Another Roll Call

Hugh[00:00:00] I was blown away when we were talking to the attorneys, , overwhelmingly. I heard thank you for saying what we're thinking and what everyone else always says, but doesn't say publicly. I was expecting a lot more backlash.

ChristineAll right. We were in court yesterday, Monday at 11 o'clock. Let's talk about it.

HughYeah. What a big change,

Christineright?

HughYeah. I mean, it was kind of expected, at Circuit Court and for the most part, family court, full house. Yeah. District court, one floor was quite busy, the other two were empty. That was a little strange. But

ChristineI think per usual, and like we've talked about before, I really think district court is just set up to be like that. But for reference, we had a little more than 70% of the elected judges that make six figure salaries in their courtrooms at 11:00 AM on a Monday.

HughYep.

ChristineWhich to us is like, yay. But you know, generally speaking, think about if you [00:01:00] went to Ford on the line and 70% of the paid employees were there, how would you feel about that?

HughOh, that's true. There were some that didn't have a docket this week and it was,

ChristineI think there was one, one actually, which is interesting. , It was division 10, Derwin Webb. He said, no docket, but remember the last time we recorded his, , court calendar said no docket. So that's something to maybe follow. Hypothetically. It could be a coincidence. I'm not here to make assumptions, just asking questions.

HughYep.

ChristineBut we did see two more people, , in the courts, and we saw quite a few attorneys over in family court.

HughIt was much busier. Yeah. It looked like how I remembered it from back in the day.

ChristineDid you see any friends or foes in , family court?

HughOf

Christinecourse, of course.

HughActually it was great. Ran into some people that I hadn't seen in a long time.

ChristineThe attorneys, I mean, for the most part, I try to, when I'm going to court, not really interact because I'm talking to so many of 'em. I never wanna make them feel a certain kind of way if I am talking to 'em or I'm not talking to 'em because it's already a [00:02:00] stressful situation being in front of, you know, those judges. And we did have a lot of, , I saw at least two or three Gs or FOCs and so, you know, they're gonna go back and tell the judge if any attorney talked to us.

HughRight. I would fully expect it, but I, I was blown away when we were talking to the attorneys, , overwhelmingly. I heard that. Thank you for saying what we're thinking and what everyone else always says, but doesn't say publicly. And , I was expecting a lot more backlash. I mean, certainly , there's been some very critical comments online. Mm-hmm. And that's going to happen. But amazingly, people were going out of their way to tell us, , in person at the courthouse that they were glad that we were doing what we were doing. And some people said that things were worse than they had ever been in their entire, , career. Career. And we're talking about people that had practiced for decades. Yep. So,

Christine, And I think too, a lot of people thought maybe we were media. I remember on the elevator they were like, are we media? And we are, we are [00:03:00] media. We're, we're telling the stories. You know,

Hughthat was funny. It was overheard an attorney and their client standing there, , in the elevator and we were discussing where, where we were going to go next and what we were looking for. And. I overheard the attorney whisper to her client. Oh, they're media.

ChristineOh, I know. And those are public defenders? , I'm not sure. Are you familiar with the changeover that happened with DPA and DPAs, the Department of Public Advocacy? , That's where I worked as a public defender in the counties. But are you aware that they took over Louisville Public Defender's Office?

HughNo.

ChristineOkay. So this was a major thing. Wow. Wow. So for many, many, many years, the Louisville Public Defender's Office was separate from the Department of Public Advocacy.

HughFamously Good.

ChristineThe Louisville Public Defender's Office. Yes. Known

Hughthroughout the country as being good.

ChristineWell, yes. I mean, that's certainly how the higher up spun it. Now, I, , worked with Damon Preston, who's the head of Department of Public Advocacy, and I get so many dms. Everybody wants me to [00:04:00] spill the T on DPA and I will, but not today. We'll get, we'll leave you hooked for there. But, , the Louisville public defenders in Louisville actually tried to unionize. , And the higher ups w wouldn't agree to it, which is again, to me, the irony that they are so quote unquote progressive. , But they fought tooth and nail. This happened during the pandemic. I'm like, y'all, Hugh, did you read a newspaper? Did you read a local newspaper in 2020 to 2022?

HughSure. Yeah, I did.

ChristineNo, I'm just kidding. It was like all the local, I'm really into like the local attorney gossip and I'm,

HughI am, I'm, I read international as much as possible during the pandemic. I read a lot of national news, but I have, I've moved from, so , I've lived in so many different towns that I, I just no longer get into the hyper-local stuff.

ChristineI know you're always trying to talk to me about like, , national politics and I've literally put blinders on and I'm just like, only thing I care about is local politics and state politics. 'cause I think that's what affects, I mean, it's a great conversation, but, so I digress and it was [00:05:00] a major thing and as far as the Louisville Public Defender's Office wanting to unionize. And so what ended up happening was DPA, they made an agreement for DPA to take over and now, like I said, Damon Preston, , he went to Harvard and I went to school in. , Boston interned as a public defender in Roxbury and Dorchester. And I interviewed with Damon and I'll never forget at the interview, , he went, so he was on the red line, if you're familiar with Boston and the T and he did not know what the orange line was, and that's how you get to, I lived in the North end so I could take it into Haymarket, but he did not know where Dorchester and Roxbury were. And this is now the head of the Department of Public Advocacy. So y'all do without what you will. , But while I was there, they got a grant. And did you know that public defenders are required to keep time sheets?

HughNo, I didn't know that.

Christine, Which, that was a huge change right as I was leaving and they got like a couple million dollar grant or something like that [00:06:00] from the legislature. So now public defenders with their heavy caseloads are required to keep time sheets.

HughAnd for those that aren't familiar, it, that is one of the hardest things to train an attorney to do. We have, , in my prior firm when we hired people from roles where they didn't have to keep time sheets, , if they were coming from contingency fee or flat fee work, that was the hardest thing to train someone to do. And that's because it changes your entire workflow. It adds, it adds time into every single thing that you do. Mm-hmm. And , it personally, one of the most difficult things that I had to do, and there were times where I would just get very bad at it. Same. And then have to completely, you know, reset and start, you know, finding ways to, to get back in the habit and , do a better job of it. Why were they having to keep track of those hours?

