There is still time to buy a wedding gift for Judge Alicia Franklin before her April 4 wedding. Whether you are motivated out of friendship or more practical purposes, Franklin made it very easy for you to buy her a gift on-line. Until Tuesday, anyone on the planet was able to see her Honeymoon Pixie site and quickly order her gifts for her honeymoon. Suddenly, after a very critical article was posted on the Republican blog Big Jolly about this unseemly situation, the links disappeared. Then, the site required a password then within hours the public could again see the couple's gift wish list and buy them gifts. Try clicking this link to possibly see it for yourself. A Google search for "Alicia Franklin Doug York" pulls up this gift registry website and several others. Here is part of what you were able to see until this week about the Franklin - York wedding: Judge Franklin and Mr. York are also registered on a variety of sites for gifts, including The Knot and ... Read More >
What To Do When Illegal Electronic Evidence is Discovered
Illegal electronic evidence can be voice or video recordings, phone recordings, intercepted text messages or e-mails or screen shots captured by spyware. This thoughtful 2005 Florida case describes what a trial court should do when faced with illegal electronic evidence. Click here to read O'Brien v. O'Brien, 899 So.2d 1133 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005), which was a divorce case. When marital discord erupted between the Husband and the Wife, the Wife secretly installed a spyware program called Spector on the Husband's computer. It is undisputed that the Husband engaged in private on-line chats with another woman while playing Yahoo Dominoes on his computer. The Spector spyware secretly took snapshots of what appeared on the computer screen, and the frequency of these snapshots allowed Spector to capture and record all chat conversations, instant messages, e-mails sent and received, and the websites visited by the user of the computer. When the Husband discovered the Wife's clandestine ... Read More >
Nepotism in the Courtroom?
The vast majority of the stories in The Mongoose newsletter which criticized judges asked (or could have included) these questions: • What the hell were they thinking? • Surely, they realized that does not pass the “ethical smell test?” • Didn’t they think someone would get the word out and this would look really, really bad? These questions certainly must be asked of any judge who allows her fiancé or spouse or his Associate Judge’s spouse to accept or handle cases pending in his or her court. There is no doubt it is improper for an elected judge’s spouse to be allowed to represent clients in that judge’s court, as that is grounds for disqualification. It is just as improper for a judge’s spouse to sign up cases already pending in his wife’s court and then use his wife’s position as reason to have the case transferred to another court. That amounts to reverse venue shopping and it creates a market for those who want out of a particular judge’s court to hire ... Read More >
Beware of the New Year: A Mistake in the Year Might Not Be Fixable
Every new year results in mistakes because we are so used to writing or typing "2014" instead of "2015." Rawlins v. Rawlins, 324 S.W.3d 852, 855 (Tex. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2010, no pet.) is an example of how a mistake in the year used in an order can screw a client and not be fixable later. This case also includes a sublime ass chewing of an attorney for being a sleaze bag. The parents were divorced on January 9, 2007. Over two years later, on March 12, 2009, Mr. Rawlings filed a motion for judgment nunc pro tunc, alleging that the Agreed Final Decree of Divorce contained a clerical error in the date child support was to begin. The divorce decree said child support started January 5, 2006 instead of January 5, 2007. The mother argued that the error was not a clerical error but a judicial error, and the trial court could not correct by judgment nunc pro tunc. At the hearing on the requested nunc pro tunc order, Mr. Rawlings testified he and his lawyer appeared on January 9, 2007 ... Read More >
New Appellate Case on Intentional Under Employment
Reprinted from the November 14, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Some judge named "Pratt" was just reversed in Reddick v. Reddick, No. 01-12-00576-CV (Tex. App. - Houston [1st Dist.] 10/23/2014). This case is an excellent reminder that not every parent who could in theory earn more should be found to be intentionally underemployed. Click here to read the entire case, which provides this summary of the law: A parent who is qualified to obtain gainful employment cannot evade his or her child support obligation by voluntarily remaining unemployed or underemployed. Concurrently, the court must consider a parent's right to pursue his or her own happiness with a parent's duty to support and provide for his or her child. The court must engage in a case-by-case determination to decide whether child support should be set based on earning potential as opposed to actual earnings. Once the obligor has offered proof of his or her current wages, the obligee bears the burden of demonstrating ... Read More >
Three New Associate Judges
