Like, So Dramatic

Christine[00:00:00] And that goes into the other attorney that mentioned us by name. Remember that happened last week? I did a post on it, Ms. Allison Russell. But that just goes, don't remember

Hughanything about it.

ChristineOh, really? No, I'm

Hughkidding.

ChristineOh my gosh. This one is like so dramatic in so many different ways. But it just goes to show how attorneys will utilize anyone questioning the system as a means to , get an advantage in court.

ChristineAll right. Welcome to the Judgmental Podcast. We're gonna start off today talking about how many times we have been mentioned by the local Louisville litigators. Actually, one judge did a Facebook post about us calling us cartoons and media. But to back up just a little bit, I started this, my goodness, I think it's almost been a year and a half, but my tiktoks, I'm at @KentuckyChristine have been [00:01:00] used as a part of the court record on at least two or three occasions, and I've been mentioned by name. Did you know that?

HughNo. I mean, I, I heard I've, I've heard about one or two of the instances, but I didn't know that many times. Yeah. So when in pleadings Oh. Or are spoken about on the record? Recorded in cases

Christined all of the above.

HughWow.

ChristineSo, yeah, when I first started, I had a follower that asked a question, and this was a Bullitt county attorney, Carrie Risin, I, what's her last name? Oh,

HughRitsert. Ritsert,

ChristineYeah. Mm-hmm. She made it a part of an exhibit on a pleading. Oh, and then we, of course, we had Elizabeth Jenkins, who was a parenting coordinator who mentioned me on the record and was like your Honor, in front of Christian Ward, your Honor, this pro se litigant that she's an hourly parenting coordinator on contacted Ms. Christina Miller. And I was like, yeah. And the judge was like, Hmm. So just the notion to utilize me, she'd asked like a very benign comment, just like a very [00:02:00] benign question, kind of just like, what is the procedure about FOCs or GS or something? Well Well ask

Hughit publicly. Or she talked to you privately and then told the told.

ChristineShe didn't call me attorney. No. She said she'd called me and it's like, I don't, you can't call people on TikTok. She had commented on one of my posts talking about these third party appointments that obviously everyone knows. And And so

Hughthis attorney saw it and mentioned it.

ChristineYep. And mentioned it to get an advantage to be like, oh, she's talking to Christine.

HughChristina.

ChristineYeah, yeah, yeah.

HughChristina.

ChristineAnd I'll tell you, Elizabeth Jenkins and I have history. I was like, when it happened, I did a TikTok on it. I had not spoken to her in probably a year now. Of course, I texted her after and she's like, I don't want any problems. I don't want any problems. And it was just like, well, that's the whole thing. And that goes into the other attorney that mentioned us by name. Remember that happened last week? I did a post on it, Ms. Allison Russell. But that just goes, don't remember

Hughanything about it.

ChristineOh, really? No, I'm

Hughkidding.

ChristineOh my gosh. This one is like so dramatic in so many different ways. But it just goes to [00:03:00] show how attorneys will utilize anyone questioning the system as a means to , get an advantage in court. Do you know what I'm saying?

HughYeah. I mean, it's, I was a little bit shocked by it. Yeah. But yeah,

Christineand then we had Jim Murphy, the GAL we've talked about that apparently allegedly went up to a pro se litigator and said that I was dangerous. And this pro se litigator put that in the record, which this is a person fighting about their child or children. Again, I don't know these, like I don't represent these people. I literally make tiktoks and talk about, Hey, you need to look into who's donating to your judge. You need to be careful when you get an FOC or GAL or parenting coordinator appointment because it could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. And oftentimes here in Louisville, we have problems with meeting with the kids.

HughYeah.

ChristineAnd I don't think that's a radical.

HughSo to be clear though, you never actually talked to any of these people that allegedly had, had dealings with you or had posted to you or commented on your tiktoks?

ChristineWell, I don't wanna [00:04:00] ever like for sure say my sources, but no, for when that happened, I'd had a person comment on my TikTok and I did a response to it. And I don't think, I mean, certainly I don't give out my cell phone. Like you, I have some people that I talk to. I have sources and things like that, but if , I get messages, oh my goodness. I'd spend all day on the phone. We'd never work.

HughNo, I, I, I understand.

ChristineYeah. And I did have somebody come up to me in court and be like, I'm a huge fan of yours and what you're doing, but I just think , it's the notion that they're utilizing me or judgey to say negative things. Isn't it so shocking?

HughI expected there to be a lot more backlash, really, to be honest. Yeah. I mean, when we go down. Around the courthouse, we run into people and it's just been overwhelmingly positive. Mm-hmm. And how many, how many people have reached out and said, well, when I finished this or that case, you know, maybe we can talk, I'd like to, like to come on and talk with you guys and how many people say thank you for saying what we all wish we could [00:05:00] say.

Yep. Yep. And

Hughwe, you know, this is what we all talk about in, in groups and in chats and, you know, when we're having beers together. But no one can come out and say it. Thank you. And I was really expecting that. I mean, when you, when you buck any system, the system usually fights back. Pretty hard and I'm, I'm happy that almost everything has been positive so far.

ChristineOh yeah. I think the lawyers are sick of it. I mean, I think most of the, I talk to a lot of lawyers but most people that are saying anything negative or mentioning us in pleadings are attaching tiktoks as exhibits, which in and of itself is just a stupid sentence to say out loud. Most of the time they're court appointed attorneys that are getting, you know, appointments for GALs FOCs, parenting coordinators, mediators, other than our little Bullitt County baby doll. But again, we appreciate it. Carrie, I will send you this link. And so, Allison Russell, let's talk about this. 'cause I do think this one maybe upset you a little bit, not upset you. What's the right way to say it?[00:06:00]

HughI don't, I don't know. I didn't have that take on it. I was, I was just a little surprised. Yeah, I was, I was surprised. Just by the nature of the comment, and it made me feel old because I had to ask you to translate the emojis.