ChristineBecause it's all bureaucratic and they were trying to justify more money. Now, [00:07:00] if you were to go out and poll the public ask the question, do public defenders work hard or are public defenders necessary for the system? You're gonna have unanimous bipartisan support for that, you know? Sure, absolutely. , And I think it was just, you know, this is where I go down my rabbit hole of the bureaucracies, destroyed all systems, but the only thing that Damon cares about is making a social media post that you know, hey, I care about people and going to the legislature and, you know, probably going out afterwards with people in Frankfort for, I don't even know if he has a happy hour, but maybe, probably afternoon tea or something like that. Hmm. But now you just talked about contingency fees. What are the fee structures? And I know you have a very strong opinion on how lawyers, what we could do to change the family law system with hourly rates.

HughYeah, so I, I spent by 20 years in family law, , doing hourly work and running a firm that had armies of. Staff and, and quite a few attorneys all billing hourly, and the entire model was built on the billable hour. And [00:08:00] from a business point of view, it made sense. It was sort of what we were trained to think about in law school and then in internships and then coming out. And that's, that's how it worked, unfortunately. I, I would say that of all of the pain points for clients outside of what they were going through mm-hmm. Naturally in the, in a family court action, the billing was the biggest. Yep. The fact that you call to ask about a simple update or a date, you could billed a minimum time entry. Mm-hmm. And there's a billable rate to it. And clients would, , regularly ask, oh, I just called in to get one little piece of information, am I gonna get billed for it? Because that billable rate. Would be anywhere between $150 and $900 an hour.

ChristineYeah.

HughAnd if you're billing a 10th of an hour, I mean, your minimum bill's gonna be 15, 25 bucks just , for making a phone call in.

ChristineYeah. And so lawyers, , that are on an hourly [00:09:00] rate, we bill in six minute increments. There are very, very few jurisdictions that still allow the 15 minute billable increment. And so, for example, it's really bizarre. Like I could tell you without looking at our recording where we are as far as in this podcast, we're at a 0.2, right? So that means that we have talked more, it's ingrained for more than six minutes, but it is soul crushing to flip over from the notion of billable hours to just literally doing your job, you know?

HughYeah. And then by 0.2, what she means is like, as soon as we hit six minutes , it goes from 0.1 to 0.2. So six and a half minutes is a 0.2, six and a half minutes, all the way up to 13 minutes, which I mean.

ChristineYeah.

HughThere, there has to be a logical, in, in the world of hourly billing, there has to be a logical breakdown of how you break that hour down in breaking it down in 10th increments. Makes sense. But it's still, when you think about it mm-hmm. You go one second over, you have a timer running. It's gonna be a [00:10:00] 0.2. Yeah. , And most attorneys that are doing it don't have a lot of control over it. Especially in, in, I mean, if you're a solo practitioner, you control it. But if you're an employee , at a firm, you have to keep it, and it's not discretionary. So, you know, when I spoke to my clients about any billable entries when I was practicing and, you know, would get to hear about how an attorney billed this or an attorney billed that, I say, well, they have to, that's their job. I make them do it. I will, I will make adjustments , for my clients and all but. , My staff is required to bill for every single bit of it, and they keep timers and the phone has a timer on it. , And it is just all it. Your phone had a timer on it. Well, the, yeah. Everything we did had timers on it. See, that's the, it capturing the time. Once you get to, you get to 40 or 50 people. Yeah. And everyone's billing hourly. , It just compounds. Missed, missed bill, you know, billables.

ChristineThousands of hours. I mean, dollars. Yeah. Yeah.

HughThousands of, oh yeah. Tens of thousands. Yeah. At least. And so my biggest gripe about it, aside [00:11:00] from the appearance for the legal industry of nickel and diming, is from a business point of view, it incentivizes inefficiency. Yep. That's my biggest gripe is that attorneys are generally not a very innovative, , bunch. And part of it is regulation. We are regulation regulated in such a way that adopting new technologies is difficult. But as a business model, you know, as long as you are billing per hour, what is the incentive to do things much more quickly and to have routine tasks be automated and, you know, spend the attorney billable time, the, that, the higher billable rate on only the very important things. There's no incentive to do that because you make less money

Christineother than just being a morally. , Good person. But yes, that is one of the big problems. So there's three types of fee structures. You got contingency fees, and think of [00:12:00] that, like personal injury stuff. Everything you see on commercial, I get 33% of your settlement. I get nothing. If you get nothing, then you have flat rate, which is how the criminal world works, and that'll be all right. You gotta DUI, it's $5,000 and then you can bifurcate in, criminal and most people do it where it's $5,000 and if it goes to trial, there's a trial fee of $5,000. Sure. And then for us. , Monsters in family court and insurance defense. It is hourly rate. Now, what are your thoughts? And I agree, the hourly, the billable rate is one, it's hell on earth for attorneys. Okay. It

Hughreally is.

Christine, It's like you, you could have a mental breakdown just thinking about like having to keep track of it or all the time. I didn't keep track of it when I was solo.

HughHow many times did you, while you were falling asleep or in the middle of the night wake up and worry about, oh, did I put Uhhuh the time in? Did I record this? And you can't go to sleep till you get up and check. Yep. And by that time, you, you're awake and it happened. All the time because it was so critical. And when you're a solo practitioner, it's life or [00:13:00] death.

ChristineWell, and then the other thing too, on the flip side of this, like, you know, you think, oh, you could be nice and not make an entry. Okay. But then if the client were to get mad and complain and you didn't keep track of your time, oh yeah. There's no record that you kept track of your time and the bar association's gonna be like, you said you worked, but you didn't bill them. So it's really a system that's designed to kind of keep everyone like fearful and scared, you know, always on the defense. I guess I'd say

Hughone of the things that I did like about it, and that, that's an excellent point, we would train people to be super detailed in their time entries. Mm-hmm. Number one, it looked professional. , When people were paying us the big bucks, they deserved to know exactly what work was done. So if we had, if there was a phone call, it said what the phone call was. Later in discovery, if we had to disclose our fees, it created a nightmare for us to go in and redact all of that. But that, , that's a different issue. I loved the fact that it was very detailed. If somebody complained about something or we filed a [00:14:00] motion for attorney's fees and we were asked to justify , the other attorney would say, oh, there's no way that amount of billing was done for this specific motion. We could detail it exact, we could redact out anything that would be privileged, but detail every single thing that we did, it protected us. It, it allowed me as a supervising attorney and sort of a mentor for people on my team to go back through and see what had been done so we could discuss it later. And, yep, you develop, you know, how attorneys practice their cases. It had huge benefits internally for. Me , as a, as someone , that managed other people and worried about, you know, the liability li of the firm

Christineliability. Mm-hmm.

