Celebrity Divorce

If you read anything online about a celbrity divorce know there is a good chance it’s not true.  And know if it is true, it’s not as exciting as the media wishes it was.  Case in point are the recent online rumors about Kanye West and Kim Kardashian getting divorced.  We don’t want to mention them here, other than as an example of not listing to what blogs sites are saying.

We have worked with celebrities before during their divorces and child custody battles.   In most cases the situation is not as interesting as TMZ, Radaronline, and the news shows makes them out to be.  Usually it is a divorce like any other, expect for the monetary value involved, and the media attention.  Those two items may sound trivial though they do have an impact on the emotions involved.  We recommend celebrities hire an Attorney who can keep a level head during the proceedings and stay focused on the case.

If you need an Attorney contact the Law Office of Beatrice K. Fung to set up a consultation.  She works with people from all walks of life in and around Los Angeles.  Yes some of her clients are celebrities, but a lot are regular working people who are either getting divorced or dealing with a Family Law matter.

Hiring Experts in Child Dependency Cases

When it comes to Child Dependency cases money can buy you one thing – Experts.  Typically in any kind of case where children are involved there are a lot of different parties all with their own goals and motivations.  You can typically have the Mom, the Dad, grandparents, DCFS, social workers, the children, the children’s attorneys, and yes… experts.  While every one of these parties plays a special role in a case, it’s the expert who is brought in as a 3rd party observer providing their outside view onto the situation.  This of course might be tempered or directed based on who is hiring them.  Still, their thoughts and counsel can hold a lot of sway in a courtroom.

An example recently in the news is the Marc Anthony child support case.  The mother of the child is now asking for more money in monthly child support.  Marc Anthony is against this claiming it would spoil the children (though there’s a good chance that’s already taken place).  In cases like this there is usually a lot of back and forth discussion between the parent’s lawyers arguing for and against changing the child support payments.  Anyone impartial will watch all this – though not in the courtroom since that’s closed to the public – and be unclear on which way to decide.  The Mom wants more money for a live-in cook and nanny.  She might make the argument that it lets her spend more time with the kids.  Marc Anthony will say they already have enough and can go to a restaurant like everyone else does.  Both sides have their pros and cons.  So the question is how to break that tie?  If you have the means you don’t want to leave it up to the judge to decide.  In family courtrooms you really can never be sure which way they will rule.

So one side will pony up the $10,000 or so to bring in an expert to provide their own “unbiased” opinion.  Rest assured for $10,000 you can find some “expert” out there somewhere who will say just about anything you want.  For every psychologist who thinks it’s ludicrous to have a live in cook, there are probably an equal number who would say it would actually strengthen the parent child relationship.  And yes for that much money they will say it under oath (and they may actually believe it).

The key here is realizing that experts can have an important place in the courtroom.  They can seem outside the fray and bickering, and bring some logical discourse and thought to a disagreement.  The question is, who can afford one.  Celebrities and those making enough money can write a check for $10,00 without thinking about it.  For the rest of society however hiring an expert is out of their financial reach.  So hopefully one day a group of experts will band together and each give up 2 hours or so a week dedicating themselves to providing their services for free towards child dependency law.  In fact this should be put together by the courts themselves as a way to bring in a 3rd party observer who truly has not vested interest in the case.

As one caveat – we’ve heard of cases where someone has hired an expert, and the expert has come up with a conclusion that works against their own client.  The client then will chose not to use that expert to testify.  This gives us hope that the system would work IF the court puts it together, rather than the clients themselves.  We want opinions that are based on years of experience, are within reach of the general public, and dare I say it, speak the truth.

Celebrity Divorce – How Things Have Changed

Missing the days when celebrities would get divorced and it would make the news for about a day.  Now divorces seemingly never end.  Though please don’t blame the media.  It’s not the News that drags these things out…. it’s the celebrities.  They know this is free publicity that keeps them shining in that spotlight up until the moment they say “I don’t.” Yes the media is there to cover every faked tear, every doubtful gaze, and every rumor about cheating.  Though they are here because that’s where readers want them to be.  CNN may be holier than TMZ but they wish they had that kind of viewership on their web-site. 