ChristineLOL Oh my gosh. There was an eye roll. . Emoji. I thought

Hughthat's what it was. But I had to check before I, I I reserve judgment on the, the post until you confirmed that that was an eye roll.

ChristineWell, and it's just one of those things. And Alison Russell is a court appointed GAL in cases, and she does a lot of appellate part work. She's run for judge before, but she made this assumption or allegation that judgey judge y.com is somehow associated with Project 2025. That

Hughdid upset me. Yeah. Only because of, yeah, I to be mentioned in the same paragraph as project 2025 was, extremely annoying. I will say that.

ChristineAnd it's absurd. And she knows it's absurd. And I went on TikTok and said, this is absurd. You know, it's absurd. We welcomed her on the podcast. Sure. Sent her a really nice message. We'll talk about anything you want. It'll be [00:07:00] a civil conversation. But I do think it's weird. So I notice this. And now just to be clear, judgy is very separate from me and you, right? Yes. And judgy is neutral. We are creating judgy to judge the judges like we wear the merch, like judgy think you want. But it's not the notion, like what I think about judges is not what judges is gonna think.

HughNo.

ChristineYou know, and what I think about judges, you may not agree with

Hughme. No, we don't agree on a lot of things.

ChristineRight. But we certainly aren't politically aligned in any sort of radical right wing or radical left wing, anything. I mean, the notion to try to lump us into that. Is to divide us and to make us divisive and to make us controversial and to keep y'all from listening 'cause they think you're stupid. They think that the general public is going to do whatever the local Louisville lawyers that get appointed and what the local Louisville judges want.

HughSure. I mean, one of the things that was most frustrating with me and my practice was the way that the court [00:08:00] appointed, I wanna say system, it's, it's attorneys and other individuals that are part of court appointed. They referred to it as the way we do it. Yeah. And this sort of, there's this factory, the system of processing cases. And I knew that there would be some protection of that in reaction to what we're doing. I just, I found it strange to be, compared to project 2025. I honestly don't get the reference even as a slight, I don't understand. I,

Christineyeah, I noticed this when I ran for office and that's kind of what really changed my trajectory and kind of how I, not aligned politically, but just how I see politics because everybody came out and painted me something that was completely opposite of what I was and the person I was running against, I knew her political leanings and she was portrayed as this completely different ideology than what I knew her to be behind closed doors. So I think it's a weapon, like if you were to [00:09:00] just utilize my name with, I'm trying to think of someone controversial on the right and the left, like. If you utilize my name with either one of those people you can just completely alienate an entire audience.

HughYeah, that makes sense.

ChristineThat's the goal. Like the goal is to make people think we are either one way or the other. And you know, I would say we're probably as neutral. I know judges is neutral, but when it comes to judges, it's a nonpartisan issue. Sorry, I ramble. No,

HughYeah, it's a nonpartisan issue. Absolutely is.

ChristineI mean, I would say most of these judges probably lean towards the left and yet they violate due process. Like,

Hughoh, I don't know about that. Oh, interesting. Tell me more. Well, just in cases of religion, I mean, one of the, one of the things that I had to talk to my clients about where in, in so many cases where the religious leanings and when it comes into school choice, if you're looking at Catholic schools versus a Christian school versus, and while [00:10:00] that in Kentucky law at least. Private school, unless the child has some sort of special need, should not be something that a judge is deciding. But we knew that religious affiliation, religious beliefs are gonna play into it and they're always going to, judges are humans. Mm-hmm. We are not asking computers to judge our cases, but as a practitioner, your clients need to understand that. And the political leanings, I mean, there were same gendered issues that I knew if we ended up, I mean, especially early on with same gender divorce. Yeah. When you had the spouses living in separate counties, big part of the decision was where you filed and what the leanings were of that judge because it was something new. And it was thanks to what's her name, Davis, the woman who wouldn't. Kim Davis. Kim Davis, yep. Thanks. Thanks to her. It was politicized from the very beginning.

Yeah.

HughAnd I mean, so I, I think that we had to really. Do our due diligence on the [00:11:00] judges and, and advise our clients on it. And I, I didn't find them to be one way or the other. It was a very mixed bag. Especially when you got outside of Louisville.

ChristineWell, I guess I would say, oh, for sure. Outside of Louisville, you know, I used to practice,

HughI know

Christinein Morehead. Oh, I know. That's where Kim Davis was. But

HughI, when I think of the Louisville area, I include the other counties that most Louisville attorneys practice. You know, the Shelby Spencer okay. Samuel Anderson Oldham Trim, you know that. That's one circuit. Then the Trimble Henry Oldham, and then bullet. That's, that's pretty much it. But I mean, that's, that's sort of the Louisville metropolitan area that, that people practice in. So I, I was,

Christinesee people from here definitely don't do that. Like, I don't even know, I grew up in Bullock County and from the south end of Louisville, but I don't know that I'd ever been to Anderson County until I was a litigator. Like why would you go to, I mean, no offense, maybe, I don't even know what's in Anderson County, but people, when I'm say I'm like, I predominantly it's wrong. I need to stop. But when I say like our local judges, I mean Louisville. Okay. But yeah, I would say that definitely like our Bullock County judges, no, they are not liberal leaning.[00:12:00]

HughI mean, I, I. I don't know at the moment, honestly, I just, I, I remember there were certain issues that you could research and, and thanks to social media and people posting online, you can figure out where they stand on things and you can make strategic decisions about where what forum you wanted your case heard in, what judge you wanted to end up in front of, to the extent that you had the ability to file in one place or the other. That was a very important decision.