HughIt was fantastic.

ChristineWell, and so what that means is like if you get a phone, like ring, ring, ring, hello, and then you would do the billable entry. It's like client called, discussed the fact that significant other, , violated the court order three times, but the violations were very minimal. You know, I told them, explained to them what contempt was, but I also explained that the judge likely wouldn't do [00:15:00] anything with these minor violations. We'll make a note of it client, but I tell the client, you obviously have the option to file contempt if you want, and then make a note of that. So in six months when the client's like you didn't file the contempt motion, you've got that entry. Hey, this is what I said.

HughYeah. We had a conversation, it was on this date, it was exactly this many minutes. Mm-hmm. And here are the things that we discussed. So not only did we talk about it, but I advised you against it because A, B and C. Yep. And boy, that really comes in handy. But , we carried it on to. Administrative tasks and things like that. Like for instance, with billing, it was phenomenal when you had all of the entries of every communication you had regarding billing or your billing department had with the client. So someone's could say, oh, I never knew about this bill. That's not true. Yeah. We talked about it on three different occasions and on, and then people wouldn't say much after that. Oh yeah. Because they saw that you had had the records of it. So. Those things are fantastic,

Christinebut also just think about it for listeners, and again, we are never gonna say that we are, quote unquote, the victims of family court, but just you could see the [00:16:00] psychosis that can come with the obsession of having to, one, do your job in these emotional standpoints, and then two, try to protect yourself from liability. And then three, just constantly be like verbatim writing down everything that you're doing all day every day. Now there are downsize sides and positive sides to flat rate models. I am a proponent of flat rate models. , Although I understand that there's pitfalls, you know, and I think that's something that we should talk about. , The biggest pitfall to me is like to hire you for a flat rate divorce with two kids, that you get, the gut feeling is gonna be pretty amicable, but you're gonna have to do a little discovery and you're gonna have to go to a mediation or two at your firm. I can't imagine that it would've been in, , tell me if I'm wrong, but 15 to 20.

HughOh, it, it would've depended on the case. We, I mean, we did cases that were a few thousand dollars. Okay. That, that would be huge asset cases, but people are in agreement. And we really did have, , we had proprietary [00:17:00] intellectual property that we had developed software and systems that would automate the data collection and making sure we didn't miss anything financially so we could do bigger cases. And if we weren't fighting over them and drafting a lot of pleadings back and forth, do them very quickly and very, but that's the

Christineproblem with flat rate potentially. Like, because you have to make that judgment call at the initial retainer agreement. Well, that's, and you never know.

HughWell, no, that's true. And, and you can, you can plan out, you know, , you have, I think the only way you could do it, number one, would be to break it down into different segments of the case. Mm-hmm. In, in a family law case. Other types of cases I think would be different. But I also think it's very daunting for attorneys for two main reasons. Number one, if you don't have a lot of experience with the cases, you are going to get it wrong and it's going to cost you, you're going to do a lot of free work until you get it right. Mm-hmm. Which I think is one of the biggest barriers to adoption of the flat fee model with a lot of attorneys. Mm-hmm. As you think, I have no idea. I may have done a handful [00:18:00] of cases. There's no way for me to predict what it's gonna be like to get through to the mediation stage or get through discovery on this case. Whereas if you've been doing it 10, 20 years, it'd be much easier for you to make those predictions and be accurate and Yep. And not lose a lot of money. So that's, that's one thing. The other piece is regulation. So attorneys are usually regulated based on. You can only bill for the value of work that you've done. You, you know it sort of like when you're splitting fees. There, there are all these rules about splitting fees. You can split fees, but the attorney you're splitting with has to have provided value on the case. There are rules about. Flat fees in a lot of jurisdictions.

ChristineYeah. I mean, I know what you're saying, but I don't worry about that too much. Like it's in criminal, they've gotten around that. Like, so if you hire, like, let's say Steve Romans, who everybody in Louisville's gonna agree, probably like Louisville litigator extraordinaire, right? I mean, like he is the who's who of who to hire. But if he were to charge $15,000 for a [00:19:00] DUI and he walks in on the first court appearance and gets it dismissed, there's not gonna be a Bar Association member that's gonna say that wasn't a reasonable fee for one court of appearance. Given his record, his experience. I think that's how they would look at it. Do you know what I'm saying?

HughI, I agree, but I also think that I, I wouldn't guarantee that, I wouldn't bet on it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't bet a lot of money. You,

Christinewhen, when is the last time you won a bet that we've done?

HughOh, good Lord., I'm just saying that if, if. If there was a clear, bright line rule that would give me

Christinelawyer speak.

HughYeah, well, if it was black and white that after so many years of experience your reputation was worth something and you can charge a much higher rate on flat fee and feel more comfortable about it, then I would've felt more comfortable about it. Yeah. But I, I worry that, , politics, there's always politics in these things, and you would be, if you made a big push for, I, I fear if you made a big push for flat fee and family law, you get a lot of pushback from the bar and Oh, yeah. Then when you [00:20:00] get pushback from the bar. Regulators tend to put up hurdles to keep the change from happening.

ChristineYeah, but I mean, you know, my stance on that, I do not believe that the Bar Association is really there to protect the little man lawyer. I mean, I'll say it, I'll say it, but I think this is the perfect to segue talking about like the hourly rates. But one of the huge problems I see throughout this country, and I know this is like a hot topic for you 'cause you love guardian ad litem in friends of the court so much, that's your favorite part of a case. But I get so many complaints about them billing at an hourly rate for just checking emails. And it does feel different than lawyers billing at an hourly rate for check and emails, you know? Well, I think

HughWhen you're talking about GAL, you're talking about an attorney, a a guardian ad litem is. Is an attorney representing a child or someone who legally doesn't have the capacity to represent themselves. Yeah. So a prisoner, someone who's, ,

Christinewell, let's limit it too [00:21:00] for this conversation children, because actually the GS though for prisoners are flat. Right? Have you ever done that?

