It’s All About People

BY RICHARD GUILFORD, JD Family law is an umbrella concept that encompasses a large array of discrete areas in which practitioners work. It includes divorce, child custody, child advocacy, juvenile law, tax, property, corporate, and criminal law. A set of skill packages, including litigation, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, collaborative law and counseling, is also part of the family law practitioner’s toolbox. For this collection of law and skill to work in the real world, a healthy grounding in psychology and sociology is recommended for the practitioner in this demanding field of practice. “Substantive law is 50 percent of the job, and the other 50 percent is counseling and working with the client and family,” says Richard S. Victor, ’75, a highly visible and honored practitioner in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Richard S. Victor Victor practices with his son Daniel. They handle complex divorce cases, such as those requiring litigation and extensive property valuation issues. Victor handles trial work, and points with pride to his son’s capacity to resolve difficult custody issues using techniques of negotiation. Victor’s conversation suggests his passion is broader than practice itself. He has a lot of the teacher about him. That passion has led him to the top chairs of professional organizations in the field, in Michigan and nationally.Victor established CLE seminar work in family law back in 1985 and has trained thousands of lawyers over the years. He was chair of the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan in 1990-1991. He also has received the Bar’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. “A crowning achievement for Richard Victor, personally and professionally, is the Grandparents’ Rights Organization, which he founded and leads.” Presently, Victor is chair of the Michigan chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. The AAML is a national organization of matrimonial law practitioners, admission to which requires careful screening for knowledge, reputation and character. The Academy has a national reputation for promoting protection of children involved in a divorce by helping parents develop a greater understanding of the effects of the process on children. The organization’s brochure, Stepping Back From Anger, is widely used in this effort. (For additional information, visit www.aaml.org/stepping.htm.) “Family law is not for everyone,” Victor tells his students. Trained as a teacher as well as an attorney, Victor has served as a guest lecturer at MSU-DCL, Wayne State University and the University of Detroit. In family law, the goals and practical orientation for a practitioner are different from other fields: “We have an ability to affect generations in our work,” he says, “not just fix a problem for the moment...” “There is a great deal of immaturity among people who are in the middle of a divorce. There is generally a component of ‘gotcha,’ in which parents in a divorce case play ‘oneupsmanship,’ focused on winning or losing. Clients will say, ‘Win at all costs,’ or ‘That’s what I hired you for, to win.’ I can talk myself blue in the face to try to get around that, but it’s a losing proposition.” A crowning achievement for Richard Victor, personally and professionally, is the Grandparents’ Rights Organization, which he founded and leads. The GRO is an extension of the first work Victor handled in family law. As a young associate in a personal injury firm, he took on, pro bono, an appeal of a circuit court refusal to order visitation for a grandmother whose daughter died, leaving a grandchild. The child’s father was not cooperative about visitation. The result on appeal was to change Michigan law, to recognize the legal right of a child to have access to grandparents. That act of volunteer work resulted also in a happy change of venue and career for Victor. A Michigan Supreme Court decision subsequently reversed some of the gains made through case law. But today, Victor is leading a drive to change Michigan statute—a change strongly supported in the legislature—expressly to recognize a child's right of access to grandparents. According to Victor, in order to practice in family law (known widely also as matrimonial law or domestic relations), a lawyer must address a range of issues that relate to the death of a marriage, such as the grieving process, as well as the property issues peculiar to each case. In addition, the practitioner must deal creatively and compassionately with interpersonal relationships between client and spouse, between the couple and their children, and among extended family members. Kathleen C. King Kathleen C. King, ’74, is a magistrate in the Hamilton County (Cincinnati, Ohio) Domestic Relations Court. She has been on the bench for more than 20 years and in that time, has observed many changes in divorce law, in the demographics of divorce and in the behavior of practitioners in the field. Her specialized court handles only divorce, child custody and domestic violence matters. As a trial magistrate, King hears, and issues decisions on, all pre-trial motions, post-trial motions and property trials. She also hears contempt proceedings (mostly child-support related), and imposes sentences. The judges hold final “merits” hearings, make decisions on permanent custody, and issue final orders. In addition, they rule on objections to the magistrates’ decisions. King’s court has 13 magistrates, eight of whom are designated as “property” judges. King is one of the eight assigned to try cases where property issues are in dispute. The remaining five magistrates handle primarily contempt and domestic violence matters. “I love my work,” says King. She recalls her first years out of law school: “I wanted to do criminal defense work when I started, and did so in private practice and as a public defender.” Then she was exposed to domestic relations as acting director of a clinical program at Chase College of Law. “Criminal defense work is very intense, particularly when you’re in trial,” King says. “It’s hard on the family.” The chance came along for appointment to the bench, and she opted for the Domestic Relations Court. She finds it a very good place to be. But times have changed the nature of the work. When she first assumed the bench more than 20 years ago, people fought over everything. Then about 15 years ago, attorneys began to receive training in mediation and collaborative law. These changes benefit everyone, King believes. “The attorneys now try harder to work things out,” says King. “More disputes are handled without litigation. While some attorneys have a hard time being respectful and courteous in court, most are now very professional.” Collaboration in the domestic relations context is a contractual process. Both clients and both attorneys sign an agreement that binds them to total, open discovery and to working honestly and above board to reach agreement. If agreement is not reached, the collaborating attorneys do not represent the parties going forward; trial attorneys come in to finish up the case. An