We talk a lot about how social media, especially Facebook, provides interesting (and sometimes even relevant) evidence for family law cases.  But as a practical matter, how does one go about sending a Subpoena to Facebook?   I found this post  about the actual process, which will hopefully be helpful:

How to contact Facebook’s legal department to serve a civil subpoena.

Also consider starting with litigation support services.   A quick Google search for Phoenix showed at least two litigation support services that emphasize electronic discovery and extraction of digital data.   I personally would start with this type of service to expedite my requests to Facebook or a similar media source, knowing that I will be responsible for obtaining the local or out-of-state subpoena that will likely be necessary.

Attached is the TIMinuteEntry_Redacted for the appointment of a TI, as discussed in the AFCC workshop in Sedona on Saturday February 3.

Here’s the link for the Maricopa County Behavioral Health Roster, which lists professionals who will handle parenting coordination, supervised visitation, custody evaluations, therapy and therapeutic interventions for family court cases.     This is a Roster maintained by the court for convenience, and the court does not independently verify the information provided by the professional.

Also at the conference, Dr. David Weinstock’s “Email Rules” were mentioned several times.    My adaptation of his rules (Heck, I stole them and modified them for my own use) is here.  These Guidelines were also made a part of the Arizona AFCC Summit Project Report in 2011.

Like it or not, you as a family law attorney have an online presence.   It comes from your website, your blog, your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook page, your tweets, your email, and places you could never imagine.

Want a quick overview of how pervasive the internet is, and how much it affects our lives today?  It’s worth 4 minutes of your time to watch this, right now, before finishing this article:  Social Media video  (Stats current as of June 11, 2011, which means you can guarantee that they’ve all changed dramatically since then.)

Your Reputation:  Google Yourself.    There are attorneys out there who don’t even use email yet.   I Googled a few attorneys that I’m pretty sure don’t use email on their own (although their assistants might).  Sure enough, they have an online presence and they don’t know it.   You need to know what’s being said about you out there, in writing.

LinkedIn.    LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for interstate and local connections with other lawyers, other specialties, and resources that you need.  When a local client of mine needed to check out a Los Angeles attorney for a family law-related matter, I went to my LinkedIn connections to check out several attorneys.    I was able to easily email a few LA attorneys I already knew for input.    LinkedIn is incredibly easy to use.   Just remember that LinkedIn is completely business, so don’t post cute, funny and ironic messages and forwards (as you might do on Facebook).     This is the place to pass on interesting, business-related information, events and links that business associates will appreciate.

Google Scholar as a Research Resource.    When using Google Scholar, you at least don’t have to worry about your online reputation.   Google Scholar is about research, information and billing time and not about you.

If you can use Google, you can use Google Scholar.   Try it out this way:  Go to the regular Google home page; at the top where various Google services are listed, click “more” and then on the drop-down menu, click “Scholar”.

The Google Scholar home page looks a lot like the regular Google home page.   Save it to your favorites.

On the opening Google Scholar page, go to “Advanced  Scholar Search”.

On this page, for a keyword, type in something fairly specific to Arizona family law, such as “Drahos”, “Cockrill”, Rueschenberg”, or the like.  (If you don’t know how to spell Rueschenberg, best not to use that example.)

Before hitting “search”, scroll down further on that page and check the box next to Arizona, so your search is limited to Arizona court opinions.

Now hit the “Search Scholar” button, and bingo— one of the results (or perhaps the sole result) is your case, in full.  Arizona cites within the case are hyperlinked so you can go directly to other cases from there.   What a great way to quickly grab a case that you know!

Another example:  I had to find the Arizona case that states that while a wage assignment can only take up to 50% of the obligor’s disposable earnings, the obligor still owes any child support which is ordered in excess of that amount.    I used Google Scholar to search “wage assignment”, again limited my search to Arizona, and a page of Arizona cases was produced.   The case I wanted —- Fuentes —- was right there on the first page of search results.

Online Ethics and Email Dilemmas.

