme Court Judges enforce obscene legal bills and the bills get this way by billing by the hour. In the NYC area the benchmark for fees is the about $400 an HOUR!. This is what NY State will throw you in jail for if you don't pay and this is what a judge will award the most retarded of lawyers. So in comes collaborative divorce, or any divorce professional for that matter, with the stage set by NY State at $400 an hour. At this rate, figure about $20,000 total on both sides to file and respond to a motion, $2000 every day in court, minimum, and $300,000 in total legal feels to have a very simple simple trial or settle if there are assets involved. So with this standard Collaborative may be cheaper if you can control yourselves and not spend the sessions fighting. But since sessions include an array of professionals, all getting paid by the hour, what are you gaining?
You don't have the stress of court but you have the costs. You don't have the fear of court but the reality is that while the courts yell and scream a lot, when you are divorced finally, they are done. Unless you or your spouse love running into court to prove the other this and that then these people are out of your lives. Same with Collaborative, they are out of your lives. If you can't negotiate the simple matters of dividing assets, with NY State laws that mandate division formulas, and time with your children based on your schedules then go to court. It is a real shame if you can't negotiate these simple things but if your relationship is so broken that you can't divide money and kids collaborative is going to suck all your money, just as a court process may, thus falling into the same problem as all court divorce - COST.
Hourly professional rates and NY Judges who enforce them are at the root of the problems of divorce in NY and collaborative does nothing to address this root problem. Hence I say avoid it and negotiate yourselves.
Lawyer Cost Control Tip by NY Divorce Consultants – Avoid Lawyer Mediators
Avoid Mediators. The majority people I know, except for one, have had zero success with mediators. Mediation as it works in NY is the worst divorce option and should be avoided. Why?
1) A mediator is a lawyer in many case and as such won't give any legal advice to a party in mediation so you each must have your own lawyer or know what is going on. So figure each meeting you may be paying 3 lawyers (3 x 300 per hour, better be a damn good meeting on your dime here). All a mediator does is write down what you agree to in a manner that can be used in an agreement.
2) If you are combative mediation will never work. It is a huge stage for a dysfunctional party to vent their views and it nearly 3 times as much as many therapists.
3) If you get along the mediator is entirely useless. Divide you pre-marital assets, split your marital assets in a way that is equitable, decide on child related issues and then hire a lawyer to write your agreement if you get along. Of course, you can and should consult with a lawyer during your negotiations but in general I have seen this work more than any other option.
Mediators, though not Collaborative Divorce is also a scam, are one of the biggest scams going in NY Divorce. If you are fighting it will never work, if you are peaceful it is purely a waste of money. Send me $10,000 instead and you'll still get the satisfaction of paying someone a fraction of what a mediator will charge you to do nothing.
The myth of full custody in New York
In New York parties that can't settle are pitted against each other as they must both claim full custody since broken NY doesn't award joint custody. The fight for full custody in EXTREMELY expensive if neither party will concede to full custody. If there aren't CLEAR CUT cases of child abuse, sexual abuse, violence or extreme behavioral issues the fight for full custody is an entire waste of money in NY and should be avoided. If your spouse can convince people that they are quasi-normal, they hold down a job, they take care of kids responsibilities, they pay bills - you are going to have a huge uphill battle.
My personal, non-lawyer advice is to pursue joint custody. There are only a few spheres of decision in NY, primarily about health and education, though lawyers can divide these spheres a lot. Joint Custody with final say by a parent gives you the same net effects as full custody without the ridiculous expense and acrimony for all parties. Avoid the full custody scam of NY, it will be incredibly expensive and may not yield the results you think.
Legal cost control tip by NY Divorce Consultants
Keep your lawyer from writing long motions and don't participate in lengthy responses. Courts are too busy and will skim, at best, they may not read anything. The book size motions that your lawyer wants to make is a waste of money. Bullet points are all that is required.
New York Divorce – The Biggest Suckers Game Going
So you wanna get divorced? You're real pissed, humiliated, broke, scared, etc.? You are in the worst financial state of your life? You have no idea how you will work out all the complexities? In short, you are stressed to the maximum.
'Step right up, we have a sucker' says the New York divorce cartel.
The suckers game starts with lawyers telling you they can change life for huge fees. They start writing useless letters that are confidential and unusable and court, yet cost hundreds of dollars a pop. Then it's on to huge legal motions that the court will never read. Your lawyers fire you up to tear apart your spouse and you go on a rampage at their bequest, totally stressed and scared. Soon you may be lucky enough to have the court order you to pay huge fees to forensic evaluators, and you will be threatened with jail or jailed if you can't pay.