HughYeah, sure.

ChristineYeah. That's flat, right? At least in my experience it was,

Hughit doesn't have to be

Christinereally. No. Well, then I got screwed.

HughWell, generally, if it depends on how much work you're gonna do, and I think you file a motion and ask for rate above the, the standard rate. But you can, I mean, I've, I've taken on those cases where I've gone and had significant hearings on behalf of them because, well, I, I

Christinedefinitely got the short end of the stick on that.

HughWell, I think most of the time attorneys are appointed as guardian ad litems for prisoners, and it's just to certify, okay. I, the client's aware of this and it's moved forward, but there have been times where things were moving forward. It was clear to me that someone hadn't filed a proper motion. They hadn't met the burden, they hadn't requested the relief, or, , a hearing has been set on an issue that was never in the pleading that was filed, and it was never raised because the, , inmate or the prisoner didn't know to raise it. Or maybe it [00:22:00] was set for hearing before they ever even got a chance to read the mail and see the pleading. And I would, I would file things and I would ask for it to be changed, and I'd go and have that hearing. And I never had any issue with the judge allowing me additional fees. But I'll be honest, most of the time I've been appointed. On those cases. I've never asked for, I didn't ask for the fees.

ChristineAnd this kind of backs up to the history of GALs FOCs. So let's go down that rabbit hole a little bit first. So I get this a lot. Like, so we have two types of lawyers that are appointed for children or a child in a circuit court divorce or custody action. Both of these individuals, the standard is the best interest of the child or children, right? But a GAL is actually appointed to represent the child's best interest. An FOC is an investigative body to give a report about what's in the child's best interest. And they don't have

Hughto be an attorney.

ChristineThey don't have to be, I've never seen me

Hugheither, but someone

Christinethat wasn't one. , But that's a relatively new thing. And I often say I see the benefit of gals. [00:23:00] becuase GALs have historically been ingrained in the system. IE this like prisoner. So what he's saying is like he had a case where he was appointed to represent the prisoner prisoners, essentially due process rights. Yes. Correct. And he noticed a procedural or a due process violation. But your job as the GAL wasn't necessarily to represent the interest in its in entirety of the prisoner, right?

HughNo.

ChristineAnd so same thing with like,

Hughwell, I, I don't think that's clear. Yeah,

Christineyeah, yeah. You're,

Hughyou're appointed as a guardian ad litem for that person. I always interpreted that meant I'm their attorney until relieved of my duties and if I'm representing them, especially if it's a safeguard in those cases so that the court can say, okay, we've appointed someone independent, they can make sure the person's been served. Mm-hmm. They know what's going on and it's a really important one, but. How do you have that conversation with a, with a client that, okay, you see this, you know what it means. By the way, you know, as an attorney I notice all these deficiencies in it, but I'm not [00:24:00] going to do anything about it.

ChristineUm, well, it gets, it gets weird 'cause I actually think you're probably act acting outside the scope of the GAL appointment, which could lead to immunity. And have you ever met a jailhouse lawyer? Oh yeah. They're my favorite people in the entire world. Like there's literally, oh my, a jailhouse lawyer right now that knows every single statue better than I, and he combined, they are like sometimes my favorite people, but they can be cantankerous. , But that's where we're going down like a real high level, , conversation. And I think we should do, I really think we've gotten feedback that we need to start doing like an education series. And I think would you be open to that? Me.

HughYeah. Yeah, absolutely.

ChristineBecause I think that there's some stuff that like, we get a little high level , and like in a way that people don't understand the origins of Guardian ad litems and they just assume that they're all, all bad. But I think family court has taken the origins of what the intent of Guardian ad litems were meant to do, created this avenue for FOCs and to talk about [00:25:00] GAL and FOC billable hours. I do feel a certain kind of way about, first off, a child or children having two lawyers for crying out loud. That's insane in my opinion. No, no.

HughI, I agree. But my, I mean, my understanding of an FOC is you are a fact witness. You're supposed to be investigating and reporting what you have found in your investigation to the court. Yeah. You are not. So it's supposed to be limited in scope. You're investigating X, Y, and Z. You prepare that report. You provide it to the attorneys and all the parties in the case 10 days prior to the hearing, and you get to be cross-examined if someone wants to actually ask you about the contents of it and question you about it.

ChristineYeah. But I still think there's no question that their legal obligation standard is to the best interest of the child or children.

HughSure. But they're not allowed to give legal conclusions as a [00:26:00] fact witness. And that's, dude,

Christinehave you read some of the FOC reports? ,

HughI've appealed them and had cases overturned, , because of them. They are just, and I think that goes to your point of how it's been changed. It's, it's become a judge. Yeah. They've become , a way for judges to outsource their delegate opinion and to delegate and they don't have to follow the FOCs. And there are some judges that, to their credit, when the FOCs. Have clearly been shown that they didn't do a whole lot. They get completely marginalized and ignored by the judges because the judge wants to hear it themselves and make their own decision. And I have greatly appreciated that, especially toward the end of my time in family court, because it was just almost something that was rubber stamped.

ChristineI never saw a judge that I can recall, , not agree with an FOC or GAL, especially in the last two years I have seen, I mean, maybe early on

Hugha division, division one, , judge Johnson

Christineyeah.

HughWould regularly if, if she didn't, if, [00:27:00] if something didn't smell right about it,

Christinegood for

Hughher, you could, you could tell that it just, it wasn't gonna make a difference after that. And she would ask questions and just make sure that. The, the actual facts would get covered at the hearing and wouldn't just take it straight out of a report or, or anything like that. And that was, that's how it should be.

ChristineThat's how a hundred percent should be. But still, from a layperson's perspective or just from a common sense perspective, if you were to look at a file, you have a judge appointing two lawyers to represent the child's best interest. That's two lawyers. Yeah. For the child or children. I

Hughagree. But they, they're at $300 an hour. There's supposed to be different roles. I know that they're not handled that way, but you, you're supposed to have this one investigatory role where they report facts, and then once that investigation's done, it's not supposed to be an ongoing Yeah. Thing that they're involved in the case and making decisions. And what they, it becomes is they become an arbiter of every single dispute. The attorneys, the clients directly reach out to the front of the court. They send out an email telling people what to do when they have no authority to [00:28:00] do that. Right, right. And that's, it's sort of become this proxy for the judge and people will be. I see motions where people ask to hold the other party in contempt for not following the FOCs orders. Oh my God. And FOCs can't make orders. No, they, no, but you'll file a motion. The F ooc said to do this and they didn't, so that you need to hold them in contempt.

