Attorney Disbarred for Social Media Blitz on Custody Case.......

This is interesting below--not new, but interesting.......but when Hollywood media takes hold, there is seldom, if ever, any repercussions for most of the conduct; there might be slight damage, but clients actually like it when attorneys take more strides to to their job. Obviously, we can't so far as to go over the top and do just what this attorney did, since it likely was beyond what is expected of attorneys [since we are not supposed to lead people into breaking laws]  However, it's interesting because it's doubtful that in CA the attorney would have been completely disbarred.
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Lawyer is disbarred for 'social media blitz' intended to influence custody case and top state court

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyer_is_disbarred_for_social_media_blitz_intended_to_influence_custody
POSTED JUL 08, 2015
BY DEBRA CASSENS WEISS                                    


A divided Louisiana Supreme Court has disbarred a lawyer who used Twitter and an online petition to urge readers to contact two judges she accused of being unwilling to consider the evidence in two custody cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse.

The supreme court disbarred 52-year-old lawyer Joyce Nanine McCool in a June 30 opinion (PDF), noted by the Legal Profession Blog. A hearing board and the disciplinary board had recommended a suspension of a year and a day, but the four-justice majority on the state supreme court said disbarment was warranted. Three dissenters would have imposed lesser discipline.

The majority opinion said McCook displayed an “utter lack of remorse” and a “defiant attitude” by asserting her actions had First Amendment protection.

According to the court, McCool’s social media postings contained many “false, misleading and inflammatory statements” about the way two judges were handling the cases. Among the untrue statements were assertions that judges had refused to admit audio recordings of children talking about alleged abuse, although the recordings were not offered into evidence at that time.

The court also said McCool had solicited others to make ex parte contact with the judges—and with the state supreme court—to express their feelings about the cases, which were sealed domestic proceedings.

The court cited several examples of McCool’s advocacy, including this tweet: “GIMME GIMME GIMME Evidence! Want some? I got it. Think u can convince a judge to look at it? Sign this petition.”

Another example was this blurb: “Please sign the petition, circulate it to all of your friends and families and call Judge Amacker and Judge Gambrell during the hours of 8:30 to 5:00 starting Monday, August 15 to ask why they won’t follow the law and protect these children. Let them know you’re watching and expect them to do their job and most of all, make sure these precious little girls are safe!”

McCool had claimed her actions were protected by the First Amendment, but the argument didn’t persuade the supreme court majority. “We disagree and take strong exception to respondent’s artful attempt to use the First Amendment as a shield against her clearly and convincingly proven ethical misconduct,” the court said.

“The appropriate method for challenging a judge’s decisions and evidentiary rulings, as respondent even conceded, is through the writ and appeal process, not by starting a social media blitz to influence the judges’ and this court’s rulings in pending matters and then claiming immunity from discipline through the First Amendment.”

McCool told the ABA Journal in February, after the disciplinary board recommended a suspension, that she “was willing to stand up to two judges who ignored the law. … I thought that was what our oath demanded of us and it is why I became an attorney.”

The suspension recommendation, she said at the time, doesn’t do “anything to protect the profession or make it more ‘honorable.’ ”

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Attorney Fees, Costs....Would you Pay $10,987 and Get Almost Nothing?

Well.....we aren't making it up when we say we have seen TONS of clients pay $250, $275, $300, $325, even $350/hr for legal fees (that doesn't include costs....) and what did they get for all that?
About an average of 23hr of work, supposedly. As a true example-- one of attorney's best friends actually paid over $23,000 for legal work which included one trial (custody) with no experts. All of the nickel and dime-ing for every single second of work adds up very very quickly--every stamp, every piece of paper, every email, every call, you name it. [Attorney herein believes the same case could have been done for about $7000 or less...]

IN many cases we have seen, most attorneys don't do anything that special, unless they are really dedicated. We have actually seen motions filed and continued which probably took 20 minutes to churn out by the assistant, got the client no relief at all, didn't change anything in the case except to avoid a long cause hearing, was not heard by any judge, and then it just gets done over again by the attorney going to court and RE-submitting the same thing?  This is not a joke. Sure there were a few emails and emailed conversations, and more of the same motion being continued and refiled?  When that client's bill is approaching $7,000, we say that's called not only bad lawyering, but a client rip-off in our opinion.  

Now when attorneys in the old days were billing (and by this, we mean PRIOR to everyone owning a computer, everyone on the Internet, and Facebook, and PRIOR to most services NOT requiring client to even come into the office????)........... then attorney overhead had to include taking the office RENT, all utilities, whatever things are needed for an office;  the office employee's salaries, ALL of the expensive print advertising, ALL of the stuff needed to keep current on the law (meaning PRINT and books...and all subscriptions in print)...........and then, most attorneys figure out what it's going to cost them to LIVE (not work, but live)............and by adding up all those numbers (what it costs to live and what it costs to maintain the office/ads/subscriptions,etc) then the attorney would take that number, and figure out if he/she worked 40, 50, or 60hr a week, what SALARY is needed for the attorney, in order to meet all of those expenses, PLUS additional money to have [not just to live on.]