ChristineYeah, and I think that's one of the problems too. Like you shouldn't know how your judges vote, but you know, I follow pol like local politics pretty closely and get kind of obsessed with it in a way that's like weird probably. But yeah. You know, we got the TikTok judge, Denise Brown. I mean, obviously she hates Donald Trump. She does tiktoks about it.

HughSure. Well, I mean, you have judges that. Post pictures on social media of them at events for a specific political candidate for one of the parties. So, you know, that was all very helpful to me as an attorney, to know those things. You're telegraphing things that are going to help me make decisions for my clients. So I, I'm not, you know, from the outside neutrally, I don't like it. I don't think that's, I don't think that's proper, but [00:13:00] when I was in the practice, it was something that I could use and make better decisions for my clients

Christineand that goes so much. You and I have talked about this, but so much to the point that strategy matters just as much as knowing the law and the rules of procedure and rules of evidence

Hughmore so when you know your judges are less likely to enforce the rules or to understand them, you have to strategize on other things like people's political leanings or the things that make you angry. When I talk about the strategies, like finding ways to use up, well more than your allotted time in court so the other side doesn't get their points across, ways to monopolize the room just. I, because you're not, if you can't win on the law and the rules because it's a crapshoot, then you're going to try to strategize in another way as an advocate. That's sort of the way the practice works. I,

yep.

HughI would be mortified if I were the client and those things were deciding what was going to happen with the most important assets in my life or my [00:14:00] kids. That's the world we live in and that's what we practiced in.

ChristineYeah, and I think it's just gone too far. Like we've gone over the hill as far as that goes, but absolutely. Strategy matters. Strategy matters. You guys, I cannot over articulate is that even the right verbiage to say how much strategy matters in court. And I think this next viral clip will kind of show maybe a little bit of how you think the wrong strategy was used and how I have PTSD from watching it. Y'all wanna watch?

HughAlright. This is a clip we're gonna be watching. We'll show it on the screen. To those who are listening, this is a clip. From inside a criminal courtroom, a motion is made for discovery, which would ordinarily, I guess, be, have been provided from the prosecution.

ChristineWell, the guy's in custody and they miss, they mention probation. And it seems to me that the attorney is not a public defender. And I'll explain more once we watch. No,

HughI, I, I agree.

Christine[00:15:00] It's constitutionally allowed or required.

Yep.

ChristineAnd we were talking about probation, right?

HughThat statement that not a lot of the attorneys have done that. That's really telling.

ChristineLook at the poor defendant

Hughstanding in a courtroom with everyone looking at him

Christineand yelling. Everyone's yelling like children[00:16:00] proper way.

HughSeems like a proper way would be to file a motion, which seems to be why they're in court.

ChristineI wonder if contact Mr. Nichols is in their local rules. She says it a lot.

HughDidn't she say at some point contact us?

Yeah.[00:17:00]

ChristineAnd when talking about being personally subpoenaed, that's the probation officer likely. All right, so you thought that, what are your thoughts?

HughSo of all the ones that we were reviewing for the one today, I thought that was, that one was in fairly in innocuous. I think the things that bother me are not the things that bother you, the things that bother me, I don't like when a court says, reach out to us and they're referring to the prosecution, and you just get this feeling that it's all part of one machine. Like the prosecution and the court are not part of a team. Yeah, [00:18:00] yeah. It's not us versus them, both government. But that, yeah, that, that part always, always bothered me from, from my time in dependency court. The other is. My takeaway is more just attorneys sometimes need to read the room, but I, when the judge says attorneys, not many attorneys around here have done that, which is filing a motion to compel discovery for your defendant client, which. If you're not provided it, you have no choice. You have to file that motion.

ChristineWell, what probably happened? Okay, so it's a probation revocation hearing likely because there's a probation officer. This one bothered me a lot because, well, a lot of different reasons, but that judge, first off, let's just have the very, very frank conversation about, if you wanna look up the definition of mansplaining. That's what that judge did. She just has a vagina. Okay. And like I've talked before about female judges being a problem, but the way that she condescendingly [00:19:00] explained how to lawyer to a lawyer in is insulting. But you have to think about when you are in a room as a defense attorney and the judge's first inclination is to protect the prosecutor, protect the probation officer. What likely happened is. He gets. So it's a male defendant. The attorney's a male, the defense attorney gets a call, there's a probation violation, family member calls and is like, oh my God, you've got Eric and Eric needs to get out on, is gonna miss work and Eric's gonna miss all this stuff. Here's $1,500. Attorney picks up the phone, calls the probation prosecutor, calls the probation officer to get the report, the detailed report of the violations. And I'm just speculating, but it sounds like the probation officer was like, I'm not giving it to you. I don't know you. I don't know who you are. Maybe the attorney was rude. So the attorney's like, well, we need to have a hearing. I need to know what the violations are as written in the report. And instead of just getting that as he should, he had to file a [00:20:00] motion. Yeah. And so the defendant is, constitutional rights are invoked the second that you're in an orange jumpsuit. Right. And so the probation officer's like, I'm God, I don't have to give you shit. And I know when I go in here, my judge is gonna do whatever I wanna do.

HughThat's how, that's how it felt. It also felt like this attorney might have been from. Either practiced in another court Yeah. Or from a different county because the judge, as you said, mansplained how things work in that court and everyone just gets along and they just ask each other for things informally, which I just can't fathom an attorney filing a motion to compel in an action like this and getting it before the docket if they had not picked up the phone and tried to get it through other means. It just doesn't make any sense that you would file the motion first. I would imagine that this attorney asked for it. Yep. And was told, no, it's not happening. And then you have a judge making excuses that there was an oversight or some making excuses for the prosecution, which.