Question:   You receive an unsolicited email from a person you don’t know, asking about getting legal advice or meeting with you.    The email says only that he was referred to you and then goes into great detail about his case—names, dates, and specifics are included.  You glance at the email and realize that this is a case where you already met with this person’s spouse and you were planning on representing her and filing soon.  What do you do?  Has reading this email now conflicted you out of representing the person you were going to represent?  If not, and if there was something in this email that is useful to the case (such as “she doesn’t know about my cocaine conviction” or “I just turned down a promotion that would have paid me a lot more, because I don’t want to pay her”), can you use that information in the case?  Or do you have to keep this emailed information (that you didn’t ask for or seek out) confidential from your own client and case?

The answer might surprise you.     According to the State Bar’s ethics panel held at the Bar Convention on June 17, 2011, and numerous other sources, the attorney receiving this unsolicited email has not formed any attorney-client relationship with the person writing this single email, is not conflicted out of representation of the other side to this case, and can use in the litigation the information gleaned from this email.

Question:  You notice, after exchanging emails with your own client, that she is using her work-related email to communicate with you about virtually everything to do with her case.  Beneath her signature and contact information on the email is a standard employer disclaimer/ warning that states that all email content belongs to the employer and is subject to monitoring.   If a copy of some of her emails gets disseminated somehow, are those email communications privileged?

Probably not.   When an employer clearly designates that employer-based emails are monitored and belong to the employer, an employee has no reasonable expectation of privacy in those emails.  One court went so far as to state that a client’s revealing of personal information in employer-owned email is akin to “consulting her lawyer in the employer’s conference room, in a loud voice, with the door open, so that any reasonable person would expect that their discussion of her complaints . . . . would be heard.”

iPad for lawyers.  If you’re using an iPad and aren’t reading at least one blog about iPads at the office, or if you don’t own the book iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, you’re not getting the most out of it.    I personally am just starting to learn everything my iPad can do for me at the office, and I’m regularly practicing with the Pages app (word processing; compatible with Word) and Notes (simple note-taking on the iPad, and the notes are easily emailed to yourself).

Blogs to check out to find out more about how lawyers can most effectively use iPads include:
Tablet Legal (http://www.tabletlegal.com/)
TechnoESQ (http://www.technoesq.com )
iPhone JD (http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd
MacsinLaw (http://www.macsinlaw.com )
The Mac Lawyer (http://www.themaclawyer.com
Hytechlawyer (www.hytechlawyer.com)

Walkingoffice.com
iPad 4 Lawyers (http://www.tommighell.com/ipad)
WalkingOffice (http://www.walkingoffice.com/)
iPadmania (http://almipad.wordpress.com ) (not just for lawyers, but general iPad stuff)

You can buy the book iPad in One Hour for Lawyers at the ABA online store.

Your Personal Use of Email.  Email Etiquette Applies to Everyone.      Let’s say that you’re convinced you have no problems with your online presence, because you have a professional prepare and review your website; you have no blog; you couldn’t be paid enough to be on Facebook; you feel LinkedIn is useless to your practice; and you definitely don’t tweet.  Do you email?   If so, you have an online presence that you can improve.

The single best advice I can give you about email is Stop and Think before Sending.    So many things to think about—-is this email really necessary?   Is it professional?  What’s the purpose of this email, and does it fulfill that purpose?

In that vein:

1.   Respect the time of your recipient.  Do whatever is necessary to minimize the time the recipient has to spend processing your email.   This includes formatting your email for easy reading (paragraphs, either numbered or bulleted are important), and including other relevant information.   If this email refers to a past email, make sure the past email is attached (using “Attach Item”, a choice at the top of the Outlook bar).

2. A brief reply is okay.   We all have volumes of email to read.  Keeping the reply to yes, no, or only pertinent information is acceptable.  (But for these short responses, you have to make sure the original question/ email is part of your reply, or simply saying “Yes” is too vague.)   And stop the worthless responses.   If your response says only  “You know it!” or “smiley face”, then the response isn’t necessary.