Clearly, if an attorney is figuring $5,000 for employee salary/office and $5,000 for living expenses, the attorney needs $10,000 just to run the office/live. That doesn't include tax money being set aside either.  That's $2,500 per week. Many attorneys have no problem turning $2,500 per week. At 40hrs per week, if an attorney was actually charging $275/hour, that's $11,000 a WEEK--- if-- the attorney worked 40hr straight at the billable fee.

Office costs might remain the same, but the Internet and non print data have created far less cost as far as law advertising goes.  Internet advertising is much less expensive than print advertising. Many attorneys don't keep hard copies anymore, they keep DATA files. Even the Courts are moving to all data files. Why pay an attorney huge fees unless you definitely have a very very complicated case?

It's safe to say, this attorney herein,  does nothing remotely even close to the nonsense talked about above (regarding the huge fees for very little time/work...) Attorney works harder than 95% of attorneys out there, to gain a result for client, not to line attorney's pocket. Attorney's cases have been in the media, in newspapers, online, in Verdict Search, and on television.

Most of the cases involved family law and animal law issues; the Verdict Search case involved premise liability in a murder case.  And not just in Chico, Oroville, Red Bluff or Redding,  but Sacramento, Santa Cruz,  Roseville, San Diego and even Washington.

If you don't want to pay full price and get nothing, then contact attorney herein. Full authentic recommendations from actual clients.

Chico Family Law Lawyers - Justia

https://www.justia.com/lawyers/family-law/california/chico

Is Marijuana ..Child Endangerment, but a Loaded Gun is Not??

http://marijuanapolitics.com/pot-child-endangerment-loaded-gun-not/

Why Pot is Child Endangerment...

but a Loaded Gun is Not?

by Russ Belville

    

11-year-old Benjamin Tiller will spend the rest of his childhood, until age 19, in the custody of the state of Tennessee. Benjamin was just convicted of the cold-blooded murder of 8-year-old McKayla Dyer. Benjamin had gone hunting often with his father and grandfather and had been trained in firearm safety. Benjamin got angry at McKayla in a spat over some puppies, so Benjamin retrieved his father’s shotgun, made sure it was loaded, aimed it out the window and fired a blast to McKayla’s chest.

Meanwhile, the 11-year-old son of Shona Banda is spending his childhood without his mother in Kansas. He had the audacity to tell school officials in his drug education class that their sinister claims about marijuana were unfounded. His mother uses cannabis to treat her Crohn’s disease and he’s well-educated on the subject.
That led to calls to child protective services, who called police, who called a judge to get a warrant. They took Shona’s son away and arrested Shona when they found her cannabis medicine in their home.

Now guess which parent – Benjamin’s father or Shona – is facing child endangerment charges?

Just so we’re clear: the father in the first story taught his kid how to fire a shotgun, took him out to kill animals with a shotgun, and left a shotgun and ammo available to his unsupervised kid, who then straight-up murders a little girl.

The mother in the second story uses cannabis as medicine, taught her kid cannabis was a non-toxic medicine that saves her life, and the kid is not found to have ever ingested cannabis, who then tells the truth about cannabis in a drug education class in school.

OK, which one is facing the child endangerment charge – the father or the mother?

If you guessed the parent whose kid had access to accurate education about cannabis, you are correct.

If you guessed the parent whose kid had access to a shotgun and used it to murder, you are sane, but, unfortunately, also incorrect.

There are so many stories of marijuana consuming-parents (medical or otherwise) whose kids don’t smoke pot who then lose their children and face charges of child endangerment.

There are so many stories of gun enthusiast-parents (hunters or otherwise) whose children shoot and kill people who then keep their children and don’t face charges of child endangerment.

