NY Divorce Consultants Fighting the corrupt New York Divorce Industry!

Poor Divorce, Rich Divorce – Social Inequities

If there is any doubt that the New York Divorce Industry rips off tax payers the doubt should be settled when looking at the dual-track contested divorce system for rich and poor. The Divorce Industry has set up the perfect system where poor New Yorkers who can't pay their fees are denied access to the Supreme Court System and sent to tax payer funded agencies. In the meantime, those who have assets to pilfer, the targets of the Divorce Industry, are stuck in the corrupt Supreme Court System of New York.

The Supreme Court System of New York supports the Divorce Industry by doling out lucrative and poorly supervised court-ordered services with outrageous costs that litigants are forced to pay. The Supreme Court System acts as the employment agency for the Divorce Industry and those who can't afford the fees of the Industry suffer tremendously. Meanwhile, the tax payers of New York are left to pick up the tab in local Police services, Family Court and Child Protective Services for poor families who can't afford access to the Supreme Court.

The source of these inequities stem from the New York Constitution. The Family Court has the same powers as the Supreme Court so long as the Supreme Court doesn't want to deal with a case as shown in the NY Constitution. This sets up the fraud because one system is primarily at the tax payers expense, Family Court, and the other is at both the tax payer and the litigants expense, the Supreme Court. Here's the quote from the constitution:

13.c. The family court shall also have jurisdiction to determine, with the same powers possessed by the supreme court, the following matters when referred to the family court from the supreme court: habeas corpus proceedings for the determination of the custody of minors; and in actions and proceedings for marital separation, divorce, annulment of marriage and dissolution of marriage, applications to fix temporary or permanent support and custody, or applications to enforce judgments and orders of support and of custody, or applications to modify judgments and orders of support and of custody which may be granted only upon the showing to the family court that there has been a subsequent change of circumstances and that modification is required.

If a divorcing couple can't come to an amicable agreement and doesn't have $20,000 in combined attorney retainer fees they can't access the Supreme Court System. If they go it alone as pro se they will face certain failure in an insiders game bereft of supervision of day-to-day operations, devoid of due process and free of outside monitoring by the US or NY State authorities. There are no free legal services to navigate Supreme Court so the only option is to wait until a bad situation gets so bad that you go to family court. Even if there were free legal services for access to the Supreme Court lawyers are only part of the Divorce Industry and there is no free access to custody or financial evaluators in Supreme Court. So with no way to gain access to the Supreme Court couples must duke it out with the Police, Child Protective Services, Family Court and some litigant paid services.

Why are the elected Judges of the Supreme Court serving as employment agents for the Divorce Industry? Why do tax payers pay for court rooms and staff to house the Supreme Court when it is helping a private industry bill out over a billion in fees a year? Shouldn't the industry be paying for some of the costs of the system since the Divorce Industry players are the primary beneficiaries of the current system? Why are tax payers the sole funders of the attorney and judicial discipline for the Supreme Court? NY is the last state besides CT that doesn't make bar associations pay some portion of attorney discipline, why are the tax payers footing the bill for this billion dollar industry? Why do pro se lose so much in Supreme Court without the protections of due process? Why are the poor forced to over-taxed and under-funded agencies while the State of New York will foot the bill for days of senseless trials in Supreme Court that defy common sense and only benefit the Divorce Industry? With so many court funding problems why is NY giving so much to the Divorce Industry and in the meantime harming countless families and innocent children with gross violations of civil rights?

Perhaps the biggest question is why do we all say that's just the way it is?

Its time for a change but the first step is serious scrutiny of this unconstitutional system. Where is Preet Bharara? NY Can't get the job done cleaning up this Industry, we need outsiders to fix this mess.

The Friedlander Tragedy MUST be a Catalyst for NY Divorce Reform

As horrific as the Friedlander deaths were it is equally horrific that New York State is not reviewing the circumstances that led an ordinary man to such extraordinary actions. This family was suffering through the worst of the divorce industry. One of the attorneys is known as one of the biggest fee mongers in Westchester and no doubt they were under incredible financial duress from ridiculous bills. Broken New York laws kept the couple battling over the house long after custody was settled and no doubt such punishing bills made it impossible to move out. Surely the passive legal guardians that do nothing but bill were long since done with the children and with no social workers involved on the case there was no one to catch warning signs. Undoubtedly their case dragged on for over a year as the Judge ordered crazy bills and had no sense of urgency in his dealings, pushing the billing mill for his lawyer friends. Surely the parents were feuding stuck in the same house and both the lawyers and the court system did nothing to calm the situation but send more bills, adjourn more court dates and delay decisions.