3.  Clarity.  The subject line should clearly state the topic and should never be blank.    If the email is going to be longer than 4-5 sentences, the FIRST sentence should state the reason for writing.   Please, please delete those weird fonts, colors and backgrounds, and make sure your assistant deletes those too.  They are confusing and hard to read for business email.

4.   Forget the open-ended questions.  An email that drags on for 50 lines and ends with “Thoughts?”  is not going to get a response, at least not from me.   If you have specific questions, state them specifically.

5.  Watch the cc’s, then double-check the cc’s, then check them again before hitting “Send”.   When responding to an email from opposing counsel, you hit “reply all” at your peril.    I go through each “reply all” recipient individually, checking to see that my responsive emails are going only to opposing counsel and other addresses at opposing counsel’s office, and I delete any “reply all” recipient addresses that I don’t recognize.   My Reply is copied separately to my own client (or blind cc’d), so my client’s email address doesn’t get caught up in a bunch of subsequent replies.   Sorry, but if you include your own client’s email address in the string, you look like an idiot later when you complain that opposing counsel’s responsive email communicated directly with your client.

6.  Shorten the email string.    Is the entire email string necessary to your email or response?  If not, delete the parts not necessary for your response.   There’s no rule, anywhere, that an email has to keep going back and forth endlessly in its exact original form.    This relates back to #1—you’re trying to make things easier for the recipient on the other end.

7.   Graphics files and logos.   Logos on emails often show up as attachments, wasting the recipient’s time trying to open them to see if there’s something important attached.  If your email logos are showing up this way, ask your IT guy how to change it.

8.    Just sign off.   The less time you spend sending email, the less time is wasted with responses.   Consider spending long blocks of time during the day (4-5 hours?) when you don’t allow yourself to check email or even go online.   Then catch up on email in large blocks.  It’s far more time-efficient.   One colleague told me that he instructs his worthy clients to start an email to him (with questions, comments, etc.)  at the beginning of the day, but hold onto it as a draft for several hours, add to it as necessary, delete things that have become irrelevant throughout the day (many of them do), and then send ONE email later in the day, instead of 30 throughout the day.  So efficient.

10. Clean Up Your Forwards.  Before forwarding an email or email string,  clean up those arrows  (>>>>>>) that have accumulated from all the forwarding. They make things difficult to read. (Paste the message into Word; use Find and Replace to search for the “>” character and replace it with nothing.)     And then make sure the Subject line is still relevant, and remove extra “RE”’s from the Subject.9. Use BCC for Your E-mail Blasts.  If you must send something to a large group of people (a newsletter, for example), don’t just put every email address into the “To”: or “CC”  line. Instead, address the email to yourself and put ALL other email address into the BCC (blind carbon copy) line.   Everyone will  get your e-mail blast, but the others won’t  see every other  e-mail address. You’re preserving the privacy of all recipients, and saving them from scrolling through six inches of address information.

11. Delete the Legalese.   This doesn’t make much sense for lawyers, does it?   But those giant email disclaimers at the bottom of every single email aren’t doing anyone any good and are especially annoying in email strings.   When your actual e-mail message is far shorter than your legal disclaimer, you look silly.   Yes, I realize that your firm may require the disclaimer and there’s nothing you can do about it; but see #10 above—- can you at least delete it 19 of the 20 times it appears in a forwarded email string?   And finally:   consider that you are waiting until the END of the email to tell someone not to read it.   No wonder non-lawyers make fun of us.

Also, the little note at the end of emails to “Consider the environment and please don’t print this email unless necessary” is condescending and unnecessary.  Give your recipient some credit for not being an idiot.

12.  Consider putting your responses in the email body, highlighted and colored for clarity.    If you’re replying to a message that had a lot of different statements or questions, consider clicking after each response-requiring sentence, hitting Return, and typing your answer there, then making your response a different color and bolded.   The result looks like a conversation, and makes it clear what you’re referring to and what question you’re answering.  Or, if the email needs only one response, it’s probably best to put it up top so the recipient doesn’t need to scroll down.

Many of these email suggestions come from www.emailcharter.org.

