A reply from a divorce atty to "An Unmarried Husband: Unwelcome Reality"

Wow, such stinging repartee, such wit, such.. crap. I do hope he doesn't
charge by the hour, this guy could loose to a 2 year old's logic. Anyway,
here's the story and link..

Oh, check out the on-line replys to the drivel below, too.
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http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2...4042009/456490

Baskerville bays nonsense on divorce and dads
Date published: 4/4/2009

YOU OUGHT to be ashamed of yourself for publishing Stephen Baskerville's
drivel ["An Unmarried Husband: Unwelcome Reality," March 29 Viewpoints] and
misinformation regarding divorce in America.

Baskerville, an associate professor at a 9-year-old Christian college in
Berryville, is also a member of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, according
to that organization's Web site.

As an attorney who has practiced family law in the Fredericksburg region for
more than 27 years, I would like to correct as many errors as possible of
those contained in Baskerville's commentary.

Divorce does not license government intrusion, "including the power to seize
children, loot family savings, and incarcerate parents without a trial."

Baskerville is wrong. In most divorce trials you don't receive one trial,
but two.

The first brief trial, known as a pendente lite hearing, usually places in
effect a court order to maintain the status quo as much as possible. It is
designed to assure both parents access to children and the protection of
family savings, so that one parent does not run off with the children and
the family funds. No one is incarcerated without a trial and due process
under the law.

A second full hearing, which sometimes lasts a full day or two, provides
both parents with the ability to present all of their evidence and witnesses
to the court to help it make a fair ruling in this emotion-packed
litigation.

Baskerville is also 75 percent wrong when he states that judges,
psychotherapists, social workers, and lawyers "profit from ensuing
litigation."

Judges, psychotherapists, and social workers don't profit from ensuing
divorce litigation. Judges are paid a salary to be a judge and hear trials
that men and women bring to them. They are not paid on commission.

Most psychotherapists and social workers with whom I've worked over the
years try to avoid litigation. They can't help clients if they, the
psychotherapists and social workers, are sitting in court all day.

Lawyers do profit from litigation. That's what lawyers get paid for doing.
Most of us litigate.

However, most family-law lawyers whom I know urge other means of dispute
resolution first (such as mediation, collaborative law, and agreements
between the parties) before the expensive, stressful, and uncertain option
of litigation.

Baskerville's claim that "child abuse is itself the creation of welfare
bureaucracies" is so absurd that I must comment. One need only sit through a
week or two of family-court trials to see beaten, burned, damaged
children--or to hear stories of murdered children.

Baskerville also claims that fathers suffer "incarceration without trial."

Wrong again. First, fathers are not the only ones who pay child support.
More and more mothers pay child support to fathers; and when the payor
parent (man or woman) fails to pay as ordered by the court, after a full
trial that parent is given another trial before being jailed.

In closing, may I suggest that when The Free Lance-Star publishes irrational
rubbish from such individuals as Stephen Baskerville that you try to balance
it with commentary by someone who is actually from this planet?

Thomas Savage is a Fredericksburg lawyer.