Please sign the petition to Florida 11th Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Honorable Bertila Soto please pledge to Contact the Florida Courts - Demand Judge Manno-Schuerr's Recusal - Reinstatement of Timesharing -https://www.causes.com/campaigns/93161-stop-courts-denial...
How do you put a face on what it means to have an equal opportunity for access to civil justice? That's difficult -- but the Feb. 15 edition of The Florida Bar News attempts to do just that in their article, "Putting a human face on the civil legal access gap: Access Commission learns how the system is broken"
Look no further than the story of Miami's Maria Garcia, said Commission member and Third DCA Clerk of Court Mary Cay Blanks during a recent January Commission meeting. Garcia was fired from her job of 15 years, denied benefits and didn't know where to turn. When she visited Blanks' office to file an appeal, the attendant simply handed her forms and wasn't permitted -- by law -- to give her any legal advice. Unable to afford a lawyer, Ms. Garcia left feeling frustrated and unsure of what step to take next, as if the system had failed her.
That has to change, said Blanks.
“The challenge we face in my office is being able to assist them in a meaningful way without crossing that line of giving out too much information and worrying about the unauthorized practice of law,” Blanks told the Commission. “So we err on the side of giving less information because we don’t want to cross that line. The perception is that we’re unhelpful; it causes a lot of people leaving the office disgruntled, and feeling like they are not getting their day in court, or we’re not going to help them get their day in court.”
Read why and how that process soon will change: http://bit.ly/1uwFLMS
PARENTAL ALIENATION:
NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILDREN
SIGNS OF ALIENATION: 1. In Parents Below are the more common symptoms of parental alienation. Many of these behaviors will look familiar, because some alienation occurs in all divorces. Some symptoms may come as a surprise, because many don't think of the…Read More
Family law system broken, needs major changes
This Father's Day, and every day, all across America, there are children who are being denied access to their fathers, and most of these fathers were in their children's lives prior. People must awaken to the truth and the horrors of family law and see how…Read More
This Father's Day, and every day, all across America, there are children who are being denied access to their fathers, and most of these fathers were in their children's lives prior. People must awaken to the truth and the horrors of family law and see how…Read More
HOW DID CHILDREN OF DIVORCE GET STUCK WITH THE VISITATION PLAN THAT AFFORDS THEM ACCESS TO THEIR NON-RESIDENTIAL PARENT ONLY ONE NIGHT DURING THE WEEK AND EVERY OTHER WEEK-END?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the research that supports such a schedule? Where is the data that confirms that such a plan is in the best interest of the child?
Well, reader, you can spend your time from now until eternity researching the literature, and YOU WILL NOT DISCOVER ANY SUPPORTING DATA for the typical visitation arrangement with the non-residential parent! The reality is that this arrangement is based solely on custom. And just like the short story, "The Lottery," in which the prizewinner is stoned to death, the message is that deeds and judgments are frequently arrived at based on nothing more than habit, fantasy, prejudice, and yes, on "junk science."
This family therapist upholds the importance of both parents playing an active and substantial role in their children's lives----especially in situations when the parents are apart. In order to support the goal for each parent to provide a meaningfully and considerable involvement in the lives of their children, I affirm that the resolution to custody requires an arrangement for joint legal custody and physical custody that maximizes the time with the non-residential----with the optimal arrangement being 50-50, whenever practical. It is my professional opinion that the customary visitation arrangement for non-residential parents to visit every other weekend and one night during the week is not sufficient to maintain a consequential relationship with their children. Although I have heard matrimonial attorneys, children's attorneys, and judges assert that the child needs the consistency of the same residence, I deem this assumption to be nonsense. I cannot be convinced that the consistency with one's bed trumps consistency with a parent!
Should the reader question how such an arrangement can be judiciously implemented which maximizes the child's time---even in a 50-50 arrangement----with the non-residential parent, I direct the reader to the book, Mom's House, Dads House, by the Isolina Ricci, PhD.
Indeed, the research that we do have supports the serious consequences to children when the father, who is generally the non-residential parent, does not play a meaningful role in lives of his children. The book, Fatherneed, (2000) by Dr. Kyle Pruitt, summarizes the research at Yale University about the importance of fathers to their children. And another post on this page summarizes an extensive list of other research.
Children of divorce or separation of their parents previously had each parent 100% of the time and obviously cannot have the same arrangement subsequent to their parents' separation. But it makes no sense to this family therapist that the result of parental separation is that the child is accorded only 20% time with one parent and 80% with the other. What rational person could possibly justify this?
FLORIDA TODAY - OPINION
ReplyDeleteWritten by Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D., Miami
While I applaud columnist Paul Flemming for a sound review of the issues in Saturday’s “Alimony bill will be great — for lawyers,” his bottom-line conclusion is dead wrong.
The proposed state alimony reform bill will reduce litigation, not increase litigation. A bit of history: For years, the divorce vultures (a.k.a., the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar) have conned the Florida Legislature into writing divorce legislation that maximizes litigation and thus maximizes their income. In part, they have accomplished this by maximizing judicial discretion, which in practice means endless conflict and, of course, endless paid litigation.
No matter what they may say, the divorce vultures are interested only in one thing — maximizing their income.
I can irrefutably demonstrate this point with Flemming’s own words: “Thomas Duggar, an attorney in Tallahassee and a member of the Florida Bar’s Family Law Section, said last week at a Tallahassee Bar Association meeting that the section has a $100,000 war chest to sway public opinion against the legislation.”
Do your readers honestly believe they are spending all this money so they will lose income? The divorce vultures get the message in terms of what alimony reform will cost them — and save the children, fathers and mothers of divorce. I regret Mr. Flemming did not do the same.
Full Disclosure: I am an alimony-paying divorced father of two young adult daughters and retired university divorce researcher with multiple research and scholarly publications on this topic.