J.A.I.L. News
Journal
______________________________________________________
Los Angeles,
California
October 27, 2022
______________________________________________________
The Inherent Right of ALL People to Alter or Reform Abusive
Government.
The Right Upon Which All Other Rights
Depend
Judges Inside the System Speak
Out
WEST - Los
Angeles Times
October 22,
2006
Is Justice Served?
(p.20)
By Eric
Berkowitz
(Excerpts)
Hundreds of
judges have deserted the bench to enrich themselves in a system of
private arbitration. The arena is largely unregulated and tilted,
many say, in favor of big business and against the little
guy.
After nine
years of hearing family law cases in her Santa Monica courtroom, Jill
Robbins was tired--tired of schlepping files home every
night.... ...a number of retired judges were telling Robbins
about the piles of money she could make by hiring herself out to
wealthy couples looking to resolve their divorces quietly. "They
said, 'Oh my God, there's so much business out here; if you're
thinking about it, this is the time,' " she
recalls.
Not only
did Robbins think about it, at least two attorneys remember her
talking about it--openly from the bench. They said that, shortly
before giving up her commissioner's robe in 1995, Robbins announced
during a hearing that she had turned in her resignation and would be
starting in private practice in about two months. .... Robbins is now
one of the city's top private family law judges, commanding $600 an
hour. ... People were calling to hire her, she acknowledges, even
before she left government service. It's no mystery why. The
pay-for-justice phenomenon extends nationwide, generating hundreds of
millions of dollars in business a year. (Nobody has an exact figure.)
...
... Robbins
is one of hundreds of judges who have abandoned the bench to enrich
themselves by working in the private sector. Among them are four
former California Supreme Court justices. ... Stephen Reinhardt, who
sits on the federal appellate court in Los Angeles, once compared
such marketing to "the rivalry between Alka-Seltzer and
Pepto-Bismol."
The effect
of all this is threefold. First, it has meant that a large number of
cases are being decided out of public view, leaving no record or
legal precedent for others to follow. Second, it has left the
courts--with its overload of cases and myriad other
challenges--without some of its most experienced jurists. Meanwhile,
many of the best have walled themselves off behind what is, in
effect, a gated
community.
.... Says
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George: It's a
"two-track system of justice--one for people who can decide which
trial service they want and which judge they will pick" while "others
stand at the end of the line." "We're doing the luxury spa,"
adds former judge and arbitrator Richard Hodge, "rather than the
public swimming
pool."
...A 2004
study by Stanford law professor Deborah Hensler and Rand Corp.
researcher Linda Demaine found that more than 55% of consumer
contracts have such clauses, leaving the public at the mercy of
private judges who can rule with almost no accountability. And take a
guess: When private judges are deciding between a big company and
you, which way do you think they tend to
lean?
Until his
retirement in 2004, Michael Shapiro was one of the city's leading
franchising attorneys. I practiced law with him for six years in the
1990s. Long afterwards, he worked at a large firm representing a
franchise chain in an arbitration against individual franchisees.
"You are not going to lose," Shapiro says one of his partners assured
him. The firm sent the arbitrator so much business, the partner
explained, "he has never decided against us." Sure enough, Shapiro
said "on a very close case he came down in our
favor."
....
"Private judging is an oxymoron because those judges are businessmen.
They are in this for the money," says J. Anthony Kline, a state
appellate justice in San Francisco. ... "I had an insurance company
that very noticeably did not hire me further after I ruled
against them in arbitration," Hodge says. "You would have to be
unconscious not to be aware that if you rule a certain way, you can
compromise your future
business."
.... But it
wasn't until the 1970s that private judging began to take hold more
generally, thanks to a prominent Los Angeles attorney named Hillel
Chodos. ... Soon, word got out. "This is exactly what created the
industry," Chodos says. "I feel like I created a Frankenstein."
A monster it has indeed become. As the courts got even more crowded
.... Services such as JAMS [Judicial Arbitration & Mediation
Services] popped up to meet
it.
.... ...In
a crucial 1992 decision, Moncharsh vs. Heily & Blase [3
Cal.4th 1], the state Supreme Court held than an arbitrator's
award can stand even if it is legally wrong [violates the
law] and causes "substantial injustice." The result is that
California now has a second legal system in which arbitrators "can
rule on the basis of the tea leaves," Hodge says. "...there is
no appeal if I make a stupid or diabolical mistake, or one that is
made in bad faith. The parties are on their
own."
Four years
after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Moncharsh, the
opinion's author, former state Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas, went to
work for JAMS. He charges $6,500 a day, according to a company fee
schedule
dated
January
2006. Former Justice Edward A. Panelli, who also signed the decision,
is now at JAMS too. His rate: $7,500 a
day.
$1,000,000 - The estimated annual income of a top-tier retired
judge acting as a private
arbitrator.
Many in the ADR industry [Alternative Dispute
Resolution] are reluctant to talk about the ins and outs of what
they do. Not Lucie Barron. Perhaps that's because the Australian-born
owner of Los Angeles-based ADR Services isn't an attorney. A voluble
single mother of seven, Barron isn't one to wrap herself in a lot of
high-minded talk about justice. "The whole business of resolving
disputes is market-driven," she says. And when marketing judicial
talent, it pays to have judges on your roster with name recognition.
"We fight like crazy over the highly regarded judges. If people tell
you we don't, it's not
true."
Barron's company represents about 85 retired judges. In 12 years,
she has built her firm into an ADR "supermarket." Some of her private
judges make $1 million a year, after Barron takes a 25% to 28% cut.
... [$312,000 times 85 judges = $26,520,000 per
year]
Barron meets the judges--sometimes in their courtrooms--to make
her pitch. She also teaches them how to improve their prospects when
they go private, advising them to collect lawyers' business cards for
mailing lists, cultivate a reputation for settling cases and raise
their public profile.
...
As I dug deeper and deeper into the world of private judging, I
came across no shortage of horror stories from people who found
themselves, often unwittingly, caught up in arbitration.
....
J.A.I.L. will
provide the only known remedy for this lucrative racket involving
top-tier
judges.
"Who stands to be
hurt if Amendment E is not
passed?"
Would it be the South
Dakota Bar Association and lawyers?
NO!
Would it be the South Dakota
Legislature?
NO!
Would it be the insurance companies and agencies?
NO!
IT WOULD BE THE VOTERS OF SOUTH
DAKOTA
WHO
WOULD BE
HURT.
Vote YES on Amendment
E for your future and your own
good!