Protect Your Email and Other Online Accounts:  Passwords.     In a recent survey, it turns out that the most popular six-character password is  1-2-3-4-5-6.    The fourth most popular password is “password”.    Other widely-used passwords are “iloveou” and “abc123”.   No wonder accounts are frequently hacked.   It’s the online equivalent of leaving the front door key under the front mat.

Go with a long, long password — the more letters, numbers or symbols, the better.    If a site allows you to use a 14-character password, use all 14.    Instead of cursing the next time a website demands that your password use a symbol, be happy that’s being forced on you.  Spend a few minutes and come up with a password that uses numbers and symbols as well as letters, and then come up with a memory cue so you won’t forget it.

Symbols are security.  According to Imperva Application Defense Center (ADC), a security research group, there are over 1500 symbols a hacking program needs to run through to try and guess one character of your password.    So, adding one extra symbol   [  !  )(  $ *  ]   can make it 1500 times more difficult for a hacker to get into your account.

Steve Gibson is a security research specialist, and some of his password protections can be found here.   That site gives practical tips for password creation.   Having a password like P66&*((%ellq4831  isn’t going to help anyone, because no one’s going to remember or use it.    His site shows how to develop a truly difficult-to-hack password that will be surprisingly easy for you to remember.

Finally  —- every law firm or sole practitioner should have a website, period.   There are some terrific ones out there.    A future article will focus on current issues for law firm websites and blogs in family law, and why yours should stand out.

Here is the CCE vs LFA slide (the Power Point slides) shown during the psychologist panel presentation at the State Bar of Arizona seminar on January 19, 2012.    These include cites to the article resources we mentioned as well as the online resources and standards of practice available through AFCC.

As far as alienation issues, the entire January 2010 issue of Family Court Review is useful.  It was a special issue devoted to alienation issues which were then discussed at the June, 2010 AFCC Conference in Denver.    AFCC members have access to conference audio as well as a full subscription to the print and online versions of Family Court Review.

The articles mentioned in the bibliography were WeinstockKenneyarticle , Greenberg and Shuman and Greenberg and Gould article.

The therpeutic, evaluative and hybrid roles descriptions that were included in the seminar materials are here.

How do I start being a parenting coordinator?   I hear this question several times a year from attorneys.    In Arizona, there is unfortunately no specific class or procedure you go through for a certain number of hours, finally emerging as an “official Parenting Coordinator”.  But with work and a fair amount of reading and a little guidance, it’s not difficult for an attorney to qualify as a PC and start an effective PC practice.

First, start with Rule 74, ARFLP.  The requirements to be a parenting coordinator are:

B. Persons Who May Serve as Parenting Coordinators. A Parenting Coordinator may be an attorney who is licensed to practice law in Arizona; a psychiatrist who is licensed to practice medicine or osteopathy in Arizona; a psychologist who is licensed to practice psychology in Arizona; a person who is licensed by the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners as a social worker, professional counselor, marriage and family therapist, or substance abuse counselor; any other Arizona licensed or certified professional with education, experience, and special expertise regarding the particular issues referred; or professional staff of conciliation services. The court may prescribe additional requirements for service as Parenting Coordinator.

Note two things right away: Rule 74 is a part of Section VIII of the Family Law Rules, and Section VIII is titled “Settlement and Alternative Dispute Resolution”.  Then note that Rule 74 is just two rules away from Rule 72, the Family law Master rule. These two things are important, and are not coincidences.    Parenting coordination is a form of dispute resolution, and the role has similarity to the Family Law Master role.  If you’ve served as a Family Law Master (or Special Master) before, that experience will help you in serving as a Parenting Coordinator.

Per Rule 74B, attorneys automatically qualify to be parenting coordinators because we are licensed to practice in Arizona.    Common sense tells us that family law experience is also required, and that someone who is licensed but has always practiced in, say, real estate law, can’t jump in and be a parenting coordinator.  Experience as a judge pro tem is also essential to a parenting coordinator.  I personally wish Rule 74 required that someone either be, or have been in the past, a judge pro tem before qualifying as a parenting coordinator.