ChristineYou know what, it's not a court order. You're right. I did have one judge that said, no, no, no. Uh, God bless. I can't remember if he was acting GAL or FOC, but he wanted to have a client of mine take an alcohol test and basically, I didn't think there was any reason for it or something like that. And the judge was like, no, I'm not doing it. I mean, he's allowed to do when it's not his parenting time. Nothing's been established to the contrary. I had forgotten about that, but, so let's say you and I have a case, right? Super contentious. We got two kids involved. Like you got mom, I got dad, two kids. We get the court appoints the FOC at GAL. So I send an email to [00:29:00] Hugh like, this is what I'm trying to work out. I CC FOCI CC GAL. My client is gonna get a bill for me of a 0.2. The FO C's gonna bill a 0.2 and the GA L's gonna bill a 0.2. So you got attorneys triple dipping on one email. And I really think there's a problem with the notion that GS and FOCs are billing in the same way that the two primary attorneys in the case are.

HughYeah, I agree. I th I think GS are usually, I mean it's usually at a lower rate than the attorneys do. I never took a case where I would've even fathomed billing, but $200

Christineis a shit ton of money for a lot of people an hour.

HughIt is. I agree. , I agree and philosophically. I I, I didn't go to school for in law school in Kentucky and in some other bars you get appointed to be GAL on cases. Yeah. And they could be cases that you're not, , it's not in your subject matter area that you're, that [00:30:00] you're very proficient with, but it's part of your duty as an attorney, you serve that role. And for be having the privilege of a license to get to practice law, you got appointed on things and of court ask you to step in and do this and do that. You did it. Yeah. That's, and you don't necessarily get paid. And when I would take these appointments, I sort of just, unless it was something where I had to go to like a full day trial and sit through depositions and even some, and I know my former partners will probably want to puke when hearing that, I just sort of figured that that was me pro bono serving my, my, my duty to the bar. And I would almost never. Submit a bill on those cases just because I just felt like I wanted to do it the right way and I wanted , to, it was sort of my duty to do it 'cause the court asked me to.

ChristineBut I think we're back in that conversation of the old school notion of gals and what family court has done to the notion of a GAL and an FOC. Sure. They're so different and people listening [00:31:00] at home are, there's a massive distinction with how people, , that are appointed as these guardian ad litems or god bless. What's the other appointment when you're trying to get service? I can't think of the verbiage. Right. Warning out, warning order. Warning order attorney. Those are massively different and they aren't this lucrative money job that you're gonna be able to pay your mortgage on. Okay. Like there, this is like breadcrumbs, but there are attorneys that make a living with GAL and FOC appointments in family court. And that's what I mean, that's what needs to be looked at. Like we gotta follow the money.

HughYeah, I, I don't necessarily have an issue with that. If you're doing your job, if you are amassing as many cases as you can possibly do and taking on so many cases, you can't possibly remember one case from the other or actually return an email or return a call for months, I have a big problem with that. Yeah. If you are doing a phenomenal job and the children of Kentucky can rely on you to actually protect their interests and pay [00:32:00] attention to what's going on in their case, or God forbid, pronounce their name remotely correctly,

ChristineLOL, he's got a personal story there. Who did what, when, where, why

Hughall the time.

ChristineWho,

Hugh, I am so used to, , GAL or FOCs showing up and just mispronouncing the name and I can, I'm looking at my client, as often happens, you're sitting next to 'em at a table or sort of caddy corner to them at a table. And you can see their reaction when their children's names are set incorrectly for someone. They've written thousands of dollars a check, , to Yeah,

Christineyeah. These guardian ad litems and FOCs. They're not meeting with the kids. They don't know the kids. I mean, not all across the board, but I would say the vast majority in Louisville. And that's the complaint that I get the most, is like, I've got one of my followers right now, it's hysterical. She started recording, , her guardian ad litem, and this is in a different jurisdiction, but she's like, he wrote a full memorandum on her and he's never met her or returned her call.

HughOh, yeah. I, , I've had that in, [00:33:00] in big hearings and in some trials where , I will have an FOC on the stand testifying. About my client, and they've not talked to them in a year and a half, and they can't possibly have any update whatsoever because they haven't returned like 30 or 40 emails and haven't returned a phone call. Yeah. And it's just, , and in those cases, the court basically rubber stamped to the report, even though admittedly they hadn't talked to important people in the case. , And I think the one case that I'm thinking of had not even talked to the children. They had talked to the therapist and the therapist told them what they thought the children felt, but they didn't even bother to talk to the children. And this was, oh, over a year into the appointment.

ChristineWell, and that's what you get a lot of people that are like, it's all, it's one big club, but you have guardian ad litems friend of the courts, they're doing these referral [00:34:00] services to different types of therapists or therapy treatments, and they're all talking, they're all socializing, they're all going to happy hour. And it's like if you get one person in there to feel a certain kind of way, or potentially maybe believe an abuser, because we know how manipulative people on the antisocial spectrum can be, that can just take your case down, a devastating consequence. And then you have all of these alleged checks and balances to protect the child or do what's in the best interest of the child. But you can't even get the GAL or the FOC to meet the kid. Yeah. You know, like that's, and no wonder people are at home watching the family court system saying, y'all are all in on it. Like, I get it. I get why they have become so quote unquote radicalized to believe that the system is colluding with one another to take their kids.

HughWell, I, to a certain extent, I mean, there are these groups that, you know, you have attorneys that just work [00:35:00] with the judges so frequently that some of them, you'll be sitting in the hearing waiting for them to show up, and they come out of the back, like out of the judge's chambers. Instead of coming through the front in the courtroom like all other attorneys do. And how can the people sitting in that courtroom not have the impression that you're all part of one system and there's some collusion going on there. When you're coming out of the back, the judge comes out of the back from her, his or her chambers, and then you come out of the back where only the judge and the judicial staff comes from. And you are a court appointed private attorney.

