ATTENTION DO IT YOURSELFERS

Don’t know what you think, but I’m the kind of guy who likes to do things for himself. That’s why I’m just crazy about this new do-it-yourself Guardianship Kit. Why pay fancy legal fees when you can just fill out the forms yourself with your own pencils and get a Guardian you know you can trust who’s just as good as anything you’d pay for. Operators are standing by.

Actually, no need to call. Check out the web site for CUNY/Main Street Legal Service. OCA/ Surrogates also has a full complement of the forms needed in Surrogates, which you can adapt.

I’m not in private practice, but if I was, my question would be, “What did we ever do to you guys to deserve this?” Why not set up a free chicken BBQ in front of KFC while you’re at it?

[Oh, Damn. The Old Bastard is ranting again. Who brought up pro bono petitions after I gave strict instructions to avoid the topic?]

What urgent need is being met here? We have a tsunami of matrimonials being conducted without lawyers. Ask a matrimonial referee how much fun it is to preside over these proceedings without any sane adult supervision. Apparently, the aim is to afford the guardianship courts the same high quality of judicial decorum and legal representation that they now have in the uncontested matrimonial parts.

Mind you, the good folks at CUNY/Main Street make a valiant effort to discourage their customers. “We recommend that all people who can hire an attorney!”

Sorry, not good enough. Clumsy wording too, but WTF. You’re handing out heroin on the street corner with strict product warnings. Nobody drawn to use these materials is in any mood to read any warning labels. They are enchanted with the free aspect of the thing. More of Grandpa’s money for me; what a great deal.

This means that no lawyer has looked at their petition. This matters because most lawyers, when they talk to the pro bono people [one gets the feeling some of these have already been rejected by lawyers], will realize that most have no business seeking a Guardian, for a variety of reasons.

Should I list some reasons? A lot of them are families quarreling over parental assets, not waiting for the loved one to meet his/her maker. Pre-death probate fight, you might say. Others are tenants who have exhausted their remedies in Housing Court. And there are the pure of heart, well-meaning but with no ability or temperament to prosecute these cases, and even if they did, they have no ability to fulfill the obligations that they seek, and aren’t all too sure what they are looking for, except that Dad really is out of control these days.

A solution in search of a problem.

In this way we will provide more access to justice by helping people come to court without an attorney? Why not free access to medical treatment rendered without doctors or nurses, or even clinicians?

Might I respectfully suggest that this is more about access than it is about justice.

Guardianship lawyers should not sit back quietly and let their livelihoods be do-gooded out of existence.

The Bar Associations should be letting OCA know that they are not pleased, and that there will be repercussions. For candidates for judicial office, I think that’s spelled r-e-p-e-r-c-u-$-$-i-o-n-$.

But honestly, CUNY’s materials are great. Its good shit, as they used to say on the street, or at least in those cop shows in the 70’s.

Many of the lawyers now practicing in Guardianship would do well to download these materials, and scrap the stuff they are using now. Presumably they’ll read the directions better than the pro se’s do.

How about we do this instead: Why not expand resources to give legal representation to all who need it, and who have valid cases? There are thousands of young, bushy-tailed law students who would provide most of the labor. But how about we triage these things, and weed out the petitions that should never see daylight? And have a real guardianship attorney supervise. This is basically what Main Street does, but they are a small operation.

Threshholds and guidelines, weeding out bad cases at their inception. We were supposedly doing this in med mal [a huge success by all accounts]. Why not a threshold standard for guardianship filings? Or are only the med mal insurance carriers entitled to special protections? How about AIPs and the families of wacky pro se petitioners?

The Courts routinely do something like this with the personal injury lawyers who don’t know a Guardian ad litem from an Article 81 Guardian. We gently but firmly refer them to CPLR Art 12, and have a nice day.

We have all we can handle with providing competent legal representation for the millions facing heavy prison time; is the solution handing out home defend-a-felony packets?

Of course, it’s just a matter of time before Amazon gets its hooks into this; drones that will represent you in court. One day delivery with prime.

I get it; the damage is done, you can’t un-ring the bell. The materials are out there, and highly popular. We’re stuck with this for the foreseeable future.

Well, the Courts – and by that I mean the Judges and their staffs – don’t have to take this lying down.

Here’s what the courts have to do to protect themselves from the free formers:

Identify all the pro se petitions, analyze how many of them go through to hearing, how long the hearings take and how they are conducted, how many actually result in the appointment of a guardian, how many qualify, how many marshal funds and account to the court, annually and final.

Then we’ll have the data to demonstrate whether this is really a problem or not. It’s my well informed guess, and anecdotal experience that it is. If it’s not, then never mind, and you Guardianship lawyers, why don’t you find something else to do.

Maybe matrimonial.