We need a NY State or Federal commission to examine the circumstances that put the kids on such a dangerous situation. We need a 'Friedlander Law' that forces judges to make expedient rulings in contested divorces. The law needs to assign state funded social workers to contested cases and they need to have regular evaluations of the stress in a divorce. The law needs to limit divorce lawyer billing beyond 20% of net worth so piggish divorce lawyers can't show up to a house closing to take all the proceeds from a families sole asset. We need to abolish the practice of courts serving as employment agencies for divorce lawyers as unqualified legal guardians. NY forces families to pay 250 per hour or more for law guardians that are wholly unqualified to deal with the psychological issues of children in divorce. Lawyers have no training to deal with emotional issues in divorce yet in the backwards NY Divorce laws they are to be the emotional voice of children in divorce. The end result is tragedies as terrible as Friedlander and many more that aren't as horrid.

These children should not die in vain and NY state can't look the other way on the sorry state of the divorce industry.

It's time for change!

NY Divorce Courts Operate in the Stone Age of the Legal Industry – Court Reporters

One of the limiting factors in appeal is the ridiculous cost of court transcripts in New York Divorce Courts. After the sorry excuse of a court room that is New York Supreme Court Matrimony Part where due process is randomly ignored or followed, but generally pissed on, comes the archaic Appeals Court of New York. The Appeals Court is an intimidating place where you are arguing your measly divorce issues alongside Citibank, Goldman and other mega-clients. Whether you are challenging serious legal issues or being pillaged by divorce attorneys the same requirements apply - 9 PRINTED copies of the ENTIRE case record, which is WAY more than a transcript. Simply copying the complete case record 9 times can cost thousands of dollars and rest assured, no one probably reads it in its entirety, but the burden is on the one filing the appeal to produce the monstrosity.

The first step is to get the court transcript, however, and after seeing this dinosaur system it would be laughable, if it wasn't so damaging to families. Court reporters in NY are amongst the last in the nation to do things the old fashioned way with mysterious typing boxes that then must be transcribed into readable pages. My request to the court reporter for transcripts came back with a cost of $6 per page, and there were about 500 pages to transcribe, so about $3,000. I have sent only $500 to the court reporter back in March but now in October as the appeal window has closed, I still don't have one single page of transcript nor do I have my five hundred bucks. The chick took the money and did absolutely nothing, zippo nada. She moaned that she needs more money but grudgingly agreed to do the first day of my 'trial' play acting.

Even though I have run out of time for the appeal, largely due to this idiot court reporter not responding and charging exorbitant fees, I am demanding that she deliver at least one day of the trial or send the money back. Believe it or not, after sitting on her ass and doing nothing for 7 months, SHE STILL NEEDS TWO MORE WEEKS to type about 30 pages.

I'm sure if I had an attorney ask it would've been different but this is one case where I can't wait for automation to put her out of work. There is no reason that NY families and children should be paying for antiquated courtroom procedures when virtually every state in the US has done away with these arcane beasts. Imagine losing your kids and all your assets and then being trapped in an appeal processor waiting for this old maid to get out the selectric and bang out a few pages.

Un f'ing believable but welcome to NY Divorce!

My visit to CAMP to appeal divorce

So finally has a CAMP conference for my divorce appeal. My assertion that the divorce industry is a sleazy government backed insiders con game is only reinforced. The lawyer who lied to the Judge repeatedly and violated numerous ethical standards and constitutional law was greeted warm hearted by the friendly mediator, a retired judge. Of course the two were old buddies so I could see where this was heading from the outset.

So it didn't take long for the distinguished retired judge to remind me who he's working for as he calmly instructed me that the minimum cost of my appeal was going to be $50,000 in legal fees. This was the number he'd decided I guess. So then I ask thr distinguished judge why a lawyer who lied,broke rules of ethics and violated laws should be rewarded by me, the clear victim. Why shouldn't the court take responsibility of fair courts. He laughed.

Child Support Conundrum – What to do?

I'm in an interesting situation that I can see no way out of except laughing and waiting for a judge to decide one day. I was assigned a child support/maintenance number that exceeds my current income. I have an equitable distribution judgment against me that exceeds all my assets (zero) and exceeds the value of the asset that it was placed against. I have a wage garnishment for back support/maintenance that will make it impossible to pay an already impossible sum. None of the debts are dischargable in bankruptcy - no debt associated with a divorce judgement is dischargable in bankruptcy. With the garnishment I can't pay my tax arrears or much of anything else. Legal Aide of Hudson Valley laughed at me and rejected my claim for assistance.

Appeal is the only solution but the costs are staggering and impossible. How can one pay $3,000 for a transcript of a trial when they are facing serious penalties for child enforcement arrears? How can one afford a lawyer in such a case when basic living needs aren't being met?

All I can say is that a government that puts its citizens into these messes is predatory. New York State is operating a predatory divorce industry that makes billions each year and it is a bastion for corruption and civil rights violations. I pray that the Supreme Court will act wisely in Turner vs. Price and rule that the constitutional right of substantive due process does apply in civil divorce proceedings and that States that violates the civil rights of litigants in the court can be sued in Federal Court.

The only solution to ending the persecution that New York State exacts on its citizens with its predatory divorce industry is to challenge the constitutionality of the system in Federal Courts.