ChristineYeah. I thought about this last night. It's like there's a hierarchy in family court. You've got the judges, then you've got the court appointed attorneys, and then you have all the other attorneys. Yeah. And there's like a system. And so these court appointed attorneys have gotten the god-like complex or the power, like perceived power, because we have one in particular in Louisville, and he sits in every class, every classroom, LOL, every courtroom. And the judge will just be [00:36:00] like, all right, Mr. So-and-so, you know what I mean? Tell us what's going on today. All right, Mr. So-and-so tell us what's going on today. And half the times he doesn't know what's going on.

HughOh, sure, sure. I, I was, I was impressed though when we were over there yesterday, , Jim Murphy was sitting out in the lobby with the actual attorneys. He wasn't coming into the motion hours from the back where the judges are. I that, I didn't recall seeing that in a long time. Oh my

Christineword. I mean, bless his heart. And Jim Murphy is a GAL FOC that we get a lot of complaints about. I believe there have been five, if not six court of appeals opinions that have come down where he is a common denominator on the case. It may be more, , to segue a little bit. Y'all know, I'm, you know, you know, I'm like, these judges are retaliatory. You feel like that , if you step outta bounds like they're gonna retaliate and we're lawyers, like we have defense mechanisms I think that are stronger. Not always, but like. And we're not, we're not talking about our kids. But, , they retaliated against me when I started speaking out. And Jim was one of the big ones [00:37:00] actually. Did, you know, I think I told you that, , he went up to a pro se litigant in court when I was there observing. And this is the guardian ad litem. So he's appointed, you know, to represent the best interest of the child, a child, and warned this pro se person that I was dangerous and it made it in a court pleading

HughYeah, I, that, that doesn't surprise me. I, I've, , I've been told by multiple people when I've taken someone on, or, you know, appealed something or filed a motion because an FOC didn't file their report, or a guardian ad litem filed something with a court that should not, and could, you know, would not meet the rules of evidence, should not be admitted. , You filed a report as a GAL, which is for the longest time not been allowed. The roles are separate and they will tell mutual colleagues things about me or say things and it gets back to me [00:38:00] immediately. Yeah. And it's just, ah, it's, it's, I guess, the way people work, but , I've seen it, you know, same thing happens with judges. Yeah. I mean, I have. I have videos of motion hour appearances after court of appeals opinions have come out where I've had judges overturned in the very next motion hour appearance I make in front of them snarky comments about it and treat it a totally different way than opposing counsel. So that happens.

ChristineBut so imagine if they're gonna retaliate against us, what they're gonna do potentially to pro se litigants. Also, on top of it, , I don't care if Jim Murphy, I wish Jim Murphy well., I knew, you know, I've known him for many, many years and I don't care if they wanna get on Reddit and say all kinds of crazy stuff about me or if they wanna come after me personally. But I just think it goes to show that they have a complete. Lack of understanding of how traumatic the family court experience is to try to go and get a pro se litigant fighting for his or her child to somehow get [00:39:00] involved in lawyer drama like it's next level, lack of empathy, lack of common sense. , Also thank you Jim, for proving my point that y'all are retaliatory. I appreciate so much. I will tag you in this and I will also tag all of the 10 judges. I think this is a great place to say, wait, we got some questions. . Oh, y'all, please, please, please, please, please, please keep sending me questions, keep , commenting, tagging us. And first we are starting a new thing. So we were at the courthouse yesterday when we were doing our little like to see how many judges were working and we had a guy come up to me and be like, thank you. I love you. Are you doing the judge roll call? And I'm like, that's genius. So for now, that's where it's now? Yep. It's the judge roll call. But Michael c Sternberg out of Nevada, he is on YouTube at Father and Exile. He picked a time for us to go next week. We will be going next week, Thursday at 10 45. Alright. Am how many judges of the 39 will be there on a [00:40:00] Thursday?

HughThat's a, that's a good question. , The mornings I, in my experience were a little bit different than the afternoons. Yep. You would find more in the mornings, but that's a good time. That's still sort of midweek. You wouldn't expect, you wouldn't expect people to be. Finished for the week by that point. So I'm, I'm curious to know. I'm ready to be shocked again.

ChristineI'm trying to think of Thursday. It's not a holiday week, 10 45. You got no excuse to still be at breakfast and you got no excuse to still be at lunch. Well,

Hugheven when you have some of those district court dockets that we've discussed , on previous episodes, the dependency, neglect and abuse, , paternity domestic violence, if you go in the afternoon and someone is on a day where they might have a domestic violence docket, if they just don't have a lot of cases that are allotted to them and they may be finished by the afternoon and , that's, they just went through their cases and got done in the morning by 10 45, no one's going to be done with that docket. So there'll be multiple judges with some kind of [00:41:00] docket that day, presumably that should be there when we go.

ChristineAll right. I got some questions. This is a really good one. , Why can't attorneys give free legal advice if they are properly educated and pass the bar? I see a lot of quote, not legal advice, end quote on websites and social media.

HughThat's a good question. , Boy, that's a, I know that's a rabbit hole.

ChristineWell, the big answer, and the big reason I won't do it is because I think it creates, it has the potential to create an attorney-client relationship.

HughOh, yes.

ChristineAnd I can't answer, if I had the ability to tell you how your case was gonna go in a five minute phone call, I'd bill a thousand dollars a second and everybody would pay me. You know what I mean? It's because it's nuanced, it's more complicated. , And so, well, it

Hughgets down to that great, , attorney answer. It depends.

ChristineYeah, always. And, , I think we can kinda give a general, like courtroom demeanor advice. We can do education, but. It just gets, if it's not hypothetical, it gets [00:42:00] hairy. Right?

HughSure. Well, I, I, from my point of view, , coming from the firm life, it's liability, liability, liability.

ChristineMm-hmm.

HughYou give someone advice, especially if you were giving advice most of the time where you would be offering general legal advice or free legal advice, it would be based on very limited facts or hearing, you know, just answering a basic question where you may get. You know, one, 1000th of a percent of the facts that are actually relevant to the case. Yep.

ChristineYep.

HughAnd then someone's gonna take that advice and go do something, run with it. And you gave them the advice and you as an attorney would be liable for that. Yep. And you, your insurance would be on the line.