But assuming my guess is correct, here’s what comes next:

Never sign a pro se petition unless you have first called in the petitioner and put them on the stand. At minimum, you can ascertain whether they understood the written directions. If the petition is good, you might even appoint an attorney for them. If not, decline to sign.

No joke: some of these petitioners themselves need a guardian.

Don’t schedule the hearing until a witness list has been provided. Maybe appoint MHLS as Court Evaluator to report back to the Court before the hearing is scheduled. Hold the hearing date in abeyance until you know what’s going on.

Never appoint a pro se guardian of the property unless you fix a bond to guarantee their performance.

Deny petitions unless there is clear and convincing evidence; I mean really do it, don’t just say it.

Never appoint a pro se guardian with normal powers; limited is the way to go. Make them short term, bring them in to see how they are doing with the specific goals that were set for them after 6 months. This should be s.o.p. The MHL lets you do it, and these remedies are there for a reason.

The Surrogates Court has simple guardianships, which are restricted in scope. Let’s steer as many of these cases there as can be done responsibly and conscientiously. Or is that the same thing?

Meanwhile as we open up the exciting career of legal practice to all, even to those without the capabilities of advocating responsibly, and quite a few who are using court proceedings for the purposes of vindicating irrational grievances, let’s take a look at the real problems we are neglecting by spending so many of our judicial resources on this feel-good exercise:

We have more elderly asset exploitation in our city than we even know exists –

We have more schizophrenic/mentally disturbed tenants living in unspeakable filth than the city knows what to do with.

That’s two just to start.

How about we start identifying the problem areas and looking for ways to focus in on them?

And how about a Public Guardianship, just to start? When did someone first suggest this, 1993? It will all flow downhill from there.

As people always say, a panacea to solve all problems. This literally makes my head explode.

Remember: “Literally” doesn’t mean” literally” any more.

But let’s put an end to Forms Over Substance.

Uplifting Conclusion.

And so this is Christmas, which President* Donald Trump just restored to the calendar, so let’ s look at the bright side.

By and large, Guardianship Court is not so bad, and it is not so plagued with festering problems as the rest of our Court. In fact, the Guardianship Parts, by comparison with their peers, are pretty damn good.

I didn’t say perfect.

If you are Janet Difiore — aside from the fun and games screwball Judges play periodically with shitty appointments in places like Long Island and Brooklyn, stories which make the tabloids gleeful — your attention is more often drawn to the non-guardianship side of things. For example, why does it take years to get a jury trial in some parts of the city, which is a direct attack on the commercial aspect of the legal profession, which sort of pays the bills around here. Fed up lawyers and their clients have long been voting with their feet, diverting cases from the courts to mediation. This is a problem, folks. And the litigation loan industry is a ticking time bomb that the courts and the bar have refused to acknowledge or regulate. [Because it’s more lucrative than the practice of law?]

The laws of time and space preclude the listing of them all, but I’ll get to most of them eventually, don’t you worry.

But Guardianship chugs along, basically doing a creditable job. Thanks to the Birnbaum commission, we have centralized the cases in each borough in front of one or a few judges, and by and large, we have the better judges doing Guardianship.

And this after we prematurely lost Joel Asarch, who was very good indeed. Before this, we also lost the nonpareil Charlie Devlin, the best of them all, who was professionally murdered by idiots at OCA, which is a story for another time.

The chief clerks in the boroughs doing this work are very impressive as a group, and unlike the rest of the court system, for the most part, you make a motion, and you get an answer in reasonably expeditious fashion. It’s amazing how well people do their jobs when you give them no choice to do otherwise.

And the Guardianship Judges [generally speaking] really know their stuff, because it’s their steady gig. Nice.

Your actual mileage may vary, but……

Always look on the bright side of life.

So until next time, tra la la la la, and let nothing you despair.

WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU COULD WORK WITH MEN

Al Pacino’s rant for the ages from Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross has particular resignance, as a former president would have said, in this me-too age. It was 30 or so years ago , but can we not hear the plaintive cry of the alpha male, resisting the New Age of Woke, a New Era of perfect mutual respect and harmony between the sexes, a rant improbably delivered against – tell me that the forces of the universe are not governed by infinite irony – Kevin Spacey. You fairy. Jeezus.

Here’s a tangent squared. How many of you boomers are Beatle Fans, hell, Worshippers? Okay, so the four lads are touring America in 1964, say, and we know that a batch of eager young ladies, shall we say, were escorted back to the quarters where their heroes had just finished a show, night after night, to help them replenish their energies, shall we also say. Joan Baez told a story about the time she was served up for John Lennon’s refreshment in one such scenario, but her virtue was saved after she suggested that he was too tired to do another performance, and he gratefully agreed, because he was. [She probably really wanted Paul anyway]. But, my question is this: who was in charge of checking the young ladies’ birth certificates? Did you need one to attend a show in 1964? They look pretty young to me in that black and white footage. How many counts of statutory rape are on the mythical rap sheets of all of our musical heroes? We know that Ted Nugent practically brags about his, uh, tastes, but how comfortable are we excoriating the scorned goobers of Alabama for supporting Moore, when our first heroes undoubtedly did much the same thing?