A random news site called HollywoodLife (not so random if you learn who owns them) ran a synopsis of an episode of The Kardashians talking about divorce which has received 20K plus views in 2 days.  That’s a lot of people begging for something to do with their lives.  Or it’s a lot of people who have tough jobs and need a mental escape for 5 minutes to read about something, anything, that reminds them that they are actually fairly intelligent.

On the online posting the headline is about Khloe but the picture of the episode shows Kim Kardashian more prominently than Khloe.  Maybe the folks at HollywoodLife are smarter than we give them credit for.

And yes a perfect example of a celebrity milking their divorce is Khloe Kardashian.  She is the fairest of the two evil sisters perched next to Cinderella.  Though in this fairy tale Cinderella isn’t a virgin, and she has the Kim Kardashian sex tape to prove it.  Khloe has been talking divorce almost as long as Lamor Odom has been playing basketball.  And it may actually never ever end.

But wait – it appears our long last wishes are coming true.  Khloe did file for divorce and this national nightmare may soon be behind us.  Plus this means she will back on the dating scene too.  Other basketball players wives must be shaking in their high-heels.  Though I am very doubtful this is the last we will hear of her impending divorce.  You don’t simply write a great song like “the Power of Love” and walk away from it.  Your fans wouldn’t have it.  You need to milk that cow until it dies from dehydration.  You travel across the country singing that song and sell t-shirts, hats, and posters.  Once you find something people want, you need to stick it on a hat and make sure your sisters are wearing it on TV.  That’s the truth behind TV nowadays – it’s all just one giant commercial.  Maybe it’s always been that, though at least it was for oil companies who everyone loves (looking at you BP).

In the end it doesn’t matter why people have become so obsessed with celebrity divorce.  All we need to know is this is a new spectator sport which is drawing huge crowds.  And these aren’t just anybody online with nothing to do.  The people who are reading about divorces may be intellgent people you can relate to.  As a case in point one commentor on the HollywoodLife.com web-site summed up the whole situation well.  Here is here (or perpahs his) exact quote:

“You sicken nasty hating bullying morons delusional idiots
brainless scumbags write and talk nonsense nothing makes
sense all crap. Some of you people are mentally disturb
needs to see a psychiatrist”

Thank you Susan for that summary.  We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Terrell Owne’s Divorce – All That’s wrong with the system

Terrell Owens and a woman (I won’t use her name and give her free publicity) were married for 72 hours.  They are getting divorced.  This is how things should go:

-Say this isn’t working out
-Fill out the paper-work
-Hire an attorney to make sure all the boxes are checked
-Turn in the paper-work
-Wait the mandatory “cooling off period”
-Send a card to the other say “Sorry things didn’t go as planned.  Good luck with your next marriage!”

Instead Terrell Owen’s ex-wife of 3 days is suing for legal fees and alimony i.e. spousal support.  If the couple was married for 15 years and the wife gave up her modeling career to support her husband – then this would make perfect sense.  Instead it seems more like a land grab.  She found a guy.  Quickly married him.  And is now trying to be set up financially for life.

Rather than see this is frivolous and dismiss the case it will eat up a lot of time, energy, and yes money.  The only positive is spectators and fans get to get another round of free entertainment from sites like TMZ who report every single bit of detail they can get from the parties involved.

While that’s all fine and dandy, it really does make the system seem flawed and ridiculous.  What the California family law system could use is some kind of screening process.  It could be a board of 3 people who review every case for 2 minutes each.  The case goes into one of four piles:

1. The case has merit and will move forward.
2. The case does not have merit and will not move forward
3. Is so outrageous it will be turned into a TV show pilot for AMC
4. Is so despicable the woman must appear on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and / or the man must star on The Shahs of Sunset.

Only by punishing those that bring these kinds of suits will they stop.  Same can be applied to Patent Troll suits as well.  Until then, people are going to keep getting divorced and asking for way more than they deserve because there is no punishment in trying.