ChristineAnd not even the prosecution, also the probation [00:21:00] office. Yeah. Which is also separate from the prosecutor and oftentimes the probation officer. Fair enough. And the prosecutor are gonna fight with one another too. They're gonna have their own political dramas. But it's just the notion that when you go into court as a defense attorney and you have the judge first thought, I'm gonna protect my prosecutor and I'm gonna protect my probation officers. Not holy shit. There's a man in an orange jumpsuit with his liberties being restrained. Right. Word. And I'm going to yell at you. Yeah, it's like, it's something that could have happened also at a sidebar. You know what counsel's approached the bench. You're new in this jurisdiction. I'm gonna push the little white noise button and explain it, instead of just tearing him up and down in front of that client and probably a wife or kids that somehow came up with $1,500 to get him out on probation in front of the whole thing.

HughThat's a really good point, and that is something you do as a sidebar. And the sidebar is where an attorney a judge will call attorneys up to the bar [00:22:00] and they usually have some white noise or something they put on so no one else in the courtroom can hear what they talk about. And the judge can speak more frankly to the attorneys or give some direction. And since both of them are standing there, there's nothing wrong with them having that Yeah. Conversation. And they are often very helpful. Mm-hmm. And you want to know if you're stepping in something or doing something different than the judge would like, and they tell you privately. Yep. Doesn't cause an issue with your client, doesn't undermine their faith in, in your ability to practice. You certainly just don't want that conversation on the record as an attorney. But I will say, you know, when a judge starts speaking, especially when she says she's gonna grant your motion, just be quiet.

ChristineI I dunno. I'm like, like, why the hell am I here? Take the win.

HughI agree. I would be exasperated too, but as soon as she said I'm going to grant it, but she won't let me talk. Maybe that's the cue to be quiet. I'm not, this is coming from

Christinean hourly rate lawyer. Yeah. Not a flat rate lawyer that's wasted all his time, drove 45 minutes. I'm speculating, but drove 45 minutes to file a motion to get something that he's constitutionally entitled to and he's trying to say. [00:23:00] He's trying to say too, listen, probation officer I ever call you again, you better gimme what I need.

Sure.

ChristineAnd the judge is saying, oh, I got my probation officer's back. See, that's to the other side of it that I'm just like, also there's verbiage. So, you don't need to be so argumentative and defensive. Okay. Whoa.

HughWho am I? What am I doing here? Am I a defense attorney? I think I am.

ChristineYeah. That's like hashtag defense attorney. Hashtag argumentative. Put that on a billboard. And I think these are the small little things that it's not nearly as egregious as some of the stuff that we've watched, but it's also like. Do you notice too, how that judge, female judge, I'll say it again. I know this is just my perspective, but she doesn't have the ability to tell him how to go to hell where he looks forward to the trip. Is that bad?

No,

Christinebut she doesn't have control over her courtroom. She gets emotional. And again, I'm a female, but she gets emotional and she gets [00:24:00] very tit for tat with him in a way that I don't think is ju judicial. Well,

Hughshe did say, you don't want to interrupt me. I, that's, that's control.

ChristineOh, well, she, well, she failed at it. 'cause I'd have kept talking. I just, she did I command respect. Yeah.

HughYeah. I just, you know, and this is coming from an, as someone who practiced hourly, I would've been sitting there thinking, why are we still talking about this? What is this a therapy session? Just say, granted, don't you know, there's no reason for anyone to explain anything. I'm filing a motion for something. I'm constitutionally. Entitled to, if you're gonna grant it, grant it and say get it to him. Get it to him by, you know, today, leave here, you know, make it available right away. And then if we need to have a hearing, and if it's not all there, counsel, put a motion on and I'll grant you the hearing and then move on to the next case.

ChristineYeah. It's just, you're in these big courtrooms, especially in criminal court. 'cause they don't do these closed courtrooms like civil family court does. Like that is super rare. Like, that doesn't happen in real court. And when I say real court, I mean, district or circuit court criminal or civil family court being closed is [00:25:00] very unique. But you will literally have like lined up all the cops, all the probation officers, the prosecutors, like they, all the attorneys run the, but it'll be on these motion hours. It will be heavy, heavy, heavy public defender, two public defenders versus 15 people that work for the state. Just like sitting in court and maybe a couple private attorneys.

HughAnd the private attorneys sometimes will go up there and they'll call all their cases right in a row so they can get in, in and out. And there's should No, no, I agree. I'm just saying that there's a protocol to it. So if you're standing there in that line, you're thinking. Oh, come on. Just be quiet. Just grant the motion. This is so absolutely 1 0 1. Granted, let's move on. I need to get to my case. We don't need to, you know. Oh, see, I'm

Christinethe opposite. A public defender. I've been like, hell yeah. Keep going. Tell that judge. Yeah. I mean that's, yeah. The difference, I think, I don't know. Interesting point. We do see a lot of these viral clips differently.

HughWell, I mean, from my point of view, if the judge had started that way with me, I'm thinking, what does this look like to my client?

Mm-hmm.

HughAnd good point, as soon as I know I'm [00:26:00] winning on it. Mm-hmm. It's, it's sort of like the, the way they train you in trial law, if you. Object and you lose on the objection and it's clear. You can't argue your way around it. Some objections you, you can tell that there's, if you argue and you present exactly why you're objecting, you probably will win. But otherwise you lose. You say thank you, yes, you say thank you to the people in the courtroom. It's not 100% clear that you lost. You're not arguing. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't harm you to, let's say the witness. If you're questioning a witness that's an adverse witness and you lose on an objection that the other side is giving and you say thank you and you just move forward confidently. You have continued to control the room and you are not on your heels for that witness who's automatically, who's defensive anyway. So to a certain extent, thinking about those things. If the judge says, I'm going to grant it, then I'm just gonna shut up, sit down. I'm not going to get into it any further. I'm gonna lean over to the client, say, we got it. They're gonna have to give this discovery. Then I would say, judge, thank you.[00:27:00] When can I have this? My client is missing work. I'm doing all these things. When am I going to get this?