Back to the show. Pacino’s world in that movie, which has its counterpart in the high pressure world of our financial ‘services’ industry today, maybe the same place you work, is governed by the alpha- male ethos, albeit of the comic strip variety. How many women want to deal with this shit? Most men can’t stomach it either. So, even if the C word and the F word are never used, the culture itself excludes from the top jobs almost all women [not all; we all know some women who would make tough guy Pacino flee whimpering into the room to speak to the Detective in that scene].

Bit of a problem. How well are the all-female law firms, for example, set up to compete with the big swinging Richards, doing? Probably a mixed picture, although I had a hearing with a very tony, well-credentialed all-woman firm that handles discrimination cases, and off the one case, they would seem very good indeed. Certainly, the individual lawyers were aggressive and as skilled as any, but who knows? The Pacinos [and Baldwins] still predominate in this racket.

But the point is, it would seem that the effort to promote perfect story book harmony in the work place is doomed to failure, and we should start realistically trying to promote something less, something which is actually achievable. For example, any time a male worker makes any remark about a woman’s appearance [your hair looks nice that way] –the alarms go off. It doesn’t matter if he’s in a supervisory position over her or not; game over. He might as well be copping a feel or demanding that she go out with him; he is a cad; a knave who is little better than Weinstein and Cosby. Zero tolerance; what an inspired notion. And it takes so little thought. As a concept, it has done wonders for the prison guard unions, and destroyed much of America. What could go wrong. Senator Al? You want to say something?

But men will always say dopey things to women; don’t be a schmuck. And women say them too, as often, and probably more often. And, [horrors] there’s always going to be underplayed flirting, frequently in the most improbable scenarios [e.g. 65 year old spinster female supervisor, 22 year old office boy]. Its harmless because its improbable, and it happens because we’re human . Can we design some approaches that accurately reflect human behavior, address the problem with some precision, punish the guilty, and don’t trivialize the behavior of the real scumbags who populate some offices? Can you do that for me? Good. Let me know what you come up with, Sweety.

We have this proclivity for lumping together unrelated things. It started at about the same time that we started this practice of making interminable lists of everything. I always think of Monty Python’s “Society in Favor of Putting Things on Top of other Things”. But it’s a brain dead practice.

So it’s Cosby = Franken = O’Reilly = Prairie Home Companion Guy =Roger Ailes etc. But the Lumpers are everywhere in our culture.

How often do you see polls that ask the learned respondents whether they “can trust Congress to do the right thing for America”, as opposed to Trump, or Kevin Spacey, or whoever?

Or what is the “approval rate” of the Congress? Which one you want, Keith Ellison or King? Which one, Peter or Steve? Or Louis Gohmert? What is the point of this poll, exactly?

Or, would I prefer a Generic Democratic congress in 2018 [although somehow everyone seems to vote for their own incumbent anyway]. What if the generic guy is Marion Barry? Same answer?

Or, “Do you Trust THE MEDIA more than Trump?” MSNBC, Fox, Breitbart, Red America, Glenn Greenwald? I don’t trust Project Veritas, which is part of THE MEDIA. So I agree with Trump on my answer to the very stupid question you just asked me.

This type of polling is, has been and always will be hideously stupid, and its easy to do. Who do you know who is picking up the phone to talk to these guys, and who still has a landline?

Our other terminology used in public discourse itself is just as bad. What is the point, for example, of continuing to use the phrase “populist” to refer to zenophobic, white ethnic racism? So, the rest of the population, , the 65%, apparently are not ‘populos.’ Blacks and Hispanics are not people.

Can it already. Get rid of it. You’re embarrassing yourself. Go get a real job, and by the way, how great a job are the pollsters doing lately in the task of, uh, predicting things? Who pays them to do work like this?

That reminds me of the Courts, which I will return to presently, but till next time, radix malorum est cupiditas. Your hair really does look nice, though.

LETTER[S] TO DISPLEASING THE COURT

Q. What the f**k is the matter with you? First, crotchety is not spelled with a D. Second, what the f**k is the matter with you? I can’t understand what the hell you’re talking about half the time, and the other half I spend wondering what Trump said today, and who will be the latest to be outed for grabbing someone’s bum thirty-four years ago, and important stuff like that. Instead, we got all this schizophrenia and shit. How about something funny every now and then? Why isn’t this called Unrelieved Tedium.com, or is that taken already? Really, what the f**k is the matter with you? DUCCA LORRANGE

A. Well you might ask, Ducca. And thanks for using your real name. Is that a man or a woman’s name?

That reminds me of the Predicament of the Dying AIP.