Find Child Abuse Lawyer Los Angeles

Finding a good attorney to handle your child abuse or child neglect case can be daunting.  Looking online there are a lot of resources looking to “help” you find an attorney.  However you should know a lot of the legal directory sites are paid sites.  Web-sites like Lawyers.com don’t simply list out all the lawyers in your area.  They can actually be advertisements for lawyers.  For a lawyer to be listed they may need to jump through hoops, or pay the site to be listed.  And if lawyers want to have a link to their web-site, videos, etc then they typically have to pay even more.  This applies to a lot of lawyer rating web-sites you will run across.

A relatively newcomer to the game is AVVO.com.  Their site is a bit different in that they provide free listings and reviews for free.  They charge for attorneys who want to advertise on the site (or be listed higher).  This seems like a much more legit and ethical approach.

And doing Google searches is good, though that isn’t a perfect science either.  In a lot of cases the “best” attorneys won’t be the first link you see.  Getting high ranking on Google may be because they hired a good marketing firm, or they bought a good domain name and loaded their site with keywords.

Please don’t think this is all cynical.  I am just sharing some insights on different approaches to finding an attorney.  And don’t think all this about paying to be listed only applies to law firms.  A lot of different professions are doing what they can to get their name out there – and rightfully so.  Everyone uses the Internet to find what they are looking for and so the industry of listings has gotten only bigger.

So How Do I Find a Lawyer?

The best approach to finding an attorney is typically through referrals.  Look out over your networks to find someone who may know the attorney you are seeking.  This of course starts with friends and family, but could extend to school alumni email lists, church groups, etc.  Then once you have some thoughts on who to reach out to research those people online to make sure they focus on the area of expertise you need.  And give some credit to their online ratings though with a grain of salt.  Lawyers who have 20 or more 5 star reviews may have stacked the deck.  Your time will be well spent reading through the reviews and seeing if they actually sound legitimate.  Plus make sure the reviews apply to what you need.  If ever review says the person is the world’s best divorce attorney that’s great, unless you are dealing with a child neglect case.

The most important piece of advice though is talk with or meet with attorneys in person.  Some will charge a consulting fee, though you should consider it an investment in what will likely be a long-term partnership.

If you are looking for a Los Angeles child abuse attorney we wish you the best of luck on your search.  You probably have enough to deal with without having to worry about hiring the right person to fight for you.

Dr. Drew Divorce Corp – The Problem with Divorce

Dr. Drew is now sharing his thoughts on the divorce industry.  While some people try to pigeon-hole Dr. Drew as someone who only focuses on celebrities in rehab, he actually does work within quite a few ares of medicine and society in general.

When it comes to Divorce I am not 100% clear where his expertise comes from.  What I can say is based on what I’ve seen and heard, some of what he is saying is very correct.

In California divorce is a huge industry.  It employes a lot of people and generates or costs (depending on where you are sitting) a lot of money.  Some people blame this on the legal machine we have in place today.  Others blame it on the attorneys.  While both those things certainly can be culprits, a lot of the problems with the divorce industry stems from the people getting divorced.  I am by no means trying to put those people down.  Just trying to shed some light on where some of the issues are coming from.

When people get divorced they have choices.  They can do it amicably, or they can go into it like a boxing match.  The approach they chose makes a huge difference in the process they need to go through.  That in turn impacts how long it takes, and how much they are going to spend.  In simple terms…   when couples are in agreement on the divorce terms it can go much faster and cheaper.  When there is nothing to fight over it’s a much easier proposition.  So back in 2008 divorces were going quickly.  Each side looked at the other and said “I don’t have any money.  The house is under-water.  So let’s just split whatever we have and walk away.”  Now that the housing market is back, and stocks are up again, people are fighting again.  All the fighting requires paper-work, court filings, testimony, court dates, expert witnesses, etc which all add up to the ugly divorces we hear about in the news.  Then when people change their minds about spousal support, child custody, and even vacation homes it starts things all over again.

