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Family & Relationships Divorce & Separation

Tug of War

A Judge’s Verdict on Separation, Custody Battles, and the Bitter Realities of Family Court

by (author) Harvey Brownstone

Publisher
ECW Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2009
Category
Divorce & Separation, Divorce & Separation
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781550228700
    Publish Date
    Jan 2009
    List Price
    $19.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781554903467
    Publish Date
    Mar 2009
    List Price
    $14.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

 

Tug of War is the first book of its kind. Written by a sitting family court judge in layman’s language, it demystifies complex family law concepts and procedures, clearly explains how family court works, and gives parents essential alternatives to resolve their own custody battles and keep their kids out of the often damaging court system.

Breakup rates in North America are skyrocketing. Recent statistics say 45% of marriages end in divorce, and at the centre are countless children, thrust by their families into a complex and seemingly impermeable family court system. Tug of War explains the role of lawyers and judges in the family justice system, and examines the parents’ own responsibilities to ensure that post-separation conflicts are resolved with minimal damage to the children stuck in the middle of parental disputes.

Justice Harvey Brownstone explores themes that apply to all families and parents in conflict. He draws on fourteen years sitting on the family court bench to provide clear case examples with inclusive and accessible language. Tug of War describes alternatives to litigation and exposes the myth that parents can represent themselves without a lawyer in family court. Justice Brownstone discloses the inner struggles of parents, judges and lawyers in the maelstrom of marital conflict.

This book is a must-read for couples involved in or contemplating separation, family law judges, lawyers, mediators, parenting coaches, psychologists, family counselors, social workers, students and professors of family law at law schools. It is endorsed by judges currently sitting in Ontario and New York State.

 

About the author

Awards

  • Commended, Globe and Mail Bestseller List

Contributor Notes

Mr. Justice Harvey Brownstone currently presides at the North Toronto Family Court. He was appointed a provincial judge in 1995, after serving as Director of the Support and Custody Enforcement Program of the Ministry of the Attorney General (now the Family Responsibility Office). He received his LL.B. from Queen’s University in 1980, and after working as a full-time Legal Aid duty counsel in the criminal courts, he joined the Legal Aid research facility, focusing primarily on Family Law.

Excerpt: Tug of War: A Judge’s Verdict on Separation, Custody Battles, and the Bitter Realities of Family Court (by (author) Harvey Brownstone)

 

After more than fourteen years of presiding in family court, one question has never ceased to amaze me: how can two parents who love their child allow a total stranger to make crucial decisions about their child’s living arrangements, health, education, extracurricular activities, vacation time, and degree of contact with each parent? This question becomes even more mind-boggling when one considers that the stranger making the decisions is a judge, whose formal training is in the law, not in family relations, child development, social work, or psychology. Now add the fact that, because of heavy caseloads and crowded dockets, most judges have to make numerous child custody, access, matrimonial property, and support decisions every day on the basis of incomplete, subjective, and highly emotional written evidence (called affidavits), with virtually no time to get to know the parents and no opportunity to meet the child whose life is being so profoundly affected. What person in their right mind would advocate for this method of resolving parental conflicts flowing from family breakdown? These are some of the questions that family court judges agonize over. Some say the answers are complicated and have much to do with social conditioning, economic class, levels of education, sophistication, familiarity with community resources, and even culture. I say the answers are simple.

The institution of marriage has not been a great success in North America. The United States has the highest divorce rate in the western world, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada.1 Moreover, divorce statistics do not take into account couples who lived in common-law (unmarried) relationships and broke up. There is no reliable way to track the breakup rate for those couples, but you can be sure that it is at least as high as the divorce rate. There are also many thousands of couples who never lived together, but had a casual relationship resulting in the birth of a child. Family courts are heavily populated with such couples, but we have no way of knowing their numbers in society at large.

We do know that the vast majority of couples who break up manage to settle their affairs, including the custody and access arrangements for their children, without ever setting foot in a courtroom. The most common way to achieve this is by separation agreement or some other form of domestic contract (see Chapter 12). However, for the many couples unable to reach agreements, the family court becomes the place of first and last resort.

