The recent collaboration between the Connecticut Judicial Branch and the Connecticut Bar Association [CBA] Family Law Section might appear to hold promise. But there is tension between family law attorneys and judges in CT.
The issue is the recently enacted Pathways docket, a new process for managing divorces and custody cases.
Administrative Judge Michael A. Albis, and Chief Court Administrator Elizabeth A. Bozzuto are involved in discussions, and attorney Alexander Cuda appears to be at the forefront on behalf of family law attorneys.
Alexander Cuda attorney
The issue lies with how sneaky Connecticut courts transitioned to Pathways to make life easier for judges, without considering how it might not enhance the pathway to profits for family law attorneys.
Before Pathways was implemented, divorce case motions were heard within three weeks after filing. This meant multiple court appearances and gravy billings for lawyers, but judges were compelled to appear and act often as nothing more than an authority figure as attorneys showed off to clients, stoked conflict between spouses, and made the poor judge listen to hours of bullshit when the judge and the attorneys knew in advance what the ruling would be before they appeared at Court.
The new Pathways process consolidates multiple motions on one hearing date to allow the judge to turn a half dozen hearing dates into one court date.
But attorneys now bill only one, instead of billing for a half dozen court appearances.
In family law, lawyers for both sides usually decide the essential issues, often collaborating secretly to maximize billings. They get the Court to appoint a GAL to help rake the dollars in if the family has money. The GAL collaborates with the lawyers, then tells the Court to assign a custody evaluator, who the GAL instructs on what to write in her custody report, with custody depending on what will bring in the most billings.
The notorious DR. Jessica Biren-Caverly, who determines custody based on the GAL’s instructions.
For their convenience, the resolution plan date of Pathways is no longer in front of them. Instead, there is a middleman – a family relations counselor, an employee of the Court, whose job is to examine what is best for the judges.
The family law attorneys want the counselors to do what the judges always did – review the case to identify:
The kind of help needed to prolong the case as long as there is money.
Areas where the spouses agree, and how to support the lawyers plan to get them to disagree and fan flames of conflict.
How to prevent reaching a final agreement on any disputed issue until the money runs out.
With Pathways, the Family Relations Counselor listens to the family law attorneys on the status of the case, then recommends to the Court the level of court services needed.
Based on the recommendations of the Family Relations Counselor, the Court places the case on one of three tracks:
Track A — for divorces that require little court time and resources – for those without little money. They settle these fast with no-nonsense rulings and give paupers the bums’ rush.
Track B — for divorces that require moderate court resources and time – for those with moderate amounts of money. These cases are bread and butter for rank-and-file family law attorneys, and sometimes pay decent when government funds may be tapped if the rulings go a certain way.
Track C — for divorces that require a lot of court time for spouses with a lot of money. Couples with more money than brains will see their wealth transferred over several years to their lawyers and other professionals. This is especially good for well-to-do pedophiles and abusers who want their kids, for men who want to avoid alimony and child support and are willing to steal the marital assets, and mothers with money who want to oust the father, take his earnings and hang him to the wall. The seriously deranged, the high-strung, the frightened, and if they are none of these, then the lawyers will create it by instilling such fear and threats stoked in collaboration from the opposing attorney that war and a breakdown are inevitable. Then, they will get the Court to appoint therapists to prove and bolster it.
But Pathways was not designed for lawyers. Judges designed it because they don’t get paid more regardless of how many hearings they hold to reinforce needs of rapacious attorneys.
The judges make a salary of $189,483 and don’t get overtime or combat pay, along with incessant demands and blatant lies, because attorneys who make two or three times than what the judges make want to bilk more from warring spouses and prolong the case as long as they can to transfer their clients’ net worth to themselves.
The irony is that as soon as these lawyers bankrupt their clients, the judges they told to prolong the case are now expected to hurry up and settle it.
The Pathway system could still help spouses fight until they can’t pay anymore, or when one is defeated or dead, and help win or lose in long, drawn-out, complex issues like child custody, spousal support, and the division of major assets, which intelligent people should be wise enough to settle without giving half of their assets to family law attorneys.
To protect their turf, the CBA Family Law Section submitted proposed changes to Pathway. Review and discussions are underway. But it needs adjustment. From the attorneys’ perspective, just because judges do not enjoy, for instance, taking kids away from stay-at-home mothers on bogus claims of parental alienation to hand to an affluent pedophile – that doesn’t mean the judges should make it harder for the attorneys to bill the pedophiles for the work they have to do.
The attorneys need to tweak Pathways. Compromise may yet make it perfect for judges and attorneys alike. But this ongoing negotiation demonstrates the Connecticut Bar Association’s influence through lobbying, political donations, and judicial ratings. This influence extends to the governor’s selection of judges, legislative appointments, and reappointments of judges every seven years.
This influence is not small for a judge who plans to be a lifer.
Judge Gerard Adelman at his reappointment hearing. He had to convince legislators that all the children he sold were sold in the interest of justice.
Because of the angst felt by family law attorneys concerned about paydays, who expressed displeasure with Pathways, the hint is that those most responsible in the judiciary for not making the Pathways system fun for lawyers may find it rough going when reappointment time comes.
As Alexander Cuda might say, what goes around comes around.
