Family Court Violence: Adversarial Divorce Kills Children and Families
Family Court is Deadly Business
In May we covered the story titled "Kernville man dies after stabbing in child-custody dispute" which discussed a "fight broke out at a home on the 200 block of Bodfish Canyon Road in Bodfish. Crystal Lee Parker, 29, lives at the home and had armed herself with a large knife after people arrived because of the child-custody dispute, according to the sheriff's office." The victim in this case was a man that died after the stabbing had occurred within the child-custody dispute.
Just yesterday another case of family court violence broke out on the campus of UCI in California and was covered by The OC Register and also covered by the updated article written by Lary Holland: Family Court is Deadly Business which tracks numerous occurrences of nationwide family court related violence. In the report a UC Irvine graduate student is accused of shooting his ex-wife to death outside on-campus housing Sunday night during a custody exchange of the couple's 4-year-old son, police announced this morning. The title of the article in the OC Register was UCI slaying suspect had been ordered to double child support which was determined better for the child than the father being able to finish his PhD in particle physics.
The adversarial process seems to be the most prevalent method of divorce, despite many peaceful or "less-adversarial" processes that are available, but not widely understood. For good reason, lawyers certainly make more money on the adversarial process and that seems to be what divorce is all about nowadays, who has the best lawyer.
The Wall Street Journal had a reasonable and well-thought opinion piece on the issue of divorce titled Separate Peace by Stephanie Coontz. In the article she went over the various avenues and costs for different divorce methods that are currently available. The most interesting aspect of the article is that an adversarial divorce is the worst or most expensive avenue to seek a divorce, but the one most pursued.
Hugh McIsaac, a retired director of Family Court Services in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., advises divorce attorneys to represent their clients' long-term interests, not their short-term anger. The average cost of a mediated divorce is less than $7,000 and of a collaborative divorce less than $20,000. This compares with nearly $27,000 for a divorce negotiated by rival lawyers and about $78,000 for a fully litigated divorce.
Just looking at the numbers, you can tell which process would drive a person to family court related violence, because many people are pushed to the hilt with debt and stress of the adversarial process.
If we can learn anything from the information shared today, it is that serious considerations need to be reviewed for possible reforms to limit the number of adversarial proceedings in the family court, divorce, and child custody type proceedings. If nothing else it will save parents, save children, and provide a safer outcome of all involved.
Published by Lary Holland
From a technological perspective, computers, networks, and internet technologies are like toys, easily mastered and completely understood. I am Host and Producer of the popular online talk show "Get Your Jus... View profile
- The New York Court System A look into the complex New York court system and the different levels or hierarchies. A description of each level from Family Court to the Court of Appeals.
- Divorce Attorneys: Helping or Hindering? Until we stop demanding that divorce attorneys are adversarial and on the attack then such a system will continue to cause the problems we witness in today's Family Court system.
- Collaborative Divorce Law 101 Overview of Collaborative Divorce Law
- Divorce with Minimum Pain and Anguish A new approach to divorce is Collaborative Law. Attorneys and clients work together to resolve support, custody, property and other issues, without making matters worse.
- Differences in Divorce Attorneys Different attorneys can cause your case to take different paths. This article explores some strategies that can be used to help select the divorce attorney that is right for each individual.
- Family Courts Are Deadly Business
- Alternative Dispute Resolution in Divorce
- Fathers and Child Custody
- Child Custody - An Overview
- How Joint Child Custody Changed My Life
- Child Custody Disputes: Integrity of Credible Witnesses Play a Key Role
- Flushing the Michigan Friend of the Court Out of Your Life
- The average cost of a mediated divorce is less than $7,000.
- The average cost of a collaborative divorce is less than $20,000.
- The average cost of a litigated/adversarial divorce is about $78,000.
8 Comments
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Bravo Lary for shining a light on an important topic. Both litigants and attorneys exploit every crack and loophole in an antiquated system -- all in the name of they adverserial system of justice. Sadly, this system is ill-equipped to deal with many 21st century family matters. It is surprising there isn't more of these heartbreaking situations.
Keep up the good work.
mike jeffries
Author, A Family's Heartbreak: A Parent's Introduction to Parental Alienation
Thanks Darrick. Some of the information that I have compiled over the years has resulted in many minor victories. I am convinced that we will win the moral high-ground over time. We have a ton of work to do.
Great job, keep up the informative postings and actions. Maybe more people can make the effort to reform the family court.
I think money is part of the problem in these cases as well as visitation and control issues. The courts and lawyers are making considerable profits off these because people are not fully aware of the alternatives, which includes the legislators. We need to push for reforms with legislators that show viable alternatives to all the conflict. That is more in line with the best interests of the child standard anyways. Thanks for the comments.
I am working on a case today where the mother and her lawyer are opposing mediation because they want the father to "first be required to pay what he has been ordered to pay to the petitioner and her counsel" before paying for a mediator to resolve the custody dispute and mother's failure to follow the guidelines and allow visitation. That's the sign of a truly concerned parent; I'd rather get money than try to arrange a peaceful resolution to my failure to comply with custody and visitation orders.
Thanks Mike, you are exactly right. People are dying because of this system and through lots of awareness and a new approach we can save many lives every year, not to mention a huge amount of taxpayer money! --Lary Holland
This hits the proverbial nail on the head. Love your children more than you hate your X. Bottom Line.