unanticipated and much appreciated effect of this collaboration process is that the cooperative attitude on the part of lawyers spills over into regular cases, where a greater degree of cooperation is observed. “People all agree that they want justice from the court,” says King. “Unfortunately, everyone has a different view of what justice is. That is what leads to litigation.” The processes of mediation, arbitration and collaboration aim toward forging an agreement between parties. “MSU-DCL is a great law school,” King offers. She notes that it presents the necessary package of substantive law areas and skills that practitioners need for domestic relations. “But some things have to wait for practice,” she suggests. Echoing the thoughts of Richard Victor, she says, “This field is not for everyone. People who tend to get involved in other people’s lives emotionally should stay away. Attorneys who are unable to compromise, who are ‘either/or’ negotiators, should also probably find a different field of practice.” The Hamilton County Domestic Relations Court mandates a parent-education class for all people who come to the court for relief. The program has been in effect since 1999, and the outcome is positive, according to King. “The class helps parents refocus on the impact divorce has on kids and helps parents to decide not to use kids as part of their litigation strategies.” The process also helps parents and children get in touch with organizations and support groups that help kids. Some fathers’ rights groups in Ohio are presently seeking statutory support for 50-percent time-sharing of children between parents, according to King. However, mental health authorities caution that this is harmful to many, especially younger children and those with organizational difficulties and transition problems. “People in the middle of divorce are so pained, they have difficulty focusing on anyone else but themselves,” says King, who has seen thousands of such situations. Addressing this pain of the parents, which inevitably harms children and causes so much conflict and violence in the divorce process, is a major preoccupation of practitioners and the courts. Roger A. Golston Rodger A. Golston, ’68, of Golston, Keister & Steen, is a widely experienced attorney in Tempe, Arizona. Golston has covered all of the bases in his 35-year career, and for the last 20 years, his practice has included a large component of family law. Right out of DCL, Golston went to Arizona to work as a bailiff for a judge. He then went on to the Public Defender’s Office and practiced for several years in criminal defense and juvenile law. Then he jumped the fence to become administrative deputy county attorney, and was in charge of all prosecutors in the county. Later, he completed the metamorphosis when he was appointed chief judge of the Phoenix Municipal Courts. After a few years on the bench, he returned to the County Attorney’s Office as chief deputy. In 1980, after an election shake-up, he went into private practice where he remains today. Golston also has taught at Arizona State University and at the National College of the State Judiciary at the University of Nevada-Reno. Arizona practice and procedures in family law are similar to those described by Victor and King in Michigan and Ohio. A family-education class that seeks to foster cooperation is mandatory for divorcing couples—although Golston is not convinced of its efficacy. “There is a great deal of immaturity among people who are in the middle of a divorce,” he says. “There is generally a component of ‘gotcha,’ in which parents play ‘oneupmanship,’ focused on winning or losing. Clients will say, ‘Win at all costs,’ or ‘That’s what I hired you for, to win.’ I can talk myself blue in the face to try to get around that, but it’s a losing proposition.” On request of either party, mediation is provided at no cost by pro tempore judges who have at least five years of experience on the bench. They advise competing parties how they would rule, or how they expect their colleagues to rule, on matters in dispute. The trouble with such a procedure is that mediation comes too late in the process, Golston thinks, coming only after one of the parties has formally requested setting the case for trial. By that time, positions of the parties have hardened. A refusal to participate, or the taking of an unreasonable position on any matter in dispute, may result in shifting of attorneys’ fees at the court’s discretion. “And mediation doesn’t seem to work for custody issues as it does for property matters,” says Golston. In addition, custody issues are so closely scrutinized that judges have become gun-shy, and have a tendency to leave custody decisions to mental health professionals. Getting a decision out of these very busy people is most difficult, resulting in long delays. In Arizona, too, the final divorce order names a psychologist or a lawyer as post-judgment arbiter of disputes over anything having to do with parenting. However, even the arbiters become bogged down, and this process may not result in decisions that are any quicker than those provided by judges. “The perception of the public favors courts to make important decisions,” Golston reflects. Experience suggests that litigants respond better to adverse decisions from judges than to the range of experts, such as real estate brokers employed by courts to lighten the load. “If I were starting college all over again, with a view to doing what I’m doing now,” Golston says, “I’d take a class in psychology, or several; I’d study the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which is used [in Arizona] to evaluate parents in custody cases.” Golston agrees with Victor and King that family law practice is not suitable for every practitioner: “It is difficult work to talk with people whose child may have been molested; to take calls on nights or weekends. It’s just difficult to work with people in stress, and people in the middle of divorce have about as much stress as you can have.” His many years of experience on all sides of the bar and bench have led Golston to an important insight that echoes statements by Victor and King: “One of the most important things I’ve ever learned in divorce and custody cases is that emotions between people, and love, are very important, but when you get right down to it, all of these cases have to do with control. When you finally realize that, it puts you in control of the case. Had I studied psychology, I might have known that a long time ago. But that is key to everything—understanding that it is control, not love or loss of affection. I have represented doctors, people who are used to being in control of everything, who have a very, very difficult time when, for the first time in their lives, in a divorce setting, they have no control over their life. Understanding that what people are going through is a loss of control, is helpful.” “…emotions between people, and love, are very important, but when you get right down to it, all of these cases have to do with control. When you finally realize that, it puts you in control of the case…”