So, you technically qualify; now what?   Other requirements imposed by the court/ legislature include compliance with ARS 25-406C, which states:

C. Beginning on July 1, 2006, the court shall require any person who conducts an investigation or prepares a report pursuant to this section to receive training that meets the minimum standards prescribed by the domestic relations committee, established pursuant to section 25-323.02 as follows:

 1. Six initial hours of domestic violence training.

2. Six initial hours of child abuse training.

3. Four subsequent hours of training every two years on domestic violence and child abuse.

ARS 25-406B DOES apply to parenting coordinators, as PCs routinely investigate and prepare reports to the court.    Compliance with these educational requirements must be shown by anyone acting as a PC.  It’s often not easy to find specialized training in domestic violence and child abuse, but I recommend looking for AFCC training (nationwide and at the Sedona conference each year) as well as State Bar programs.

Note that each and every PC report to the court must include a certification (statement) that these training requirements have been met.   And keep evidence of your training and attendance, as a PC is likely to be challenged on this issue at least occasionally.

Finally, an additional requirement:   Maricopa County requires that to be listed on the County roster of Behavioral Health Services Providers, you must attend the annual orientation put on by the Maricopa County Superior Court Mental Health committee (usually done as a collaboration with the Arizona Chapter of AFCC).  This orientation is offered once per year (usually every September).  If you missed the most recent offering, you can obtain a video of the most recent session through the Court by contacting Conciliation Services.   They’ll let you check out the DVD for a period of time and then you must certify that you watched it in order to fulfill this requirement.   Notice of each annual orientation is sent out by email each year, and when you get that notice, SIGN UP for the orientation, as it routinely sells out very quickly.

Once you’ve either attended this session or filled out the certification that you reviewed the video, Conciliation Services can also provide you with the form to be filled out to get your name on the roster.  Note that the roster of Behavioral Health Services Providers is not an endorsement by the court or a guarantee that someone is a great BHP or PC.  It’s simply a list, maintained for the convenience of the public and the court system, of professionals who have fulfilled the basic minimum requirements for the listed positions.

So now you’ve fulfilled all these requirements, and you’re on the roster.   At some point while you getting all this training, you also should be reading, in detail, the following:

• All of Rule 74, describing what a PC can do and should do, and basic procedural requirements.
• The standard order of appointment for PCs, describing additional terms for a PC appointment.   These standard orders differ between Maricopa and Pima counties, so be sure and review the right one.
• Form 9, Form 10 and Form 11 of the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure.
• AFCC Guidelines for Parenting Coordination.

For quick access to links mentioned in this article, go to the Resources and Links section of my website.

A note about the AFCC Guidelines for Parenting Coordination:  They are very, very helpful in how to structure  PC meetings, but those Guidelines were developed for very general use for parenting coordination nationwide.    They are not specific to Arizona’s laws or rules, and the AFCC Guidelines may emphasize a mediation or therapeutic approach to parenting coordination that is not part of Arizona law.  Rule 74 and the order of appointment are always paramount in making decisions about how to handle a PC case here, and where they differ from the AFCC Guidelines, the Arizona Rule and Orders always trump the Guidelines.

And now:   Modify your Practice.  In order to have a parenting coordination practice, you need to modify your Fee Agreement, as fee arrangements are very different for PC matters than for private client matters.   Additional written information about the PC process and about how you personally schedule meetings and handle PC matters is very helpful.    I’ve modified Form 11 (Parent Information Regarding the Use of Parenting Coordinators) to mention some of my own specific procedures, and I provide that to parents as soon as I’m appointed, along with my fee agreement.

You will have lots of questions from parents and attorneys about how the process is handled, and it’s best to have the answer ready in written form, even if you end up having to read those instructions aloud to people.    As your practice develops, you will find areas where you haven’t yet adopted a particular policy or practice, and as the questions arise, create a policy, write it down, and be consistent.    The practice is constantly changing and adapting to the needs of the clients and the court system, so be flexible.

