Thanks to:
William Kirkendale, President
UNITED PARENTS OF AMERICA
Los Angeles California
Mailing address:
31441 Santa Margarita Parkway, Suite A-184
Rancho Santa Margarita, California, 92688
Phone: (949)-766-0700
TRABOOSE@aol.com
for the following.
Judge Richard A. Curtis, Los Angeles Superior Court, wrote recently:
Divorce is a process -- a growing and learning process. When people come to court in the early stages of their divorce they have no knowledge or training about how to go through it unless they have been divorced before. I view my role as judge as not being merely a decider of disputes but as being an educator as well. If I can help divorcing couples get through the divorce process, both legally and emotionally, while avoiding the traps and pitfalls in which I have seen others before them become ensnared, then I consider myself to be fulfilling my role.
On the mornings when new divorce cases come to court I spend about a half hour before cases are called talking to the audience about the process, describing how decisions are made, telling them about Conciliation Court and the importance of going to the mediator with the attitude that they will be able to agree on arrangements for their children rather than brushing off the process and running back to the courtroom to knock heads with each other. I show them examples of other people's case files ranging from thin, inexpensively settled cases to massive, multi-volume contested cases generating attorney fees exceeding $100,000. I ask them to think about whether they would rather spend their money creating that kind of case file or on sending their children to college.
I recognize that they are often bitter, but always in emotional turmoil, worried, nervous, and scared -- both about the court process and about their vision of the future for both themselves and their children. Therefore, I make available to them a reading list I have created containing reviews of a wide variety of books on many topics of interest to divorcing couples. I encourage them to read some cf the books in order to use the divorce process to grow as a person. Among the books I recommend to them are the magnificent Vicky Lansky's Divorce Book for Parents (Signet (l989]) and to help their children with their fears and worries Dinosaurs Divorce (Little, Brown (l986) and Richard Gardner's Boys and Girls Book about Divorce (Bantam (l97O]). A substantial portion of the reading list presents books which are designed to get people to think about their lives.
One very valuable book suggests that we solve life's problems by picking up a mirror with which to examine deeply our own behavior and values and to make positive changes in the only person we can change (ourselves) instead of picking up a magnifying glass with which to 5elf-righteously examine the other person's behavior in order to blame and accuse and to have a "bad object" upon whom to project all of the negative things within our own personalities which we refuse to recognize and come to terms with.
Among the things which I have learned in my years on the bench is that not only is the parties' emotional and legal divorce a process, but so is the creation of appropriate custodial arrangements for the children. It is rarely productive to try to make permanent custody decisions early in the divorce process when the parents and children are at the height of their emotional imbalance -- which is what the proponents of this bill would have us do by rote formula. Custody determinations seem to be best worked out over time as the parents and children settle down and regain stability.
Successful post-separation parenting is an education process as well. We attempt to educate people that the family exists after separation and that it is being transformed into a new shape which still has the same people in different locations and with the possibility of adding more members. That education process into successful post-separation parenting is assisted tremendously by the existing body of California statutory and decisional law which is child-centered and emphasizes frequent and continuing contact with both parents, free access to information about the child, and shared parenting responsibilities.
The proposed bills threaten to seriously disrupt that established body of law -- unnecessarily in my view -- and to make it far more difficult to obtain cooperative parenting from people in the future. WHAT WE HAVE DONE IN THE EAST DISTRICT
I have presided over a domestic relations department in the East District of the Los Angeles County Superior Court (Pomona) since 1986. The East District consistently has the highest or second highest number of domestic filings of all the county branch courts (5,206 for fiscal year 1991-1992, more than many California counties), but our dispositions always meet our filings. We have no backlog. The reason we have no backlog is not because the public is shuttled through the system like cattle, but because we have succeeded, through the educational process I spoke of above, in changing people's expectations and motivations from litigation to settlement. I very clearly set forth for the public my expectation that the majority of them will settle their cases, for their benefit not mine, and the majority of them live up to that expectation.
As a result our local family bar has been transformed from fighting tooth and nail with each other to one with great collegiality and cooperation. They are comfortable with representing their clients' best interests but viewing those best interests to be served better by joint resolution than by exposing their clients to the hazards, pain and expense of litigation. Members of the Family Law bar from a wide geographical area surrounding our courthouse (including practitioners from three counties) take turns as volunteer mediators at our mandatory settlement conferences which frees up the commissioners' time to hear cases which must be litigated.
A smaller but very dedicated group of local Family Law attorneys serve on a panel from which the court appoints attorneys to represent children under Civil Code section 4606 in contested custody matters. Their services are invaluable in assisting the court to fulfill its duty to protect the best interests of the children who come before it. They seek the advice of, and if necessary the appointment of, psychologists to assist them in understanding the children's special needs in complex cases.
The attorneys are usually able to help the parents come to an understanding of their children's needs and the best ways of meeting those needs through cooperative post-separation parenting, heading off many an incipient custody battle with just a brief court appearance or two. They thereby save the parents thousands of dollars of attorney fees and costs and save both the parents and the children the emotional pain and turmoil of a prolonged custody battle. If, however, the parents insist on going forward with a custody battle, the children are represented in it and have someone to shield them from the fallout of the conflict. These attorneys are sometimes paid at their regular rate when the parents can afford it, but quite frequently they serve at reduced rates and sometimes serve pro bono.
The Family Law bench, bar, and clerk's office are currently cooperating with two local battered women's shelters and other community organizations to set up a domestic violence clinic within the courthouse where victims can go for immediate assistance in obtaining restraining orders.
The atmosphere which we have succeeded in creating in our courthouse is threatened to be upset, as it will in all California, if these bills are passed.