Reprinted from the November 14, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Harris County family court judges-elect have announced who their Associate Judges will be. So far Judge Dean and Judges-Elect Prine and Schmude have announced their picks. John Schmude has selected Paula Vlahakos to be the next Associate Judge of the 247th District Court. Vlahokos got her J.D. from South Texas in 1998 and was licend in 1999. She worked for Short Jenkins Kamin from 1999 until 2007 and for Short Carter Morris since 2007. This first major decision by Mr. Schmude should give us all even more confidence in his good judgment. Schmude is going to be assisted by a very experienced and smart attorney and not a political hack. Prior to becoming an attorney, Vlahakos worked as the legislative coordinator for Service Corporation International and later as the community outreach coordinator for The Children's Assessment Center/Harris County Children's Protective Services. Paula has also taught at Houston ... Read More >
My Letter to the District Attorney About Gary Polland
Reprinted from the November 14, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Now that the election is over, I have written District Attorney Devon Anderson's Public Integrity Unit about Gary Polland. Similar letters send by me in the past led to the indictment of Judge Dupuy and the forced resignation of Judge Pratt. The actions of Mr. Polland are particularly important because of his influence with judges as the former Republican Party Chair, one of the "Big Three Endorsers" who dominate local GOP primaries and as a Houston television personality (on Channel 8 at least). This is what I wrote to the D.A.: I attach documents relating to attorney Gary Polland and what I contend are false pay vouchers he submitted to the county for work he did as a lawyer appointed on CPS cases. I believe that the crime of tampering with a government record may have been committed. I am providing you: 1. A legal article that establishes that a court appointed ad litem in a CPS case cannot bill the ... Read More >
Clients Are Confused Over “First Friday” Versus “First Weekend”
Reprinted from the November 5, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Clients and former clients have already started calling about arguments over which parent has possession of the kids this coming weekend. Most people think last weekend was the first weekend of November and yet last weekend started with Friday, October 31. Our clients need to be reminded that weekend visitation is based on Fridays - 1st, 3rd and 5th. Expect a few emergency calls Friday and some enforcements to arise out of this coming weekend. In 2015, January, May, July and October have five Fridays. That means a parent with visitation under a standard possession order will have three weekends in those months and have two weekends in a row when the fifth Friday of one month is followed by the first Friday of the next month. Your clients will appreciate it if you forewarn them about these calendar anomalies. Next year, the parent with visitation rights, for example, should carefully consider that July gives him ... Read More >
Attorneys Cannot Bill Clients for Motions to Withdraw
A lawyer cannot bill her client for the time spent preparing a motion to withdraw from the client's case. Lee v. Daniels & Daniels, 264 S.W.3d 273, 278 (Tex. App.-San Antonio 2008, pet. denied). In that case, the attorney's engagement letter said the client would,"pay for all time spent, costs and expenses incident to withdrawal as attorney of record to include, but not limited to, airfare, mileage, motel, and lodging." The Court of Appeals held: Daniels [the attorney] sought reimbursement for all time spent in his efforts to terminate his attorney-client relationship with Cummings [the client] including time spent adversarial to his own client. None of that time was spent engaged in " legal services" performed or rendered on behalf of Cummings, his client. Instead, Daniels spent that time engaged in services performed for his own benefit. No lawyer could form a reasonable belief that time spent adversarial to the client and in pursuit of the lawyer's own interests is the ... Read More >
The “No Shame, No Consequences” Power Trip
Reprinted from the October 23, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Attorney Doug York is taking cases in the court where his fiance, Judge Alicia Franklin, presides. If you want a case out of the 311th, York is the attorney to hire. Both York and Franklin should have enough sense and ethics to realize that York should simply not accept cases that are already pending in the 311th, especially those cases where Franklin has already heard something or where there is already a hearing set. Franklin should not automatically recuse herself in cases where York allows himself to be hired knowing the case is in his wife-to-be's court. In Cause No. 2004-02532, Sheikh v Sheikh, a final divorce decree was entered in the 311th in March 2005. The ex-wife's attorney, Scott Boyd requested a writ of execution on July 18, 2014 to try to collect on the 2005 divorce judgment. In September 2014, a Fort Bend Constable seized a house belonging to the ex-husband worth about $152,000. The ex-husband hired a ... Read More >
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