*****************

Comment by blog attorney:  This is an interesting question, and although there is heated debate on the issue of firearms, if a minor has been trained to properly handle a firearm, it is highly likely that the child should NOT be using the firearm without adult supervision; meaning, the firearm should not be accessible, and without adult supervision-- the weapon should never likely be accessible unless it was required to save another's life?  In a very unusual case out of Sacramento some years ago, a juvenile (age 14-15 or thereabout)-- accessed a rifle which belonged to his dad, knew how to handle a rifle, and was allegedly pretending to sniper with the gun, by aiming it at passing motorists, but pulling the trigger, allegedly claiming he thought the gun was unloaded? Well, his aim was so good, he killed a person in a car by shooting him in the head. And for that, Judge Jane Ure sentenced the kid to 500hrs of community service. That's all he got, plus perhaps some hours in the juvenile detention center.
It should be noted that murder normally requires the specific intent to kill CA PC187(a)

The Supreme Court has considered over the years, the difficulty in sentencing juveniles to life in prison, see

http://www.upi.com/Under-the-US-Supreme-Court-When-children-commit-murder/12851332055800/

"This case presents important constitutional questions regarding the propriety of imposing a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole on a 14-year-old child ... ," his petition to the Supreme Court said. "Evan Miller is one of only 73 [U.S.] children who have been condemned to be imprisoned until death for an offense committed when they were 14 years of age or younger. Evan, like nearly all of these young adolescents, was sentenced under a statute that made a life-without-parole sentence mandatory, precluding any consideration of his age or other mitigating circumstances which would call for a sentence of less than lifelong incarceration. ..

Motions for Custody or Support Modifications

One of the most often seen issues in Family Law, are the law and motion hearings on reducing support, increasing support or elimination of support.  Unfortunately in California, most parents are aware that the support formula for calculating support is tied to the visitation.

Increasingly, more fathers are attempting to maintain their rights to their children, which is good for the children in general. However, a pro se client attempting to reduce support usually will have a difficult time unless there are obvious factors for the Court to plainly reduce or eliminate.

In general, your evidence is controlling if you already know the rules or law.  If you don't know the rules or law, it's best to go research it before trying to turn in your documents. It is pretty useless to make an argument using the wrong law, but with online articles and Findlaw, you can usually find almost any case or law unless it just came out yesterday. Also generic Google searches will often turn up scholar articles from law reviews and prestige colleges that not everyone has read.

Because law and motion is a limited time frame, any issues which exceed 15 minutes (in Sacramento, for example)  --- are to be heard on a different hearing basis, a long cause hearing, which will take more time for the Court. In Butte County, in excess of 20 minutes.  Butte County has quite a few local rules involving Family Law which can be seen by looking at the Butte County Superior Court website and then finding the box for Local Rules.

For example, if a case had been continued or not, but they failed to record that, so you show up and your case isn't on the calendar.  Or, you had related cases and one case is not linked to the other cases and you didn't even know it was missing.  Or, a case has a hearing but it is not even listed.  But you show up and no one else is there.  It is a good idea to call the court several days ahead to ensure your motion is actually on the calendar.

Some calendars are horribly long, and some are quite short.  TRAC calendars can be awfully long, awfully crowded, and a big waste of time. We think Butte County might be one of the few, or the only county,  that does not set for trial by using a computer driven date system.

In Sacramento, you can't select a trial date, you can only select a specific date as being unavailable.  The computer sets up all dates after parties have eliminated their UNavailable dates, which makes sense.
And you cannot keep doing it over again (in Butte you can to some extent if the other party after 4 months never has an available date, that is pretty bad.)

Also in Sacramento, most cases are settled at the Mandatory Settlement Conferences, thus creating less work for the courtrooms. Pro tems are used at mandatory settlement which forces the parties to some extent, to cut their losses by agreeing on some things for a change.

ACCUSED OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND TRO FILED ON YOU??

Attorney herein practices both family law and criminal law...this can be a big help in defending domestic violence cases...............

....The best thing to do if accused of any "DV" TRO

 is to immediately get legal help so that you

 don't go down like a sinking ship

 before you even get started.  

The last thing most people need is a "DV" TRO on their record, even if they are not guilty of it--- it carries both a stigma (you beat up people or try to hurt them, etc), that you are not fit to watch or babysit children (age  of kids will matter but especially babies)  and you will be stuck with what is known as supervised visitation which you will likely not be able to afford, or will not want to afford.  Further, the wait list is very long unless you plan to use a private agency which is quite expensive.

IF YOU HAVE HAD A "DV" TRO 

SLAPPED ON YOU, 

CALL ATTORNEY ASAP. 

Waiting--- Will Harm You!!!

In nearly all cases, you should either set for trial or if the other side
is willing to drop it-- that's fine--but most of those that drop
such charges tend to refile them... 

IF YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN CHARGED UNDER THE CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE,  PC273.6WITH VIOLATING A "DV" TRO..........CALL ATTORNEY ASAP

As can be seen by the Penal Code, 

this means you will

be in Criminal Court, 

not Family Law Court!!!!

Chico Family Law Lawyers - Justia

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Claimed Lawyer ProfileSocial Media. Mr. Maria Amaya. Chico, CA Family Law Lawyer. Geoff A.Dulebohn, Esq. Chico, CA Family Law Attorney. Carolyn J. Chan. Chico, CA Family Law Attorney