You know the set up. The hearing starts; the appearance of the AIP – who is in the nursing home, we are told — is going to be waived. And then the somber son gets on the stand, and says he just visited Dad yesterday at the hospice, and he won’t hang for two more weeks, he thinks, but he’s in a coma, and sure needs a Guardian…..and what the hell?

The nursing home attorney, who brought the case, looks embarrassed, not the least because he didn’t bother interviewing his witness before the hearing, and wouldn’t know the AIP if he fell over him. The nursing home, it appears, handed him the file and said “Go”.

Its legal malpractice, but we’re all friends here, right? So why these “hurry up and get a Guardian” cases?

Sometimes, it’s because the AIP is going downhill fast, and the petition was signed and adjourned several times. Let’s face it, the number of Court proceedings in which everything is supposed to be completed in very short order is not long: there’s Guardianship, and ….uh, uh.

There must be something. Habeas corpus or other writs. OK. That’s another.

So the Court has been given this horrific opportunity, lucky ducky. A legal shit sandwich. Let’s play Beat The Clock. Something we’re so good at.

After His or Her Honor is done flogging the nursing home attorney, what is to be done? Is there anything that the family needs the Court to help them with? Do we get a lawyer to be temp guardian, or do one of those single transaction thingies?

This sounds preposterous on its face, but I’ve seen it happen a few times. It should never happen, of course. Don’t mean to shock you, but there’s some bad lawyering [Judging and Law Secretary-ing too] out there, and the poor sods who work the nursing home gig are undoubtedly not well-paid. Like Dick Cheney, the Nursing Homes have Other Priorities.

So, in most cases, I would think, you appoint someone, tell them to do the best they can, which means running around like a nut for two weeks, maybe do a few things for Dying Dad, maybe very little, but it’s all appreciated, because we put the lawyer appointee in a shitty position. Or credential [verb] the somber son, but it usually transpires that, if he was all that capable, we wouldn’t have had this proceeding in the first place.

As anyone who has eyes can see, a reckoning is coming with the nursing homes, who perceive their margins as getting squeezed by an increasingly vigilant HRA/parsimonious [frequently insane]Congress, and by families that don’t want to cooperate in their glorious quest to get paid. The system, if this is what it is, teeters towards collapse, like most things that teeter eventually do.

The bigger point is that the installation of a guardian is a big, cumbersome deal, and before we go to all that trouble, we should have a legitimate reason to do it, and enough time to do it right.

The need for a streamlined proceeding to enable nursing homes to get their Medicaid, from customers who don’t have families who want to cooperate in the endeavor – or no families at all – has been a screaming need for 30 years, at least. Why are we still doing guardianships in these cases? It is a waste of court time, and frequently a fruitless exercise, especially when the AIP is at the very end of life. And we all know for whose benefit these proceedings are being brought. Why not a frank disclosure of what has been going on, some hearings, and then design a special proceeding around it? Isn’t this what State Legislatures do, or am I being jejeune?

What does jejeune mean anyway? I don’t want to look it up.

This is the 2010s; if we can design a computer algorithm for an online radio station that plays only music you despise [All Adele Radio!!], we can do this. We’re Americans.

Another Tangent: Did you ever wonder whether Algorithm was named after Al Gore? Me neither. Okay, back to the blog.

Just to show you that I am dedicated to my vast readership and all their concerns, the more pointless the better, and as a public service, I am donating this all-purpose Political Blog Bullshit Story Creation Template. If you read Mediate, HuffPo or any right wing equivalent, you’ve wasted untold days of your life reading thousands of examples of this click-bate political/celebrity stuff. Could you imagine the horror of having that job of pumping out this bilge, day after tedious day? Reading it is little better.

Well, this solves it. Use it this morning, make two or three of your own to quench your thirst, so to speak, and it will tide you over for the day. You can now ignore all of these stories clogging the net waves, the vast toxic wave of sludge coursing through our public discourse. They all go something like this:

Big Celebrity/Nothing Burger Low Life whose name you’ve heard/Person tangentially related to one
Praises/condemns/makes idiotic, ambiguous or ignorant statement

ABOUT

Trump/Prominent Dem/other celebrity/other Nothing Burger/own sex life
And is condemned/praised/ignored

Other prominent celebrity etc.

See how easy! You now have 12 extra hours this week to do whatever you want to do with your life. Congratulations.

Write a sonnet, go online and buy an extra present that no one really wants or needs, spend extra time flossing, whatever. No, you don’t have to thank me. Just trying to be helpful here.

Until next time, remember, ex nihilo nihil fit. I should know.