ChristineWell, you wouldn't write a dissertation on it. And that segues into, I, I think in that case you need to

Hughbe quiet and you mustn't write a dissertation.

ChristineOh, this segues into Judge Jessica Stone, y'all. This is Division Five's Louisville Judge that called us cartoons and media. So I'm very excited about that. We got our press pass via Judge Stone. Can I do a little backstory on her?

HughGo for it.

ChristineSo Judge Jessica Stone was a prior prosecutor district court. She had a pretty contentious divorce in Division five and she's an attorney and she decided to run for family court judge. And she won. Okay. She had never practiced family law in any capacity, and it's my understanding that she ran because she had problems with the system. Is that your understanding? That,

Hughthat, those were all the rumors that I heard. Yeah. Which I kind of thought, well good. If you have issues with the system. Let's [00:28:00] see. See if you can fix them.

ChristineYeah. The Courier did a whole article on it about how, you know, everybody wished her well after she won. Well, I would say it took her about 27.3 seconds once she put that black robe on to just fully drink the Kool-Aid.

HughYeah. I can't say that I noticed any difference from the very beginning, from the remainder of, of family court. It was just business as usual. Nothing, nothing changed other than there was some wrangling over staff.

Yeah. And

Hughsome, some things like that. But as far as the way the dockets were run, how people were treated, , the court appointments and the, you know, rubber stamping what GS and FOCs would say, that kind of stuff seemed to just continue as usual.

ChristineNow, I'll tell you, I mean, in all honesty, I'm, I don't wanna bring any levity to this. I'm not being dramatic. I hadn't watched motion hour and probably a year when I went for the baby case and I sat in on her. Motion hour and truly aghast. She doesn't understand rudimentary [00:29:00] concepts of law. And I am genuinely concerned, and I know a lot of Louisville litigators share this concern. I spoke to people afterwards. I'm afraid that somebody's gonna get hurt with one of her rulings. 'cause I don't think she has any idea what she's doing.

HughThe one thing I, I can say that I'm thinking a little bit more about. When she first started, I did find that she had the demeanor and the way that she spoke to people at motion hour, starting off like, here I'm a new judge, I'm still learning. She, there wasn't a huge ego to where you could point out that there were errors and issues and she was very willing to say, okay, you're right. I, I, it looks like I'm gonna re-look at this. And she would go back and actually mm-hmm.

Look at

Hughit, which. It's kind of rare. Now we have some judges that will still do that and they've been on the bench forever and they still will do that. And to their credit, they can admit when they're wrong and they can go back and re-look at things. But that was a very, that was one thing that was positive to me at the beginning. I thought, well this could be something where, you know, we politely [00:30:00] file 59 0 5 motions or motions to reconsider in things that we will still get some, you know, so 15 nine get some results

Christinewould be like something though. She, what he means by that is like politely file something. I do not mean to interrupt you, but just like

mm-hmm.

ChristineWhen you, the judge gets the law blatantly wrong or gets a ruling blatantly wrong, you gotta,

that could be a fact as well. Yeah.

ChristineA fact. But you file just to say, Hey judge, like look at this law fact testimony, et cetera. And you do that politely, but Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, you do.

HughI mean, you point out you point out the manifest errors of fact law under the rule and you say, you said that this was the wife's. Premarital property in order to her, it was actually the husbands. And I think that you, you know, just misread, you know, if something happened, but you clearly didn't mean this, but this was in the order. It needs to be corrected. Mm-hmm. And those things will be corrected. And some judges will look and say, oh man, I'm sorry about that. We all make mistakes. We correct it. Yeah. That's why the rule is there and it, and it works. And then there are some that absolutely you can't challenge them if you say that that's not even a party to the case. You use the wrong name, [00:31:00] still won't correct it and will slam you. And so I had had some experience with one of our current judges who just wouldn't correct basic things that, that were, he just would reverse the parties and rulings and I couldn't get them corrected. So when I saw her willing to correct things and say, yep, I may have, I may have gotten that wrong. I, I, that was huge for me. I, I, I was very hopeful that we would have somebody that would, you know, you still take a look at things. Oh,

Christinesi. It's really difficult. And I do get, from the attorneys I talk to, they're just like I said, some fundamental things that I don't think she knows the law on. I have not heard one, and lemme be very clear, I have not heard one positive thing from any attorney in her division. Period. And I, I do hear it about other judges.

HughYeah, no, I mean, I, I will say that that's true. There were, there were people that I, I spoke with and I would, you know, bitch and moan about certain people, court appointed people [00:32:00] or you know, people that were involved in so many cases. And there, there were some attorneys that had been around for a long time that always would have positive things to say, to sort of, well, that's okay. But sometimes that person, you know, would always say things positive and, and the. It didn't generally happen when you were talking about division five. And this is

ChristineJessica Stone, and this is the Facebook post that Alison Russell initially did talking about judgy, but she made a comment on there and we'll share it on the screen. But essentially she just said, we can't be distracted from cartoons and press media. Media. Yeah. Media. Media we're media. And that, that takes away, we mustn't take away from the hard work that Division five does every day, which of course there were like three attorneys that are like, oh my gosh, you have the hardest job ever. Oh my God, I love you. Hashtag you know, blowing kisses and things like that. Again, I'm being a bit facetious and sarcastic, but one. Judges. Y'all aren't that dumb. You [00:33:00] know that anybody that does that on Facebook is talking about you behind your back. The second they hit enter on that post, let me just tell you. Okay. Two. And I do think judges realize that also all the people, and you don't get mad at me, all the people that are making those sort of posts are the attorneys that are probably making between 50 and $75,000 a year. You know, I mean, no one will go harder for the system than the worker bee that's making 50 to $75,000 a year. That like gets a little bit of clout. 'cause they get invited to a Christmas party at the judges like guest house. You know what I mean?

