Louisiana Voice

If you are a parent who has never had to enter a family courtroom to do battle with an ex-spouse over the welfare of your children, you are indeed a lucky person.

If you are fortunate to never having been involved in a custody/visitation dispute, you:

• Have never encountered judicial favoritism based solely on who has which attorney;
• Have never been screamed at and/or threatened with jail time—especially when there are no witnesses;
• Have never experienced the use of status conferences as a means to intimidate and coerce you;
• Have never been told you must agree with the judge’s recommendations lest the results will be worse—or you’ve previously held in contempt of court, threatened with jail;
• Seen matters that are by law, supposed to be heard with days continued for months until you are forced to cave in and stipulate to draconian conditions;
• Seen the opposing attorney and not the judge control the pace of litigation;
• Seen an attorney who puts up a good fight suddenly be deemed disqualified, leaving you “lawyerless” at a critical juncture of proceedings;
• Experience certain lawyers appearing before a certain judge never seeming to lose a case;
• Been the subject of a smear campaign by the opposing litigant, not through evidence from the witness stand, but from letters, emails and in status conferences suggesting you are mentally unstable, in need of counseling or therapy or worse, that you are dangerous;
• Seen your case continued month after month with no actual hearing of real evidence;
• Closing the courtroom to isolate and intimidate without the presence of witnesses;
• Seen members of the “in-club” receive efficient (and favorable) service while others, particularly pro se litigants run out of options for representation and treated as pariahs;
• Been involved in a case where procedure is at the whim of he presiding family court judge rather than the Cde of Civil Procedure;
• Had economic leverage used against you through endless counselors, therapists and psychological evaluations;
• Found yourself subjected to the costs of multiple experts and the opposing parent’s attorney fees as yet another form of coercion;
• Experienced endless litigation that further drains your economic resources and which seem to enrich only the attorney;
• Have the court charge exorbitant fees for copies of transcripts ($6.50 per page in East Baton Rouge Parish Family Court, for example) when state statute says the maximum charge should be $1.50 per page.

Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jeff Hughes said in an EIGHT-PAGE LETTER last December that EBR Family Court was in dire need of reform, adding that a line had been crossed to actual favoritism. He said Family Court HAS BECOME A PLACE not where justice is administered, but a place where “it’s all about the money, not the best interest of the children.”

Retired First Circuit Curt of Appeal Judge James E. Kuhn, appointed by the State Supreme Court to “observe and collect data and information relative to the Family Court,” offered a somewhat different viewpoint in his 35-PAGE REPORT.

While acknowledging that family court was “strained, not broken,” he said judges are exercising proper discretion and that complaints belonged elsewhere.

For example, he said if a litigant believes a ruling is wrong, “the remedy is appeal.”

But Kuhn didn’t take into account that a “litigant” may have already spent his or her life savings in the lower court to no avail because of several factors listed in the foregoing bullet points and enumerated by Hughes.

STATE REP. KATHY EDMONSTON says to let in sunshine “or shut it down. She advocates installing cameras in family court, among other possible solutions.

LouisianaVoice got a dressing down of sorts from one attorney who defended Family Court and Judge Kuhn. But it turned out that attorney was the legal council for the State Supreme Court and was affiliated professionally with the Chief Justice, so we weren’t too bothered with that criticism.

Her admonishments notwithstanding, we’ve seen sufficient evidence to support claims of bias and heavy-handedness on the part of judges from Calcasieu to St. Tammany parishes.

There’s more than a little evident that judges in family court cases have much to answer for—and it’s even more evident it’s not going happen without a lot of pressure from the public.