If people could sit down and agree to what they want, what’s reasonable, and stick to it, the Divorce Industry might be half the machine it is today.  I would always though recommend hiring an attorney, even if all the key items are clear and ironed out.  You will still want to work with someone who knows how to navigate the legal system.  Otherwise this may turn into a part-time job for you and your ex-spouse.  They key though is telling your attorney your plan, and what you expect from them.  Say that the break-up will be friendly, and there help is really needed with the paper-work side of things.

Finding the right divorce attorney in Los Angeles, or anywhere in California can be tricky.  There are a lot to choose from, and the level of service can vary widely.  Our advice is seek out some kind of referral network you have.  And listen to what your friends and family tell you about making the divorce as simple as possible.  At the time sending 3 years and every penny you have may feel right if you are fighting for something.  But

Is Divorce the Right Focus?

While I appreciate Dr. Drew going after divorce, I want to ask if this is the right place to focus.  According to the Dr. Drew web-site the Divorce Industry is $50 Billion a year.  That is a big number.  By comparison however, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid the US Healthcare market is $2.8 Trillion.  That my friends is a GIGANTIC number.  So while divorce is very important, and much more complex & expensive then it needs to be, maybe we should continue focusing our energies on fixing systems that would have the most impact.  If you want to fix a system I might suggest Medicare, Medicaid, and preventative healthcare.  That would save more money nationwide than divorces.

One could contend that divorce contributes to the high cost of healthcare.  People going through divorce can get stressed, depressed, and require metal health services.  Side note: amazing how taboo some of this was just a few decades ago before people realized that getting professional help was…. helpful.  And yes divorce probably does contribute to some healthcare costs, but my guess is it’s a small piece of the overall pie.

With all that being said, I am very glad someone is bringing up these issues to a larger audience and truly hope to see it have a meaningful impact.  To any large audience my advice would be try as hard as you can to put your emotions aside and focus on getting through your divorce as simply as you can.  Hire an attorney, and tell them what your goals are, and stick to them.

Statistic / Quote from DrDrew.com.  “More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined – over $50 billion a year and growing.”  Taken 3/10/2014.

DCFS Child Abuse Allegations – Charlie Sheen

The Charlie Sheen issue that popped up in November is a good example of how quickly things can spin out of control in the Los Angeles child dependency system.  A psychologist for Charlie Sheen’s son heard something about him being hit while in Denise Richard’s care, and therefore the psychologies was bound to notify the authorities. Because of the situation the children were then living with a legal guardian.

We don’t know all the specifics of the case other than news reports as the California Juvenile Dependency systems is very quiet.  They do not allow reporters or the public into the hearings.  Some can argue the merits of this policy, though whichever way you feel this is the system we live with today.

This case shows that even the rich and famous are subject to dealing with child abuse and child neglect cases.  If there is any kind of injury (emotional or physical) it can quickly get reported and then taken to the juvenile dependency system.  In a matter of hours, days, weeks, the children can be removed from the home and criminal charges brought against parents, grandparents, guardians, etc.  In the Charlie Sheen example charges may never get brought forward – and perhaps they shouldn’t.  We can only speculate as to what truly happened with the children.

In California we have the concept of “mandatory reporters.”  This is a group of people who are bound to report anytime they suspect child abuse or neglect may have taken place. 

What’s different in this case is it is generating publicity.  Most of the time people are accused of child abuse we will never know about it.  It’s only cases like this that get our attention.  And in some ways this case is shining a light on a system that is very tough to navigate. There are a lot of parties involved including psychologists, family members, DCFS, the police, etc.  And each party may have their own motivations.  When talking with a social worker for example you don’t know if the information you give will be used against you.

Charlie Sheen has the financial resources to do what it takes to help his own situation – though even then nothing is guaranteed.  Throwing money at the problem won’t solve things here.  He will need to hire on experts who can help figure out the best course of action.  And this may also involve bringing in very expensive experts to testify.  That all takes money and time which some families don’t have access to.  Even then the courts may go against whatever position he has.  That’s what’s interesting about this system.  We may never know the truth, the lies, who is doing what, and even the final outcome.