HughWell, or the ones that are taking court appointments.

ChristineYeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, these are, I mean, I think all the positive comments were court appointments. Maybe not one attorney or two.

HughOh, I, oh, I agree. Mm-hmm. And then there's some of the same people that leave positive reviews for court systems, which Google reviews. Wow. Yeah. Google reviews for, for. Municipal court systems. That's some apple polishing. That's amazing.

ChristineOh my goodness. And so also, let's just debate to the [00:34:00] ethics of Judge Stone saying that about us. Like, what was she one thinking? I know people that are waiting, and I know numerous attorneys that are waiting for orders from her from March and April. But what was she thinking, do you think?

HughI read it as being defensive about our, our roll calls with the judges that when she's not on the bench and we're pointing out who, well, we haven't pointed out specifically which divisions are there, but we are pointing out that there are a lot of people that are not there in the middle of the workday on multiple days of the week. Mm-hmm. It seemed the, the tone to me was, well, I would respond to this, but I'm way too busy working on, you know, my job as a, a family court judge.

ChristineI'm way too busy, but I have time to post on social media. Well,

Hughit.

ChristineI, I just, you know, bless her heart again, that's gonna be my new hashtag. Bless all their hearts. Seriously though, Jessica Stone we would like for you to, we would like for all the judges to do a good job in court. Seriously, there are [00:35:00] families and children that it's literally life or death. And so I hope that instead of getting on Facebook or taking the time to get on Reddit and talk about me, that maybe there are a lot of free CLEs in family law. And we talk a lot about the rules of evidence and things that can make the system better on this podcast. And I do on TikTok as well. So you could, you know, certainly subscribe to our channel. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two, I swear. Parties, in turn, cameras on. Speak to people with respect. You got anything else?

HughOh, gross. Revenue of a business versus income.

ChristineI can't. That's

Hugha, that's a, that's a good one.

ChristineOh my goodness. Actually we do, we'll do a little segment on that. We should, because gr Did you guys know that gross income and net income are different?

HughI bet you did.

ChristineOh my goodness. And so, I am,

Hughit's so bad and it's, it just seems so petty to say, and it [00:36:00] seems like we're making this up, but we're not. This is the stuff that we struggled with and that people would spend $50,000 Oh. And we would have to appeal. And you, , a regular appeal on something property related that's not expedited is, is a year and a halfs a year and a half. It has been for the last 10, 15 years. They take a year and a half, and then you end up back in front of the same judge and have to politely explain that. This is business revenue on the tax return that my business made $7 million. Mm-hmm. I have a salary of $75,000. We have lots of people that work for the business. I didn't make millions of dollars. Like there is a difference. This is a tax return, but it's, it was shocking how often that happened that Oh yeah. Someone could come in with one page of a business tax return with a motion and say, this person makes $50,000 a month and you can see from this business tax return. So they should pay maintenance. And then you walk outta motion hour and they'd be ordered to pay all kinds of money. And you'd have a hearing six, seven months later. Yep. And it [00:37:00] would be a temporary order. And there's nothing you could do because a judge doesn't understand that someone's business where they might have 50 employees. Makes money, but that doesn't mean that that's the income of the party.

ChristineOh, y'all, you have No, it's mind

Hughblowing. Had

Christineidea how often judges do not consider payroll. Like they don't deduct payroll of a company, any expenses. They calculate child support and maintenance and I mean obviously the other expenses too are egregious, but payroll of other employees, other constituents of Louisville, it's just a fundamental lack of understanding of,

Hugh, But it's not that, okay, somebody needs to sit down and learn how to re a tax return. The statute says for self-employed individuals, here's how you calculate income. So the legislature has given us a black and white list of things to look at. Yeah, you take the gross revenue and you subtract out legitimate business expenses. It's not, you don't take the gross revenue and say, [00:38:00] that's the income and I'm gonna, I'm gonna divide up all the property and order maintenance and child support based on that. But

Christineit sure should not rocket science.

Hughscience.

ChristineAnd that goes to, we talked last time about these judges not having had clients sometimes because they went from the prosecutor's standpoint and Jessica Stone was a prior prosecutor at the district court level. But just understanding how companies even work. I mean, when we were practicing, I was solo. I did have a firm, you had a huge firm. But there is a shit ton of business decisions that have to be made on top of clients.

HughI remember we had a, an issue of substance abuse in a company that was owned by the husband and the wife and the wife had access to, she ran the books and had access to the cash and control of things, whereas the, the husband, my client did the operations, but it was the wife that had the. Substance abuse issue and was emptying the bank accounts and was [00:39:00] spending money on things and was, was going to destroy the business, ultimately destroy the business. So ultimately, when a business is the subject of litigation and it has to be preserved, the court will basically appoint someone to run the business or to oversee, to make sure it's preserved and not run into the ground. So in order to protect the company from. What ultimately was its demise. I filed a motion to place the company in receivership so the court could administer and monitor the running of the company. So its assets were not wasted.

Yeah. So

Hughsimple motion. Oh, there were two motions. One for contempt because she had the wife had violated a bunch of orders about spending business money on personal pursuits. And then to I also asked to place the company in receivership. And, and

Christineyou explained all this in your motion. I'm sure I

Hughexplained it in the motion. I talked about how it worked. I appeared at motion hour to make the argument. I was absolutely convinced that the judge had not even looked at the motion when I asked to place to appoint a receiver [00:40:00] to help run the business. I think I had explained how it had to work. 'cause the business actually was located in Florida. Okay. So we were gonna have to involve a Florida. The question from the judge was, what's a receiver?

ChristineWhat Judge?

