Why is My Advocate Center a mission, or considered a public service?

The public trust is being destroyed at an alarming rate around our legal system.  This is not just a family court issue, of course, but our focus with this organization is on what is happening to parents and children, and what can be done to restore balance, help families recover faster, and to prevent more of the misconduct that is driving a severely negative aftermath.

What this Situation looks like to families:

• Parents are being deceived as they go through divorce, manipulated due to their vulnerable emotional state.
  • They are experiencing escalated and prolonged conflict rather than advocacy designed to lower and end conflict.
  • They are losing everything they have in the process, rather than having resources (including time and health) preserved for the benefit of their children.
• Parents are losing their right to time with their children and the right to nurture and protect children.
  • This is happening to both fathers and mothers, and in contrast to what the evidence of the case dictates.
  • This is in conflict with our laws & ethics rules governing family court professionals. It is in conflict with common sense and with our humanity.
• Our reporting stemming from the investigation of these cases explains that in many cases, the healthier parent is often targeted for loss and undermined with regard to providing for children and with regard to the financial outcome.
  • This is occurring while the more dysfunctional or vindictive parent is rewarded for using foul play.
  • It appears there is a simple profit motive for cases to be managed toward this end.  The more you incite an “off-balance” or vindictive party, or the more risk you create for a child, the more desperate the other parent will be to litigate to restore balance or prevent loss.
  • The examination of billing records by many attorneys and custody experts provides a clear picture of the motive behind the mismanagement of cases and the abandonment of ethics.
• Children are losing the best of both parents in many situations, as one or both parents are removed from the children and to a degree that is either not necessary.
  • What is being done to parents in a large number of cases is not in keeping with the facts of the case.  If you look at each case it is clear that what is being told or done to parents by professionals is either causing or exacerbating the problem.
  • The damages, the worsened outcomes, are beyond what these parents would cause or experience on their own.
• These families are not just dividing assets and time; they are being destroyed, and the mental health damages are on the rise.
  • These leads to more addiction, more violence, and more trauma for children.
  • This also means that in cases involving child abuse, the children are losing the parent who is more nurturing and protective, and they are often subjected to more abuse.
• Parents are so distracted & destabilized by the process, by what certain professionals are doing and saying to them, that they feel helpless and hopeless.
  • They cannot make informed or good decisions, and until it is too late, they do not realize that they have been set up to fail.
  • Many are losing their homes as a result.
• Many litigants lose control after realizing that much of what was done to them and to their children was done intentionally.  The trauma from the betrayal combined with their losses is too much for some, and we have seen suicide and other devastation.
• Some parents work to learn the truth surrounding how their cases were handled, and are finding that it is virtually impossible to correct the damages or to have accountability for the professionals who caused the damages.
  • After vetting many dozens of cases in this area, a clear pattern has surfaced which reveals that certain attorneys, custody experts, financial advisors and judges are cooperating to cause the damages and to cover for each other.
  • This realization is leading to a desperate and outraged public.  With no end in sight for consumers, there is no hope for the public to trust our legal system.
• Even more parents are too destabilized, or too ashamed to acknowledge what was done to them, to even be able to speak up and ask for help.  This serves to feed desperation and bitterness, while also enabling the misconduct to continue and even increase.

It is critical now that we work together as a State to avoid more of this where and when possible.

My Advocate Center helps you see the path ahead, like never before possible.

Solutions:

We believe all of this does not need to be the case, and that there are solutions that are positive, inclusive and that can benefit parents and children across the socio-economic spectrum, from all areas of our state.

These solutions benefit both consumers and professionals, while also serving to uplift our schools, law enforcement and our government agencies — as healthier, more intact families make contributions to community and help reduce waste and time lost from school, work and life.

• We are working on a number of cases right now where we can demonstrate that it IS possible to make corrections and to restore balance.
  • Transparency is being introduced where none existed before.
  • Identifying & supporting the right legal professionals as they advocate for corrections in a way that serves the real needs of children is key.  It is clear now that there are attorneys who believe in upholding the needs of parents and children, and who take fiduciary duty & the standards of care seriously. They are using available evidence to reach the best outcomes, protecting clients and children in an ethical manner.
  • Our healthcare community plays a critical role in supporting families, but is currently under-utilized in serving the mental health needs of parents dealing with conflict and dysfunction.
  • More upstanding medical & psychological professionals are showing support and speaking up, offering help on these cases.
  • Demonstrating what is possible when parents can address their real mental health needs, and while being served with honest and loyal guidance from legal & financial professionals will do much to create positive changes to the negative trends described here.
• The forward-thinking part of our mission is to create an informed public who will seek out the best counseling early in the process, where prevention and intervention can take place.

Improving the Family Law Environment:

• Doing this work will go a long way toward restoring the public trust, to restoring balance in a way that helps our legal system function as it was designed to – for the benefit of our citizens and their children.
• Parents and children will have a voice and a way to be heard that makes a difference in how they are treated in our legal system, and in a way that leads to better outcomes and faster recovery.

With the help of our advisors from various civic and business sectors My Advocate Center has developed white papers and case studies that address both problems and solutions related to the damages being caused to far too many parents and children in Georgia.

In these documents we outline the various components of this industry in a way that will help you understand the big picture, specifically why thousands of people and children are left in worse shape than where they were found before entering the legal system.  This section on our website was designed to present some of the highlights.

Perspective:

There are several key points we ask you to keep in mind as you read and digest our reports:

• The extent of the damages being caused to good parents and to children is unnecessary.
  • Divorce is bad enough, but what the process is doing to families is worse than what even “high conflict” parents do to each other, and it is worse than what the children are experiencing before their parents enter the legal process.
  • We are asking you to focus on why that is the case, who is driving this situation and preventing transparency and accountability.
• While this is a large and complicated problem, we believe nothing is impossible.  The alliance that has been forming to start shifting and correcting these issues has powerful resources.
• A growing percentage of our population believes that all legal professionals, including all judges, are corrupt.  Many see the whole system as broken, and want it taken down.
• Our leadership sees extensive damages, large numbers of cases being mishandled with a worsening aftermath for children and for parents.
  • Their mental & physical health are negatively impacted by trauma created from professional misconduct layered on top of naturally occurring losses.
  • Parents are finding they cannot provide for their children because of what was taken from them financially, and they are losing their ability to work and be productive, or to recover as they might have otherwise.
  • These parents and children are unable to thrive and contribute in our communities, certainly not in the way they would have without this additional damage.
• However, we at My Advocate Center and those in our alliance do not see that this is caused by a completely “broken system” but rather it is caused by a select group in each sector of the legal system who choose to exploit for financial gain.
  • Not all attorneys, judges and custody or financial experts who serve in family court do business this way.
  • By focusing on those professionals who uphold families, laws and ethics rules we can improve this situation.

Please contact us to learn more and to request your copy of our White Paper or to review case studies appropriate to your area of interest.