Opposing Counsel conflict of interest?

What is the name of your state? CA

I have been battling for basic rights for almost 6 years now (child born out of wedlock, I have lived across the country since before birth). I am going back into court soon because she constantly screws with my visitation when I fly out, refuses to let me fly our child to my house to visit with me and my wife, and refuses to change the child's last name as ordered by the judge during the first round.

my question is this: the commissioner of the court is the son of her lawyer. how is this NOT a conflict of interest??

people have said "well he is not the judge presiding, but what does that matter since he is effectively their boss and they all know opposing counsel is his mother?"

this is BS

What is your court ordered visitation? If she is refusing to abide by the CO, she is in contempt, no matter who knows who. You need an attorney. What have you/your attorney done to enforce visitation?

court had ordered "reasonable" visitation and had given her full legal custody, so they really reinforced in her mind that she holds all the cards and is untouchable. this is exactly why I am going back into court soon with my new lawyer (my old lawyer was completely inept)

and what sucks is how all I ever hear about is girls who wish their child's father would like to be involved more. I make 3x her salary, am married and can provide a stable home environment, but the court lets our child sit in daycare for 9-10 hours per day because of the gender bias in custody decisions. nice...

anyways, back to the question at hand. does my first comment constitute conflict of interest in some way?

When you go back, file for Jt. Legal Custody AND SPECIFIC, spelled out in detail visitation. Part of your problem, besides the distance is that "Reasonable" visitation is so ambiquous. Document every instance of denied visits, how much you spent to fly there, how much advance notice was given, how notice was given and so on. "Reasonable" does NOT mean she gets to simply deny any visitation or limit it to an hour after you have flown across the country to visit. Your new counsel should take appropriate action. And ask that repeated interference result in a custody change. THAT might get her attention!

If you have experienced all this and never filed against here for denying visiation, your problem has nothing to do with the commisioner. The judge cannot act on contempt unless it is brought into court.

Gosh, she is clearly a loser--works 9-10 hours a day to support her kid, when you make more money and have thoughtfully provided (a non-working???) stepmom that you could leave the kid with while you are out making those big bucks. Clearly there is no question at all about who the better parent is.

luckymom said:

Gosh, she is clearly a loser--works 9-10 hours a day to support her kid, when you make more money and have thoughtfully provided (a non-working???) stepmom that you could leave the kid with while you are out making those big bucks. Clearly there is no question at all about who the better parent is.

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Huh? ............................

nextwife said:

If you have experienced all this and never filed against here for denying visiation, your problem has nothing to do with the commisioner. The judge cannot act on contempt unless it is brought into court.

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that's what I'm saying though. the reason I am in this mess in the first place is because she got every single thing she asked for during the first round of court (full phys and legal custody, $7500 legal fees even though they continued on two occasions after I flew out for court, etc, etc). the only thing they awarded me was a hyphenated name, and she has still not changed that 3 years later.

I would suspect that things went so extremely in her direction because opposing counsel is the commissioner's mother. my last attorney either was completely inept, apathetic, or just knew that he was fighting a slaughter given the situation.

I don't see how they can get away with what seems to be a huge conflict of interest like this.

meanwhile I have a new atty who seems more than competent and am trying to get to at least a "fair" situation, if not trying to turn the tables, but I dont want all my money to go to him in vain (if there really is a conflict of interest here and I have no chance at all of gaining anything).

Sorry, my message was to the original poster--I should have made that clear.

In any case, I take really exception to the statement that "I am a better parent because I make more money and I've remarried so I can provide a 'real' family." My ex made this arguement in our recent custody case. (Actually, he didn't claim to make more money--he wouldn't risk having to pay more support!!). Anyway, what he didn't count on was getting a female judge who was a single mother herself and told him that she was pretty darn tired of dealing with custody cases involving men who were happy to leave the burden of childrearing to their exwives until they remarried at which point they (or more likely their new wives) decided they could do a better job.

The real problem here is the vagueness of the order. Two people who don't like each other can really disagree about what is "reasonable"--be it visitation or support. You should file to get an order that is explicit as possible, then if she refuses to follow you can file contempt charges. It would be interesting to know who made that cross-country move before the child's birth . . .

wow, either I was very unclear or you completely missed the point here. I believe I am a better parent for reasons set down by the california family code--the only reasons I won't get custody are the gender bias, status quo, and the fact that her attorney is the court commissioner's mother (the original question).

so let's look at those reasons. the current situation involves our child spending 9-10 hours per day in daycare. if our child were to live with me and my wife, I could drop her off at school at 9:00 and my wife could pick her up at 3:00, since she is a schoolteacher. if/when my wife and I have kids, she wants to be a stay-home mom. my ex girlfriend (our child's mom) lives in a relatively worse area than me and I have a better school district. this all sounds like a no-brainer to me. my salary only allows me to live in a better place, not "buy" custody.

about the distance, I moved across country before conception, so it's a non-issue.

but really, what I want to know is if this situation is some sort of conflict of interest. opposing counsel is commissioner's mother. how can that possibly be okay??

Did you ever raise the conflict of interest issue legally? If so - when? WRT to the hearing.

no, I havent raised the issue because I dont even know if there *exists* a conflict of interest there. that's my entire question and the sole being of this thread.

if my situation constitutes a conflict of interest, you can be certain I would bring this up in a hearing.

How long have you known about this relationship? Between opposing counsel and the commisioner?

a few years. it has been 3 or so years since our last court hearing.

I suspect that you may have waited too long to now claim a conflict.

can someone please just tell me if this would or would not be considered conflict of interest????

I dont care about time passed or anything else, I only care to know if this is an issue that can be raised.