One big decision you’ll have to make is the role of email in your PC practice.  Some PCs don’t allow or encourage emails.   I personally don’t know how I’d have a PC practice without email.  It’s your decision.   If you allow emails, figure out the best way for you to organize them to be able to quickly get to the information you need.   Some people print everything; that would make me crazy.   I use a combination of organized folders (in Outlook and on the hard drive) and Adobe Acrobat to keep everything straight.

Your assistant will be a huge part of your PC practice.  He or she will be scheduling appointments and speaking directly with the clients and will need to know exactly how you want to handle appointments and scheduling and fees.   At the outset of a case, the assistant can track down all the initial documents you need (parenting time orders, modifications, custody evaluations and prior PC reports) to get familiar with the case.    Organization of those documents in your file is necessary to make sure conflicting Recommendations aren’t issued.   And when it comes to filing your Recommendations with the Court, your assistant will monitor everything and follow up to find out when Recommendations have become an order.

Continuing education.  This is vital to a PC practice.    Even though it’s not specifically required anywhere, I try to get at least 15 hours of CLE in parenting coordination matters, in addition to the 15 hours we’re already required to have as attorneys, each year.   (That’s not difficult to do if you attend AFCC conferences.)   Topics for continuing education in parenting coordination include high conflict personalities and personality disorders, effective communication, co-parenting techniques and theories, alienation, interviewing children, attachment theory, child development, ethics, virtual visitation, Our Family Wizard, and the like.

There’s a lot to starting a Parenting Coordination practice, and I hope if nothing else, this article emphasizes the work and thought that needs to go into the process before you start.

I started using Google Docs as my sort of personal Dropbox, storing a document in the cloud so I could access it either at home or at work.   I’m embarrassed to say it took me awhile to think of practical uses for Google Docs to share with anyone other than myself.    Late one Friday afternoon, I received the opposing party’s final exhibits for trial.   All the exhibits were burned on one CD-ROM, and as the case involved some highly technical issues, I knew my client wanted to see the full exhibits ASAP.   I was considering how I could best burn him a copy of the CD, and then get it delivered to him (all after 5pm on a Friday), without cutting into my weekend too much.   Then it occurred to me — upload to the documents to a folder on Google Docs, and send the client the link to share that folder.  It worked perfectly, and the client was impressed with how fast I got him the documents to review.

So in the same case, when it came time to compile a full set of digital trial exhibits in one place (for the court reporter’s convenience), it was logical to create another folder.  This time the folder was shared with opposing counsel as well as the court reporter.  As trial exhibits were admitted, they were moved into the “Admitted Exhibits” folder and were immediately accessible to all.

A shared Google Docs folder can be used for any exchange of documents that’s large, unwieldy or that you’ve been exchanging on CDs or DVDs — discovery responses and disclosure statements come to mind.    I’m hoping that most attorney stopped making hard copies of voluminous tax and other financial records years ago, and have been sending them digitally to the other party, but why not save yourself the time and trouble of burning and delivering the CD, or having a large file rejected from an email server?   A shared Google Docs file delivers them instantly.

A Pretrial Statement that requires input from both parties can be a shared document, allowing both counsel to work on the document, without the email attachments we now use.   Yes, sharing requires that both counsel be willing to use Google Docs, but as it’s almost as easy as email, it’s going to be difficult for opposing counsel to say s/he can’t handle it.    The one thing Google Docs can’t handle is opposing counsel who refuses to participate in a Pretrial Statement at all — and I suspect that’s a problem that technology will never be able to help us with.

I don’t claim to be an expert on in-courtroom technology.   But a case I’m involved with now in private arbitration has opened my eyes to the ease of dealing with digital exhibits.

One of the most frustration things to me, while in the courtroom, is dealing with exhibits.  While trying to keep one’s mind of the line of questioning, listen for nuances in testimony, take directions from the judge, or just follow what’s going on, the lawyer also has to be moving around the courtroom with paper exhibits.  We are constantly moving the paper in order to show the right exhibit to the witness at the right time, find the exhibit in the stack prepared by the clerk, and point out the right page or portion of the exhibit to the witness, for reference.   Not easy tasks, while also trying to phrase a question in the best possible way.    I tell myself this is why most of my transcripts make me sound like I just woke up from a long sleep.