What we judges see in family court is beyond belief and certainly more dramatic and gut-wrenching than any television show or movie. If you don’t believe me, visit any family courtroom in any town and chances are you’ll see real-life examples of what I will describe in this book. As any family law lawyer, judge, or litigant will tell you, family court litigation is expensive, time-consuming, unpredictable, and highly stressful. The level of hostility and anger between parents involved in high-conflict custody disputes is often so toxic that it is almost palpable. I have dealt with thousands of couples whose bitterness toward each other coloured every aspect of the proceedings and completely diverted the focus away from the children and their needs. Frequently, I get the impression that such parents are in a struggle over power and control or are on a quest for vengeance and self-validation that has nothing to do with their children. Imagine how difficult it is for a judge to make the best possible decision regarding a child’s living arrangements when faced with parents who seem unable or unwilling to focus on their children. Sometimes I have had to involve a child protection agency and place the children in foster care to insulate them from the parental conflict (see Chapter 11). On more than one occasion I have been told by a parent that he/she would rather have his/her children living in foster care than with the other parent. On one even more appalling occasion, I was told by a parent that it would be better for the children to be dead than to live with the other parent! This is the tragic reality of family court.

Everyone who works in family law, including judges, agrees on two things: family court is not good for families, and litigation is not good for children. The emotional carnage resulting from family litigation, and its impact on the unfortunate children of warring parents, cannot be overstated. And yet, family courts everywhere are jammed with couples asking judges to decide who gets custody of their children, how often the children will see the noncustodial parent, how the matrimonial property is to be divided, and how much spousal and/or child support must be paid. More surprisingly, an alarmingly high number of people appear in court without a lawyer and try to navigate the court process on their own, without any idea of their rights and obligations, the procedural requirements, the rules of evidence, or the types of orders a court can and cannot make. As you might expect, the results for these people are often extremely frustrating at best and disastrous at worst.

Ask anyone who has ever appeared in family court as a litigant — even if they had a lawyer — and they are almost certain to describe their experience as unsatisfactory. Why? What can be done to help people so that their family court experience is more predictable, more positive and constructive, less time-consuming, and consequently more beneficial to themselves and their children? An even more important question is, What can be done to help people avoid going to court in the first place? That is what I am going to explain in this book.

What is the difference between the couples who settle their disputes privately and those couples who require a judge to make the decisions? Do the parents in the first group dislike each other any less than those in the second group? Does the first group have access to resources unavailable to the second group? Do the two groups come from separate and distinct socio-economic or cultural groups? Not in my experience. In my opinion, the major difference between couples who resolve their disputes privately and those who turn to a judge has to do with one overriding characteristic: maturity. We who work in family court know that a person’s maturity level has nothing to do with economic circumstances, education, culture, race, religion, or sexual orientation. We see rich people and poor people in our courtrooms, and we see people from all walks of life and from every racial, cultural, ethnic, and religious background, and from every lifestyle and orientation imaginable. Trust me: judges see it all. What we don’t see very often in our clientele is maturity.

 

Editorial Reviews

 

“[A] candid account of the soul-destroying, financial debacle that usually results when warring couples take their differences to court. It explains the shortcomings of the family-court system, strongly advocates on behalf of the children of divorce and offers down-to-earth tips.” — Globe and Mail

“A must-read for couples involved in or contemplating separation, family law judges, lawyers, mediators, parenting coaches, psychologists, family counselors, social workers, students and professors of family law at law schools."
— TheSmartDivorce.com

“Why would lawyers, particularly family law lawyers want to plunk down $19.95 to read this book? For starters, Justice Brownstone is donating all his proceeds from the book to children's charities. Moreover, it provides a rare glimpse of what a sitting judge thinks about the good, the bad and the ugly realities of the family law court system, family law lawyers and family law litigants. Furthermore, reading the book will help family law lawyers provide better guidance to clients, especially the final chapter that is full of heartfelt and wise advice for resolving parental disputes post-divorce.” — Lawyers Weekly

"Every lawyer should provide clients with a copy of Tug of War and encourage them to read it before proceeding with their case." — The Canadian Bar Association

“Judges too need to be more than just courtroom adjudicators but public educators as well, said Brownstone, who has done more than just write the book. He's also participated in a media campaign to promote it, appearing twice so far — on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paiken, doing three question-and-answer sessions with The Globe and Mail (which also ran an editorial on the book stating the ‘Justice Brownstone gets it right’) and fielding calls on about 80 radio phone-in shows. CBC Television's The National did a feature on him and the book, and he's been a guest on breakfast TV programs, including CTV's Canada AM.”
Lawyers Weekly