ChristineAlso, it would just be like an injustice, really. I mean, certainly we have to make a living like, , it would be, I wish I could just represent all of y'all that have been wronged for free, but I still have a mortgage and bills and things like that. And all lawyers do, , this is just how we make money our legal mind. But on top of it, I would never put a client, it would be like if someone called me on the telephone and said, Christine, [00:43:00] this is exactly how you change a brake line. And then I was like, okay, I got this. You know what I mean? And then went and changed my brake line, which I don't even know if you can change brake lines, but Sure. You can. You get the point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be insane. Like, I'm a good person, well intentioned, but I would likely create a death trap for my vehicle. You know,

Hughbreak brake lines. Brake lines are, yeah, well maybe brake lines are pretty easy. The, , I, I look at it as if you went and posted a question on a medical website Yeah. And said My toe hurts really bad if a surgeon got on there and gave you specific advice on how to cut it open. And make it feel better just knowing that it hurt and knowing very little else. Yeah. You just, you, , if you ask a question online or a simple question on a phone call and you actually get a detailed answer from an attorney, I probably wouldn't trust it.

ChristineRight. Right. I mean, it's just, we can't know the answer to all those things and it's just a huge liability. It's just , a shit show to be honest. Yes. But it is a great question and it also shows the fact that lawyers are constantly, [00:44:00] our job is, you know, a lot of people think that we just like memorize statues. Like I don't know any, I know very few statues off the top of my head, but we are trained to think of, not even just worst case scenario, but every possible scenario that could come from one instance. And it's enough to make you crazy. Right.

HughYeah, no, I agree. Other than there were certain statutes and. Rules of procedure and evidentiary rules and family court rules of procedure that I memorized. Oh, I know the rules of evidence, like Bible verses, because you had to bring them up so often and you get into fights over them and it was just easier to say, well actually it says, and then just cite it verbatim than having to pull it out of a book every time.

ChristineWell, we should have a competition on the rules of evidence that I'm good at, but I know none of, the local rules, you know, there's only one statute that I have absolutely memorized, and this just kind of tells you what a terrible person I am. A KRS statute. Can you guess it?

HughNo, it

Christineinvolves money.

HughMoney

Christine4 0 3, 2 20.

HughYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Two 20 [00:45:00] it needs

Christineof attorney's fees and disparity in income cases. Yes. That's the probably, I mean, granted I know the other ones, but that one is just like, although it's

Hughvirtually irrelevant given the case law that basically expanded it well beyond the language , in the actual statute. But,

Christineand plus the fact that these judges are like, whatever, that's, I digress. We can't go down that rabbit hole.

Hugh, I actually, a better challenge would be. We should do an episode where you name a rule of evidence and tell me what you know about it and I'll tell you how to get around it.

ChristineOkay. Oh my gosh. I could, we could do something too on the challenge. Yeah. , How to trick a family court judge by using big words because they know little to nothing about evidence. And I will, I've got a great one for hearsay. We'll do that next time. 'cause I mean, I could get these judges to admit shit. Wait a second. Shit. If it

Hughwas said out of court, isn't it just automatically hearsay?

ChristineDuh.

HughYeah. Yeah.

ChristineAll. And that's the whole, that goes to my point. Oh my gosh. I had so much fun with Goodwin on one of these. I swear I'm gonna tell the story next time. Okay. And this is a good one. This is on par for what we said today. , How would they make you pay GAL parenting coordinator fees? [00:46:00] FOC fees When the judge knows you have no money available. It's sad.

HughIt is true. It is true. I think. It puts a court in a tough situation because, well, the statute requires them to do what's in the child's best interest. And honestly, there are situations where a child needs a voice, but you don't want necessarily to put the child in the position to be in court. Why?

ChristineThis is where, I don't understand why this ISS traumatic, what, what you talking about? It's traumatic. What's traumatic is not having a divo, a voice.

HughOkay. But, okay, so how about the procedural things? A court, a child cannot come to motion hour to make sure that something procedural has happened or a statute's being followed in somebody else's pleading. Well, no, there A GAL can absolutely do that, and that was 90% of what I did on the cases I got. I got appointed on GAL. It wasn't going in. And yes, I went and talked to my client, but most of the time it was making people [00:47:00] actually follow the rules. And but you're talking

Christineabout adults. You're talking about adults. This is where, so if this were the case, all my criminal lawyers out there, how has the system survived for 200 years where we have victims of horrific crimes, alleged victims of horrific essay crimes, children that have been abused, they don't get appointed guardian ad litems, and there's not a criminal judge in the world out there that would think that would be a good idea. No, they, they, you could, you do in-camera reviews, you submit your questions before. I've done it many, many times. And the judge gets to, and this is for competency hearings type things like that's what we would typically do to see whether or not a child was competent to testify in front of the jury if there were allegations of abuse or sex, , allegations. But, and I understand that it's criminal, so you have the right to cross confront and cross examinee, but. If you don't actually see the child, the judge, the finder of fact, how can you ascertain?

HughYou do who? I mean, if you were you, I had clients that [00:48:00] were on the stand. We would try to do it in chambers. We'd do it in a way that was, that's what, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. You, but you wouldn't, most of the cases, you're not dealing with sa , allegations or things like that, but , the, the statutes require the judge to do what's in a child's best interest. Right. Not which client is most convinced or which, which party is most convincing. Being in that position as a judge and not having somebody making the argument for the child's best interest.

ChristineDude, we did that for 200 years and we didn't have this this, , scenario like before family court. The notion that you have someone like Jim Murphy that is so revered by the family court that gets to come in and say what's in the child's best interest when he hasn't spoken with the child. Just imagine, I think of this all the time, y'all, and I'm not even to pick on him in particular, every GAL and FOC out there, , in 10 years, you're gonna be sitting in your office and you're gonna have your client knock on your fucking door and you gotta be prepared to answer those questions. Like, seriously. Oh well when,

Hughwhen the child is an [00:49:00] adult and they come and say, why didn't you protect me from this? Or Why didn't you do your job?

