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!