Electronic exhibits are a breeze.    Because this is private arbitration, we didn’t have to have our exhibits marked by the clerk days ahead of time.  This enhanced the ability of  both lawyers to pare the exhibits down to just what we need.    While we may have exchanged (digitally) an enormous number of pages of bank statements, in trial we are marking only the statement pages that we actually need and that are referred to in testimony.   A hard copy is marked (for our record, of course), but the witness sees the exhibit on a monitor, as does the judge and all other spectators.     Flipping between exhibits on the monitor is easy, so less time is wasted while someone paws through a pile of paper exhibits looking for the right one.     As the witness testifies, pertinent portions of the document are easily highlighted on the screen.   The exchange of exhibits was done through CD-ROM, thumb drives, and even Google Docs.

Yes, we still have piles of paper in the trial room, and I’m still taking trial notes on a yellow legal pad, by hand.     I decided not to use the iPad for this trial, to keep myself from getting too distracted by the technology.  Next time, the iPad will be there, and my trial notes will be more organized.

Edie Croxen and Rebecca Stahl and I were very happy to present to the Forensic Committee of the Santa Clara County Psychological Association on September 30.

Here are the PDF materials (power point slides) from the CalMHSept2011presentation.

Here are the proposed family-privacy-orders-1 (1) in Word format; and here are the proposed Email Instructions for Parenting Coordination Cases.

Contact information for us:

Annette     annette@btlawyers.com

Edie     eaclawoffices@aol.com

Rebecca  rmstahl@gmail.com

Thanks for attending!

I’ve taken off most of the summer from the blog, and it was a relief, but made me feel guilty.   There are lots of things coming up in Maricopa County and elsewhere in the next couple of months, including the September 23 Mental Health Orientation at Maricopa County Superior Court.   Brian Yee, Jack Assini (Tucson) and I will be presenting on “Parenting Coordinator Approaches” to a hopefully receptive crowd, to offer our input on how we handle PC cases (for what it’s worth).   We’ll concentrate on the nuts and bolts of PC work (READ Rule 74 — it really covers a lot of important things), how to handle individual issues (and whether you should attempt to handle them at all), and how the court handles PC recommendations once they’re filed.

A week after that, Edie Croxon and Rebecca Stahl and I travel to San Jose, California to present (again) on Family Law and the Internet.  This is a presentation we’ve done at Arizona AFCC, an AFCC mid-year conference in Reno, and California AFCC, so we obviously love doing this.  The audience in California this time is a mental health providers group, and we have great updates from the last presentation.

The Rules Committee (official name: Family Law Practice and Procedure Committee) of the State Bar continues to be active.    One item being considered for change is Rule 12 regarding court interviews of children and how they should be conducted (in camera, record of proceedings, is the record released to the parties, etc.).  Rule 12 interviews continue to be of great  importance in all jurisdictions, but smaller counties in Arizona have particular insight on this issue, because those counties often don’t have access to Conciliation Services or other professionals to interview the children, leaving the issue squarely in the hands of the trial judge.

The 2011 edition of the Arizona Family Law Rules Handbook (West/ Thomson Reuters publication) is out now, with the rules changes that became effective this year.  Fortunately the 2012 edition will be out earlier next year.  The Handbook continues to have commentary and case law updates relating to the Rules.   Now that the Rules are five years old (having been originally effective January 1, 2006), the case law is starting to accumulate and interesting changes and tweaks continue to be done to the Rules.    I’m glad to report that five years in, the changes that have been necessary to the Rules are minimal, pointing out yet again that the original Rules Committee (chairperson Hon. Mark Armstrong, Ret.) did a very, very thorough job.

This is a topic I’ve been wanting to write about for awhile, and I finally got to the relevant pages about it in Dr. Emery’s The Truth About Children and Divorce  (Robert E. Emery, PH.D., 2006)     Simply put, sometimes teenagers have distinct feelings about their parenting time schedule and ask for changes.    To really confuse the parents, children who have cooperated with a particular parenting plan for years may seem fine with it until they hit their early teens, and then suddenly express a desire to change it.