ChristineI mean, why didn't I always wonder about that? Why did you keep my dad from me? You know what I mean? Because my mom made these allegations. Or didn't you realize that like my dad was hurting me? And just because mom made allegations of abuse, she was trying to protect us like these FOCs and GAL. , But just

Hughbecause somebody does a shitty job, doesn't. That's not the fault of the role itself,

Christinedude. Okay, let's take it out. I got a different scenario. Let's just imagine. Oh, poor little \*\*\*\* victims. Okay. It's just too traumatizing for them to go to court. So what we're gonna do, instead of hearing from the \*\*\*\* victims themself, we're gonna appoint a guardian ad litem that's paid hourly by this \*\*\*\* victim. Okay. You know what I mean? And that's gonna cost them $10,000. And this \*\*\*\* victim is gonna meet with them once or twice and then come to court and make a determination for the final outcome of a case. Yeah. It's insane.

HughBut that's not the way that it should be handled. And that's not the way the statutes and the rules are set up for gals. Ugh. It's the way it works. It's the way that it [00:50:00] happens both with FOCs and gals, but that's not the way it's supposed to be. It's not supposed to be the actual voice of fact finding A GAL, in fact can't testify and should not be filing reports or telling the judges anything. In Kentucky, actually. In Kentucky, that's correct. Absolutely. But it is happening. Mm-hmm. When things have to be done for a child's best interest, someone that has a legal knowledge and can file pleadings on the child's behalf, I think becomes important. And we're talking about kids that are, both parents treat the kid very well. It's neither party is going to argue objectively about the child's best interest. It's not going to happen. They're gonna think they do. They each parent knows what thinks, they know what's best for the kids. And maybe both of them do, but they have different opinions. From a judge's point of view, having someone procedurally argue as an attorney for the for, for the child can be beneficial in cases. I [00:51:00] don't think it, it's not mandatory anywhere. Well, okay. It's not mandatory in the general practice for custody and, . Custody and divorce litigation. There are some in instances in termination cases. Yeah. Yeah. And things where it is necessary. Adoption. Termination

Christinemeans adoption. Yeah. Like a, well,

Hughsome, yeah. Uh, termination would be terminating someone's parental rights. Yeah. , Generally for an adoption where someone else is getting the rights, parental rights to that child. But there are some instances in those cases where a GAL is required, but in your normal family practice, it's not. So, the fact that it gets used far too often when people can't afford it, where the case might not warrant it. I think that's just an abuse of, of the, in actual. Piece of the process that I I feel is, is essential if used correctly is, is very important. ,

ChristineI can't wait for the internet to get mad at you on this conversation. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding. But I do think that, you know, the bring it on LOL, the fact that you have so many, I was in court [00:52:00] yesterday, I saw that there was a GAL and an FOC with two pro se parties. And you also have the notion of like your parental constitutionally protected rights. You can't even afford to pay for , an attorney to represent those, but then you're paying for a court appointed attorney. Yeah. It's just a shit show. But I think it's egregious that they're appointing pointing them so much. And I think that there has to be something done as far as, , what's the word? I can't find it. When you. The legal word affidavit of Indi Indi Say it. Oh my God.

HughIndigency,

Christineindigency,

Hughindigency. Well, I mean they have a sliding scale for mediators. We could have a sliding scale for, for guardian ad litem appointments.

ChristineOh my gosh. Could you imagine the people that would sign up for that? Actually, I would. The same people. I would, no. Well,

HughI mean, I would,

Christineyeah, I would do it for pro bono or something like that, but I think different

Hughphilosophical argument. Should we have everyone having to serve a certain amount on cases like that? But I will say there, there is a flip side to this where I saw cases where [00:53:00] the clients probably hated writing the checks for 'em, but where the GAL saved them a ton of money. And this is back where before, at least in my experience, the FOC and the GAL got conflated again, where yeah, they started acting the same way, but GS would be able to come to mediation. They were representing a party in a disputed issue. Whereas , a fact witness like an FOC, in my opinion, shouldn't be anywhere near a mediation, but they oftentimes participate.

ChristineWe need to do a deep dive on that. You're right.

HughYeah. But when the GAL would come. Argue at mediation actively like a party on behalf of the child when done correctly, really made a huge difference to the bringing the parents together to the same side. I have seen it settle cases that would have been easily, and this is when I billed much lower hourly rate earlier in my career, there would've been a $20,000 trial , easily, [00:54:00] and got it resolved at mediation, and it never would've happened in a million years if we did not have a dedicated GAL who was there that could speak on behalf of the child in a way that the parents got to sort of put aside their differences and their petty wishes, or, I'm not saying petty, I'm a parent. I would be, I can't imagine how I would act in those circumstances, but their self-interest. Look and hear someone articulate it very well from the child's point of view that isn't interested, , doesn't work for their soon to be ex-spouse. And it would make a huge difference and it would get things settled. And the mediators were very good at involving the GAL knowing, , a trained mediator can know whether a party is going to be able to be swayed by something like that or moved by that and then they'll incorporate them into a conversation and it made a

Christinehuge difference. I know, but this is exactly goes to the attorney that we talked to outside that will keep anonymous. But all of your positive stories, Hugh, do you realize they're all 5, 10, [00:55:00] 15 years old?

HughI wouldn't say that.

ChristineThe one you just told was at least that old. Oh,

HughI can think of one.

ChristineThe one you just told, how old was it? It was more, it was pre COVID for sure.

HughIt was 'cause we were in David's office mediating. So, but we were there in person. So it was pre COVID.

ChristineBut I think that's the whole point, is that the notion of how bad it's gotten in the last five years.

HughMy, the last year of practice I had one, , who, a person you're familiar with saved the clients a ton of money. And there were people that couldn't stand each other. I mean, one of the most, I contentious, I'm glad situations and part of it is there's another good attorney on the other side who would

Christinewanted a resolution. Yeah. Well one

Hughof, we knew what was, they were seeing things from a higher level and not just the more we fight, the more money I make. This is somebody that would fight damn hard, was really good in court, but knew it was in the client's best interest to work on things. Yeah. And worked. As I did with the GAL and we got things resolved in a way that if you would've told me at the [00:56:00] beginning of that case, I would've bet you every penny that I own that couldn't have happened.

ChristineYeah. Well, that's a good positive story. Remember, we are now on YouTube. Follow us on YouTube, Spotify, apple YouTube, judge y.com. Can't wait for next week. We love your feedback. Be nice to Hugh after today, please.

HughCheers. Bye. Peace. Yeah. Yeah. We need some. Justice. Justin found justice.