If you are dealing with a situation like this you really need to talk with an attorney.  There is simply too much uncertainty and stress to go it alone.  Plus you need help figuring out who is working with you, and who is really working against you.  In this cases everyone has their own motives and they may not match up with your own.  Finally, even if the allegations are completely false the State takes them very seriously.  You should as well.

Parents who get contacted by DCFS or any mandatory reporter should contact a Los Angeles child abuse attorney.  These are also called Juvenile Dependency Attorneys.  Find one with experience working with child abuse and child neglect allegations other clients have faced.  No attorney can guarantee any kind of results when it comes to child dependency.  However, having an experienced attorney can certainly help you with the process.

Los Angeles Child Abuse Attorney

Child Abuse and Child Dependency Attorney Beatrice K. Fung now has videos on youtube and her web-site talking about Family Law and her practice.  In her videos she explains how she works with clients to help them deal with child dependency issues.

A lot of people who have never dealt with these issues want to know what child dependency is.  Basically child dependency is whenever parents or legal guardians are dealing with a situation involving child abuse or neglect.  This could cover when someone is merely being accused of child abuse and neglect.  In California the Juvenile Courts are the courts dealing with these matters.  Juvenile Dependency must be taken seriously as the courts have the power to take children from their homes depending on the situation involved.  Anyone facing charges of child abuse or neglect will want to speak with an attorney immediately to discuss the matter.

If you are in Southern California and dealing with DCFS (Department of Children and Family Services) contact Attorney Beatrice K. Fung.

There will be a lot of people in these cases and not all of them have your best interest at heart.  There will be social workers, other attorneys, DCFS, etc.  Even the child will be appointed an attorney by the state.  That attorney will be looking out for the child, not necessarily you or anyone else on the case.  Therefore you want to speak with and hire an attorney who is working for YOU.  They should be able to guide you through the process and explain the likely outcomes.  They should also be willing to offer counseling and explain what you can do to help you succeed.  Times like this can be very stressful and you need to work with an attorney who can bring their expertise and years of experience to your case.

Beatrice Fung has worked with literally hundreds of clients on Family Law matters in Southern California.  If you are dealing with accusations of child abuse or child neglect call her to set up a consultation.

You can learn more about her Los Angeles child abuse legal services by watching her video.

Family Law Court Los Angeles

LA has a lot of Family Law courts.  Please check with your lawyer or your paper-work to ensure you know which court to go to.

The Los Angeles Superior Court web-site should have the most up-to-date information around court-houses including addresses, hours, and what type of cases are heard in each courtroom. 

Going to their site navigate to the locations page which should look like this:

Once on that page you can click on each court-house to get all of the necessary information.  Please know that most courtrooms expect you to show up on-time.  Otherwise they may push your court time or date back.

LA Divorce – Start with the end in mind

A lot of people go into their divorce asking their attorney to get them the best results.  However they aren’t always clear on what those results are.  The sometimes figure if they can keep as much of the money, pay as little in spousal support (or get as much in support), and see their kids as much as possible then they have “won”.  This is a very win-lose mind-set which goes against how you should be thinking about your divorce.

Yes it’s good to have the end in mind, but you need to truly consider what is the best outcome for the situation. 

When it comes to children parents should think about what’s in the best interest of their children.  What young kids need are stability and consistency.  What they don’t need is their parents fighting incessantly over who is going to pick them up on Tuesdays and Thursdays because someone has bowling those nights.  This seems silly and far-fetched but it is the reality when it comes to child visitation and child custody.  Spouses should sit down and consider what situation would provide the best environment for their kids.

When going into a divorce consider putting together a simple outline of what you think is in the best interest of everyone involved.  Then work with an attorney to lay out your goals and get their opinion.  Also remember Divorce can be a negotiation.  Rarely will one side get everything they are looking for.  And even when they do, the victory can be very short-lived as your triumph today could have unexpected circumstances tomorrow.