HughTikTok judge. So it got denied and ultimately they. Used up all the cash. The only thing left from that business were a couple contracts, which were still valuable. Yeah. And they divided up who got to serve the contracts for this company, but they divided up the actual physical property of a company, which everyone knows is usually not the bulk of the value of a company. And it was because all the cash went away. There just wasn't an understanding of what a court could do. It was, I was faced with, well that's, that's bad. Let's get a hearing. What? I can't do anything. What do you want me to do, Mr. Barrow? What do you want me to do? Like, what do you mean? You can't

Christineorder someone to not dissipate the marital estate if you can't do it as a family court judge who can,

Hughwell, they did. They ordered it. They were violating it, and so we couldn't get them to stop violating it. We filed a [00:41:00] motion for contempt. We are getting a hearing, but in the interim, this is the marital asset. Yeah. That's everything that actually owned the property where the parties lived.

Mm-hmm. It was

Hughthe entire marital estate. This was a marriage without kids. You have to stop it from being wasted until you can figure out Yeah. What is going on And. It just, , it was like my, I was just an being annoying by asking the court to actually do something about it and was just got nothing and the parties ended up with nothing.

ChristineWhich I mean also on top of that, which is horrific in and of itself. And if the court, the court absolutely has the authority to put things in place or incarcerate people and you can have a quick turnaround for a hearing, but also my God should be

able

Christineto, yeah. They have the power to. Yeah. But my God, what if something would've happened if you're dealing with substance abuse and someone had lost their life too.

HughSure. Or a kid. Yeah. I mean, if you were dealing with. Kids issues. Well, what do you want me to do? I would imagine I wouldn't be faced with the same thing related to kids. 'cause judges don't mind [00:42:00] making rulings from motion hour on the bench without a hearing about people's kids, but protecting a piece of property where there is a clear system for how to do this. Mm-hmm. I mean, when courts do this all the time, when you're dealing with naming a company as part of a debt dispute. Yep. Or a bankruptcy, a liquidation, there's, there's all kinds of cases where a judge has to appoint someone to run a company or to oversee it, to make sure that it's protected until the interest in that company can be resolved.

ChristineOtherwise, there's no incentive for someone to follow the rules. And I get that a lot in family court in particular, that perjury, you know, is not really a thing. People lie all the time in family court. There are no consequences for it. Now, obviously our perjury statute is in Kentucky. I'm not necessarily saying people that lie in family court should go to jail. I don't really believe in incarcerating people to the extent, like over incarcerating people or utilizing that as a tool. That being said, if there aren't any consequences, it's almost like it's encouraged.

HughThat's exactly [00:43:00] what the result of this felt like. Yeah. That the judge denied that motion. She set a hearing for contempt, which was, you know, probably months, months away. And behavior not only continued as normal, but it became more brazen. Yep. Because, oh, well you tried to stop me now you can't. And that was the end of it. You can't go recapture that money.

ChristineRight. Half of nothing is nothing.

HughYeah. It's gone.

ChristineGone. Oh my goodness. And obviously that judge has no business, in my opinion, in my opinion. So low opinion doing high asset cases. We don't have many on the bench that have the, brain function, the wherewithal to understand complex financial issues, in my opinion. Again but also that goes to the fact that I am, I gotta look up how long I've been actually out of it, but I'd say over two years at this point. And you're four or five months maybe since your retirement,

Hughfour Four months

Christineworking your ass off.

HughYep.

ChristineBut , the role or like the transition from litigator to advocate is one [00:44:00] that I kind of want to, if you're not weird with it, do like a touch point every podcast or once a week kind of about like how it's changed. Do you know what I'm saying? Sure. Yeah. Because like for example, yesterday when you watched those reunification camp videos

Hugh, Yep. I still jump very easily back into advocacy mode and I was blown away that, that I. Well, the biggest takeaway right now from me was that I had my nose down and was just working my cases for so long that I was blind to all these things that were going on behind the scenes. Mm-hmm. Or were going on in other jurisdictions that I've now learned through this project with you that I Yeah, it was, but that was still shocking.

ChristineYeah. And it's the same with me. Like I really, I know this is so naive to all the listeners. I thought we had a Louisville family court problem. I did not realize it was a family court problem. I didn't realize it was , the judiciary is out of control and there's no judicial accountability problem. And yesterday we had a strategy meeting and had some [00:45:00] atrium beers, which were delicious at, that's a local brewery here, but I showed him the reunification video from Sebastian and I think it's Amaya Outta California

HughReunification Camp.

ChristineYes. Yeah. If I misspoke, sorry.

HughNo, no, no. Just the, the camp part was what was shocking to me that. Yes. In order to heal a relationship between a child that may have been abused by a parent, you send them, you isolate them from the parent that they're bonded to and send them to a camp for intensive one-on-one time for weeks.

ChristineMm-hmm.

HughWith the parent who, you know, allegedly was abusing

Christineor that they were allegedly alienated from. It's just, it was, it's a shit show. They've been outlawed in California. But I think that's why we have so many people in the family court reform or abolished family court movement that have such strong beliefs is because some of this stuff is happening and a lot of it's happening, like to pro se litigants and a lot of attorneys just don't know. I had no idea. I had no idea when [00:46:00] I was practicing.

HughYeah. I mean, I'm interested to learn more about where that came from. Did it come from a legislative initiative? Did it come from state politics or did it come from the bench? I mean, a lot of those, when you get into. Certain kinds of camps or reprogramming and things, those usually are not coming from court. Those are coming from some political agenda and written into state laws. So that that would be interesting.

