Fighting to be a Parent Amongst a Broken System

Nothing in these ordeals for parents is easy — often what is exposed is a lazy court system unwilling to review hard evidence amongst players of corrupt matrimonial bars — where parents get criminalized for seeking fairness, equal time and the right to be heard in the lives of their children.

We Have a Problem

We have a problem in the arena of divorce and custody.

We have a system that is not impartial and often serves as a breeding ground for disingenuous and unethical actions committed by players in the legal arena and sometimes (knowingly and unknowingly) enabled by the very courts people believe will determine fact from fiction.

Many fathers and mothers have an uphill challenge awaiting them as they seek what so many others before the law and courts seek — fairness and the right to be heard.

For many parents, opposing parties often go through the laundry list of stunts and questionable litigation tactics using children as pawns.

Weightless Legal Jargon

Recalling my own ordeal in Orange County, New York — I often called out the dirty tricks directly and even alerted the court of particular incidents of perjury and questionable tactics in direct correspondence to chambers and painstakingly illustrating degrees of professional misconduct within responsive motions filed on record.

However, I learned the hard way that courts in divorce and custody look the other way in such instances — and that the often used legal jargon cited in affidavits, depositions, declarations and testimony with language stating things like “under penalty of perjury” are proven to be empty, powerless and without weight.

I had the unique experience, where I both had attorney representation and represented myself as a pro se litigant when the funds ran out and debts increased. My exposure in law and politics gave me faith that the judicial system wouldn’t ultimately reward dishonesty and unethical practice. I was soon to realize the sad truth in how wrong my belief was!

Nothing in these ordeals for dads or moms is easy — and my own exposed a lazy court system unwilling to review evidence and outed a corrupt matrimonial bar — where entities punished and criminalized many men and women for being good parents whose only crime was seeking fairness, equal time and the right to be heard in the lives of their child.

Breeding Ground of Good Ol’ Boys

The court is a breeding ground where good ol’ boy networks thrive and profit at the expense of parents becoming adversaries and children being hurt.

Much of the litigation and courtroom drama are orchestrated events — I know firsthand as I often documented my own predictions, and time stamped them, in advance of court hearings and conferences — where I was accurate in having detailed the narrative as to what would transpire in the majority of situations.

While documenting and cataloging everything in my own case my broader concern was that not many parents have the tenacity or persistence to speak out on the issues and investigate the unethical practices that play out in and around the court. This, of course, is exactly what opposing adversarial attorneys and some judge’s count on — fatigue, and that most people will give up and submit to unfavorable outcomes. In succumbing to the unfavorable circumstances — it enables lawyers and third parties the ability to lie to the court and file false allegations and reports — committing unethical actions because the person on the receiving end, more times than not, is playing it clean and tried using truth to stand up to the power of the court. This is often the point where a parents character sustains so much damage — with deceitful motion practice played out against them for the purpose of leverage tactics via threats of contempt made and protective orders filed — often based on disingenuous substance and falsehoods.

This is done by design to leave a bad first impression of you on a judge all while putting you in a place where it seems impossible, and overly complicated, to counter the damage done.

Overwhelming Environment

It is overwhelming to contend with these ordeals — especially when dealing with the challenges and turmoil of major life changes — but that’s how they get away with it all.

People often get to this point where countering it all seems hopeless and that’s when the other side comes in with a settlement that rewards the side who is often unethical, better financed and aggressive while the other party learns that honesty doesn’t pay and just wants their life back and to escape a system that criminalized them for being truthful, sincere and a caring parent.

You aren’t supposed to make it 10 rounds or “challenge the system”, so that all the lies, hearsay narrative and disingenuous filings against you get washed away at a settlement never seeing the light of day under “impartial” judicial scrutiny that would expose the situation for what it is….a work of fiction and bully tactics.

Players and Money

The amazing thing with these lawyers in the matrimonial bar that no one talks about much is how some decide how far to take a case.

Once they have the net worth statements they know how much money their clients have and eventually how much the other side has — and in litigation different ways exist to manipulate things so the lawyers can bill you out of a lot of money before a case ends at a certain point.

There are patterns to watch for — the initial protective orders, letter writing campaigns between lawyers (easy billable time for them) — and all the needless motion filings and hearings (with hours waiting in the court). This along with depositions and aspects of the discovery process that consume a lot of preparation time.

Cases have stages and if the money is there some lawyers will make sure things continue to a certain point — damn the adverse impact these greedy motives have on the lives of their client, the other parent and the shared children.

Threats and Duress

From my own experience — it was when I started representing myself, and doing well to gather evidence and testimony, that the aggressive and questionable tactics increased in tempo.

Eventually, this all resulted in a bizarre circumstance where I was directly (and indirectly) threatened by the players of the court to agree to a resolution on things the very day I arrived for a hearing.

The threats sent the message that I would either agree to all the terms presented by opposing counsel in conjunction with the court — or face the prospect of incarceration — leaving me with the choice of picking out what color toothbrush I wanted!

Next thing you know you are swearing to the Judge that you’re entering an agreement “not under threat” and learning the hard way that in courts dealing with divorce and custody the truth is never sought with much effort — and is often a problem for the players in the industry when you expose it.

In these ordeals where institutions are broken and the family put at risk — whereby representation is only available in such a manner that one has the means to afford it — a parent always will need help and by all means should seek it out. The price for not doing so is one most cannot fathom paying — losing out on your role as a Dad or Mom with the ability to move forward with your life.

Originally published with The Good Men Project (July 24, 2016): https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/a-broken-system-fighting-to-be-a-dad-bbab/

Author Website: www.StephenKrasner.com