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New York State Government’s Broken Logic on Divorce Laws

In speaking with Senator Oppenheimer's office I continually hear the ludicrous argument that the New York Matrimony court system can't be changed. Somehow a system that requires participants to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to exit a simple contract, bankrupts families and devastates the emotional lives of children and families is defensible by Senator Oppenheimer and the New York State legislature. A system that creates verdicts that strips parental rights of law abiding citizens, has eschewed the constitution and is so clearly corrupt is indefensible. There are no logical constructs that one can use to defend the status quo of New York because in the end you are justifying a system that is completely broken.

You can't argue that our current system is good for children. We place the outcome of our ludicrous custody laws in the hands of unlicensed custody evaluators who have no standards of reporting, no employment standards and no judicial or governmental oversight. Custody reports are a 'free-for-all' for lawyers and evaluators, and since the lawyers choose the evaluators in conjunction with a judge there is massive chance for collusion. The system of custody evaluation is completely skewed to the rich. Poor people can't afford law guardians or the $250/hour that a typical evaluation costs and there is no public assistance for such evaluations. The system is entirely set-up against common sense outcomes with many conflicts of interest. Appealing custody evaluations is ridiculously expensive and since each report is a creation unto itself with no standard of court instructions, reporting or peer review process you are really rolling the dice with a new evaluation - not to mention out of $15,000 or thereabouts.

You can't argue that our current system is a divorce deterrent. Divorce is a part of the human condition. A large section of Jewish Law deals with divorce which clearly proves that this has been part of our society for at least 2000 years. People will always divorce regardless of religious doctrine, state laws or community standards. It's a fact of life, deal with it. New York had over 52,000 divorces in 2008 (NY Department of Health Divorce Statistics) so clearly if our broken laws are a deterrent, they suck at it.

You can't argue that our current system is fair. Outcomes in New York Supreme Court are largely determined by who can outspend the other. Courts encourage this and, in fact, order it. Courts demand that family members help the less fortunate and if you are truly broke against a monied party (legally or illegally), forget it, you are done. Judges have absolutely no incentive to discourage this behavior and for unknown reasons they encourage it. The system is not fair

The only logical conclusion that I can derive is that this is a system completely set-up and controlled by the divorce industry. The system works against the tax payers it is supposed to serve and creates the high costs that have led to legislative paralysis. There are billions of dollars spent every year with no outside oversight of any piece of the divorce industry from judges to lawyers to 'experts'. In democracy one branch of government is supposed to check the other, however, when the legislative branch is unwilling to check the judicial branch and there are beaucoup bucks available with no regulation the party never stops. What this means for ordinary people is that once you are in the system you can't get out, you are trapped. Your only remedies lay within the system (i.e. appeals) and the system has set itself up against you. The current system creates massively complex and expensive processes that may be fine for reviewing commercial cases but are utterly ridiculous for family matters. A system that is entirely subjective in the beginning attempts to become entirely objective in the appeals process and the results are often disastrous.

The first step in fixing the system is in evaluating it's true costs and this is impossible today. Hence, the first step to fixing this problem is laws that require divorce professionals to report their billings as part of court record. The legislature should now how much each divorce costs the participants in legal fees, custody evaluations, financial evaluations and ancillary fees. We need a serious effort to enact laws that require such reporting because it is currently unavailable for any source.

The next step is to make custody evaluators register with NY State. Evaluators should be randomly assigned to cases by computer. New York State needs to adapt a standard of custody evaluations and mandate its usage so that there can be some objective review of the process. A peer review board must be set-up to review recommendations before they are submitted to the court. There should be public assistance available to parents in jeopardy of losing all access to their children. There should be laws that remove this extreme remedy except for the most extreme cases.

The next step is to update the Statement of Networth standards and require third party verification and make lying a crime. Even a verification process that costs thousands of dollars would be well worth it considering the ridiculous costs involved in legal discovery. The process is so arcane it is ridiculous. There is no computer entry of numbers, no cross-checking with easily available records like a credit report and zero use of technology in general. New York has applied civil case procedures to families and the results are disastrous for litigant with ridiculous amounts of lying and omissions. It is logically impossible fora judge to make an equitable decision with the current statements that are totally unverified.

No one reads this blog and I realize that it sounds like a rant but there are good, workable ideas in the rant.