Christinefrom an industry that makes a shit ton of money in certain reunification therapy tactics. It's just like the troubled teen industry Now. That's something, it's one of those things where when you talk about it in family court, people can sort of label you one way or the other. But if you talk about the troubled teen industry, I think now as a society, we absolutely acknowledge that the camps that Paris Hilton were going to were disgusting, right? I mean, and there was a lot of federal matching federal funds were given. And then there was also the privatization of it where you had wealthy people [00:47:00] with children that were quote unquote out of control, and they were sold a dream that just wasn't true and they were just laughing all the way to the bank. But the notion that when you have an industry. That is ripe for money, like with these custodial evaluators and some of these treatments for people going through family court. It just lends to the fact, or it goes to the fact that it could be easily exploited. God bless, I can't speak today.

HughYeah, no, I, I agree. I mean, we see it. We see it. You see it in domestic violence cases. Yeah. As well. You see just cookie cutter solutions that, okay, you have to go to this, go through this program, and then we will just, you know that here's your package, here's the package deal of what you're gonna get and what you're gonna go through, and that it certainly doesn't help or solve anything there. There are so many programs that people go through with the court system, and I am, I remember one single time in my career that someone told me. That they really found the court's families in transition parenting program to be helpful. [00:48:00] And my only thought about that was, oh, bless your heart. Amen. Like, how in the world did you find that to be helpful? There's a lot of feel good stuff. There's a lot of jump through hoops, there's a lot of money changing hands. Mm-hmm. About these programs.

Christinethere's a prosecutor out of New York that talks about, there were two different programs he mentioned there. There's batters intervention program. Mm-hmm. Which if you have a domestic violence order issued against you, you're required by state law to attend batterers intervention. And it's a part of your court order. And obviously guess who's making money on those? But there's a prosecutor out in New York that's like, we have never had higher rates of domestic violence, but we have more people go into these batters intervention programs. Do they work? And then also the Families in Transition is a program that we have here in Kentucky. . You file for divorce, you're required to go to this class. That is just complete, in my opinion. Bullshit.

HughYeah. I, you know, to a point you made earlier, , I'm not an abolished family [00:49:00] court. Type I I think that there are very intelligent people on the bench that could handle things, and I think the things that, what frustrated me most in my litigation practice were the things that were messed up were simple things that you didn't have to be super intelligent to understand and that they are experts that you get involved in. If you have a high asset case, you, you know, I know the judges have thousands of cases, they do. I you want to have experts that can crunch the numbers because the judges simply are, you're never going to have judges that have time to do that. So it, I don't, didn't ever think that it was an issue of intelligence. And I also think that, I also think that there is something to be said for when people start going through a divorce, some basic education on how to speak with one another, how to co-parent how to do all of that stuff. But as soon as you turn it into a factory, that's super cookie cutter. And it's sort of like when they send people to traffic school for a traffic violation. Oh my gosh. You're gonna go in on Saturday morning, [00:50:00] you're gonna look at your phone and play games, not pay attention to anything. You're gonna get your certificate and you're gonna get out of it and move forward. That's what was happening. And those same people would go and bad mouth each other the next day and not follow any of the rules. So it was an ineffective system.

ChristineMm-hmm. Well I just think if you put money in anything then it's gonna lead to the possibility of the C word corruption. And I hate to use that word 'cause I do think it's so polarizing. But I really think you have to in some regards follow the money. And there are just a lot of people with their hands out when it comes to family court and also other court ordered treatments. I mean, arc is a huge one, which we can't go down that rabbit hole, but in eastern Kentucky, the people of Eastern Kentucky, I love y'all. I know I need to do more of a deep dive on the stuff I said I would before, but the exploitation of people going through the court system with court ordered treatment, whether it be substance abuse treatment, anger management, treatment, batters intervention, DUI classes, I mean, you know how much it, how [00:51:00] difficult it is to get a license with the state to be able to teach the DUI class. And it's because there's so much fucking money in it.

HughYeah. That doesn't surprise me. My, my experience with it though is that it's sort of similar to privatizing anything else. When the government has a purpose for something and then they privatize it, the purpose then changes. If you have a private for-profit person or organization providing a service, the goal is no longer to provide the service. The mm-hmm. Goal is to make money. So you're going to look for ways to meet the bullet points of what you're, what what you're told you have to do to get the money, and you're gonna look for ways to do it as quickly and efficiently and as much of a you know, just crank people through the system as possible and it loses its purpose. It's the same way when you privatize jails, you start running into Yep. People starving , and nutrition issues and every, you know, corners cut on everything else. It's, I, that's sort of how I saw it, was that okay, this may have started from a good idea. But this is absolutely [00:52:00] ineffectual. It's become an industry that I remember at a time where the families in transition program, we were asking regularly the judges to waive the program. Yes. And we would waive it where, let's say your child was 17 and a half years old. The parties had been separated for five years. They've been co-parenting very well, but hadn't gotten around to finalizing the divorce. They have a Yep. An uncontested divorce where they're not fighting about anything. They may be good friends, they may still live in the same household, and you would ask to wave families in transition because number one, by the time they get in, the kid's gonna be 18. It's not gonna matter. And they don't need it, or they just don't need it. And so we had, for a long time it was being allowed Uhhuh, it was no big deal. And it was a smart decision. Yep. Let's move these people through. Let's get it. We're not waiting for these certificates for people who clearly know how to raise a successful child, but the providers. It got that changed. Yep. And made it to where you couldn't have just complained so much because the revenue was less so, and everybody had to go through it, no [00:53:00] matter whether you needed it, whether it was a total waste of time, all of a sudden you couldn't get out of it anymore. Yep. No matter what the circumstances, you had to continue to attend because the providers got mad that less people were coming through the system.

ChristineYep. And that goes to you letting me say my favorite quote ever. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. All right. Y'all judgy y.com. Remember, if you like what we're doing, like share, subscribe, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, apple Podcast, you name it, we're on it. I'm Kentucky Christine on TikTok and Instagram, judge y. We appreciate y'all so, so, so, so, so, so much. All right. Bye.

HughPeace. Yeah. Yeah. We need some. Justice. Justin found justice.