If you can't pay for representation you have absolutely nowhere to turn as the process is entirely anti-pro se. Judges and law clerks that I have seen are down right hostile to pro se litigants so you are fucked if you can't afford a lawyer, expect zero sympathy. It seems that you are some kind of jerk if you can't afford a lawyer - a know it all who is arrogant, even when the cost of a lawyer will exceed $100,000.
And if you can pay? Bill and bill they will. Bills will easily total $30,000 a month on both sides and yes, you will be ordered to pay your spouses fees, thus keeping the circle of thugs that NY has created alive. Lawyers charge insane rates for the simple reasons that they can be assured that a judge will order such fees to paid.....or else off to the Gulag or local jail.
The suckers game is run by the court system and this is the hardest part to figure out in the beginning. The court will imprison you or at least make your life really miserable if you don't pay their crew. If you don't exhaust every available cent from pension, college fund, relatives, friends, etc. you can find your ass in jail or perpetually tortured by thug-like tactics. There will be no formal evaluation of your assets or ability to pay and your fight will come down to whimsical decisions by a court that has no requirement to explain a verdict or substantiate how one could pay an ordered fee. If you don't play this game correctly or you lose your patience there are real consequences - you can lose complete access to your kids, more than 100% of your financial assets or end up in jail. So this is serious shit, this isn't just ranting, this is what really happens to unsuspecting families on a regular basis is New York. IT REALLY HAPPENS.
So how to avoid the suckers game? BE COOL and DON"T LITIGATE, even if your divorce will take a lot longer to complete. At some point you may be left with no choice if your mate drags you in and then you should read our legal cost control tips in this case.
You are pissed, scared, stressed, etc. and in this, the most vulnerable time in you are forced by the court to make huge decisions with immense penalties for missteps. You must be super careful about making decisions in this state of mind. You need calm, trusted advisers and you need very few. Some people say opinions are like assholes but divorce opinions are like nipples - everyone has two and some have three or more. Most opinions are based on half-baked information, myths from movies or ones own fears and experiences.
I know this post sounds whacky, but unfortunately this is no joke. Stakes are high if you make the mistake of going into the NY State Court system for divorce so my advice is to keep your ass out of it at all costs. It is a suckers game because your emotions are played by lawyers who bill by the hour while you are temporarily insane. You are easily manipulated in this frame of mind and promised the sky while bills soar with no performance accountability. It is an overburdened corrupt system where a huge percentage of your wealth will be forcibly stripped from you by the State of New York and you could lose complete access to your children or sit in jail. The primary responsibility of the court seems to be to the lawyers and ancillary professionals that the State funnels fees to - and enforce with thug-like tactics. So in closing, AVOID NY STATE SUPREME COURT and stay out of the suckers game that is divorce.
Affairs Don’t Matter in Divorce Proceedings in Most Cases
Your spouse is having an affair and now you are breaking up? You think that your spouse is having an affair and you want to catch them red handed with a private investigator? I am sorry to tell you that virtually no one will care about this in the legal system. It can certainly help you emotionally to know the truth but unless conditions are extreme it will not make any difference in New York, especially in Westchester County. In NY adultery is a low level crime so you must prove it at a criminal level, not the normal subjective bs of civil court. This means major expense and a whole new level of complication in your case that will not yield you much in the end except higher costs and maybe peace of mind.
So my advice is that even if you want to know about the affair for piece of mind don't tangle up your proceeding with the details. No one really cares about it and it is such an emotional issue that a predatory lawyer can easily exploit this to their benefit.
Legal Cost Control Tip 4 – NY Divorce Consultants
One of the biggest absorbers of legal costs is letters between lawyers. Letters are useless. They are confidential in many cases and can't be used in court, they generally settle very little and they generally serve no constructive purpose. I think I wasted over $10,000 on meaningless letters that two years later seem completely ridiculous. Keep letter writing to a bear minimum.
Legal Cost Control Tip #3 by NY Divorce Consultants
Follow your convictions! If you're lawyer is taking you down a path that you are not comfortable stop them and educate yourself. If you are feeling uneasy about what is happening ask another lawyer their opinion, but make an office visit to do so. Even if costs you money to solicit a second opinion of a strategy do it. If you are not up for a fight don't do it because your lawyer tells you it is a good idea. Bottom line is trust your convictions, there is no one-size-fits-all divorce.
Legal Cost Control Tip from NY Divorce Consultants
A lawyer can't fix emotional problems nor change your mate. Don't waste money trying. Writing letters about late soccer pickup or mundane financial issues is a waste of money - big time. Judges don't read this crap, no one cares about it, the lawyers are just playing you. It is pure churn of your cash. Don't do it.
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