The request for change happens sometimes with equal time-sharing plans.   A child may have gone along with a 2-2-5-5 or alternating weeks schedule,  but as a teen now says he wants to spend more time at one house than the other.     This is tricky for most children —- most don’t want to insult either parent or make mom or dad feel bad.  A preference to spend more time in one household is generally not an announcement that the child likes one parent more than the other, but an expression of independence and focus on his own busy life.   Teenagers have schedules, likes and dislikes, and are the most concerned with having a home life that facilities their lifestyles and not necessarily mom’s or dad’s.    Note:  This is not something exclusive to children of divorced homes!

Dr. Emery notes that a child’s desire may be to spend more time at the same-sex parent’s home.      I’ve seen situations where this happens, because the same-sex parent may be more supportive (either overtly or subconsciously) of the teenager’s preferred activities; or may be able to guide them through adolescence just a little more smoothly than the other parent.   One example of this is a teenage girl expressing a desire to be at Mom’s more, because she can get help with those all-important hair  and makeup issues (I’m making it sound frivolous, but to a high school freshman girl, those things are crucial), or can talk to Mom more easily about boyfriend problems.      Even so, I’ve seen enough examples of girls who can talk more readily with dad, and boys with mom, to know that the same-sex parent preference is only an occasional thing.

This issue for teenagers is far more difficult where the separated/ divorced parents have drastically different parenting styles.    Unfortunately, the majority of cases I see involve highly conflicted parents who lack either the desire or the ability to effectively communicate; or if they communicate, it’s primarily about their differences.

Dr. Emery also notes (consistent with what most family lawyers hear on this issue) that teens may express their desires in well-reasoned and mature ways, politely asking a parent for help changing the parenting time; or they may have angry outbursts and fights, refuse to go to one parent’s home, start acting out in school, or otherwise make the parents’ lives miserable until someone pays attention.   As a practical matter, the courts generally recognize that after a certain age, it’s virtually impossible to force a teenager to stay at a residence he doesn’t want to be at, as long as he’s willing to stay at the other parent’s and isn’t truant or delinquent.

[NOTE:   One of the most common questions asked of family attorneys is "At what age does he get to decide where he lives?"    Many people mistakenly believe that there is a certain age after which, by law, the child gets to state where he lives, and that's simply not true under Arizona law.    The child's preferences (once he's old enough to state them) are only ONE factor, among eleven, that an Arizona court must consider in awarding custody and setting parenting time, and the child's wishes are not given any more weight than the other ten factors.  So while the court is to consider the child's wishes, they are not determinative, and the child doesn't make the choice.]

The saddest of these cases is where the child is asking that some respect be given to his wishes but the parents can’t or won’t communicate about the issue.     Those cases generally end up in litigation (court).      If the parents can talk, reach agreement, and then check back with the child with a united front, telling him jointly that they’ve decided either (a) the schedule will stay the same, but they respect his feelings and will continue to discuss the issue with him as he gets older; or (b) the schedule will be modified per his wishes, on a trial basis to see how things work out, then it probably doesn’t matter much which option the parents have agreed on —- the point is that they’ve agreed and they’ve both listened to their teenager.

I know that the “joint and united front” option is probably what’s going on in separated and divorced homes all over America, and thank goodness for that.    The court system, family attorneys and Parenting Coordinators don’t, however, get to see those families all that much, because the cooperating families generally stay out of the court system.  The families remaining in the system stay there for different reasons:  Maybe one or both parents can’t or won’t communicate and have made a decision that they’d rather fight or litigate than cooperate with the other parent;  or maybe one or both parents are unable to communicate based on mental health, domestic violence or other specific issues.

But I’ve gotten off the subject.     The main point of Dr. Emery’s book and especially the parts about teenagers and older children is to recognize that children are growing up, and parenting plans sometimes need to be changed.     Children do need to be heard, and sometimes asking for a change to the parenting time schedule is not punishment towards one parent but only the teenager thinking about his own needs and independence.