The Family Law Center is no place for the faint of heart. The system is designed to destroy families both financially and emotionally. The adversarial process is no way to end a marriage, especially when children are involved. This is a story about those children.
I regularly attend the Downtown Pachyderm, which is an eclectic group of folks who attend from all areas of Harris County. Some of the regular attendees include court personnel and judges.
I am not sure when I first met Bob Lansink but, I remember liking him right away. After visiting with him, I learned that he was working with indigent folks who were seeking help in the family law arena. All I really knew was that Bob was involved with an organization called Fathers for Equal Rights and that organization had run afoul of a few the family law judges years before Bob’s involvement.
Fathers for Equal Rights (America Family Law) has been around for more than 35 years. In January 1, 2009, Bob Lansink assumed control of the organization in Houston. His goal was to see children not separated from their parents.
Fathers for Equal Rights – Mission Statement
The vision of Fathers for Equal Rights is that society will recognize the right and need of every child to have a healthy relationship with both parents, regardless of the status of their family structure.
The mission of Fathers for Equal Rights is to promote equitable family laws and practices that will respect the rights and needs of all family members.
When I first met Bob, he invited me to his office to discuss the Texas Legislature. I had not really followed the legislative process as it related to the family code; but, I knew that family law lawyers controlled that agenda. At the time, I remember thinking the last thing I personally needed to do was pick another fight in Austin with a group of folks I really did not like and a subject matter I hated. I say that because my ex-wife loves the family court and I spent a 109 days in the 309th family court before I figured out a way to put an end to her shenanigans – it was not pretty. I know there is one former judge who was glad to not see me and I him.
When Bob started his office and waiting room were small. He was beginning to feel his way through the process of helping children and families. The greatest need, of course, involved those individuals who could not afford counsel. Bob sought a way to help those being victimized by the family law process.
I think it is very important to understand that the Federal Government incentivizes the Texas Attorney General’s office to collect child support by paying the Attorney General’s office to collect. The Texas Attorney General’s office, through the FOCAS program, works with the Internal Revenue Service to obtain tax returns, intercept IRS refund checks, and other nefarious big brother activities. The Texas Attorney General’s office also monitors bank account balances, business records, and all sorts of other information in this process. The Feds have turned the Texas Attorney General’s office into one big collection agency with all kinds of powers that should frighten everyone. These efforts are directed to the non-custodial parent. Child support increases are done without a hearing or notification to the non-custodial parent through administrative writs.
In most circumstances, women are named the custodial parent. The Attorney General’s office would support custody to an incarcerated woman over a man. These are the rules and anything outside the rules or norm costs the noncustodial parent and the children.
Let me give you a typical situation that Bob’s organization deals with on a daily basis. This is a link to the KHOU news story about the mother who was choking and beating her children. CPS took the children away from the mother; but, they refused the allow the father to keep his son, one of the mother’s children, because he was not legally adjudicated as the father. The father does not have money for an attorney; but, he desperately wants to raise his son. Fathers for Equal Rights is providing free assistance (indirectly funded by Bob Lansink) to the father in order for the courts to legally recognize this man as the child’s father so he can then petition the court for custody of his son. Without this organization’s assistance, this child would have no contact with his father who simply wants to raise his own son. Unfortunately, this situation repeats itself daily at the courthouses in Harris County.
Clearly, an honest person can see that this system is set up for disaster on all levels and those most victimized, the children, remain without a lobby. Now, before you dismiss this story as a pro-dad hit piece, you should know that 40{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the people aided by Fathers for Equal Rights are women.
It is time to recognize that this flawed system involving the Federal Government and the Texas Attorney General is damaging children. Instead of acting as a collection agency, the Texas Attorney General should work towards allowing both parents to participate in the lives of their children. A parent should have a legally protected right to see and participate in their child’s life. And, a child should have a right to know both of their parents, except in cases of proven child abuse. This right should be the priority of government, courts, family law judges, and legislators.
The benefit of encouraging parental cooperation in the raising and rearing of children is priceless. No amount of money or child support collection is going to replace a child’s relationship with their parent. The memories of your dad or mom helping with school work, reading aloud, and coaching little league are what shapes us, builds character, and molds our identities. The benefits are obvious.
Greg Abbott has served as Texas Attorney General for over ten years. Without term limits, we have seen very little turnover in that office. With Abbott seeking higher office, Texas Attorney General candidates, over the next year and a half, will ask the public for their support. These candidates will appear before the Downtown Pachyderm asking for votes. Now is the time for the voters to ask these candidates about the money that the Texas Attorney General’s Office is receiving from the Federal Government. Now is the time for voters to ask questions about a court system that alienates children from their parents. As we have seen in Harris County, parental alienation kills.
Bob Lansink’s mission is to help children. Today, his organization takes an entire floor in a large office building in downtown Houston and will help 20,000 people this year. Bob’s experience in the software industry has allowed him to create a computer system that tracks and monitors the parents he is helping through the legal maze that is the family law courts. His computers text parents and tells them where they need to be and what to bring where. Bob takes no money from any government organization and funds the operation himself.
I will not embarrass him by saying how much he contributes annually to his mission but I think you get the idea.
The website is Fathers4EqualRights.org.
Many recent studies conclude the role of a father in the life of a child is crucial to the child's development and self esteem. Bravo for this organization.
Don,
Excellent post. Someone should write a book about the effects of our current unfair system of family law. Dr. Richard Lohstroh’s story would be an important chapter. Bravo to Bob Lansink.
Mr. Hooper does do great work.
Aren’t we looking at this from the wrong end? If we want children to maintain a good relationship after divorce, shouldn’t we council the parents prior too? Perhaps a law that requires these two people to take these classes? I like the idea of someone collecting child support, because dead beat dads and moms won’t pay. How many times do you hear of men, after divorce, starting a new family, abandoning the first children? If there is no process to get the child support, they are without, and I’m supporting the kids. i
Sally,
I agree with you and before the State District Judges handled child support matters on an individual basis in their own courts. My article was about Bob Lansink’s goal of helping children not be separated from their parents, either of them. I am not sure why anyone would want to be a family law judge and the burn out rate is high. If you seek this endeavor the priority should always be a positive relationship with both parents. When alienation enters the equation judges should move immediately to reverse custody. Some people just want to use children as weapons and they don’t need to be a custodial parent. These folks will always abuse the privilege.
I agree, it's critical that children have consistent contact with an otherwise absent parent, so they can grow up whole and healthy.
Sally,
The Family Code requires that divorcing parents take a class on parenting children through divorce. The enforcement of that requirement in many courts is, let’s say, lax.
Excellent post, Don.
Mr. Lansink is a hero….
Don, I find this observation spot on: “The adversarial process is no way to end a marriage, especially when children are involved.” I wonder if the current system couldn’t be made less adversarial by using our associate judges, or a separate appointed magistrate, in a role more like a mediator/arbitrator when it comes to custody …maybe, a “custody judge” … with the elected district judge left with limited review in his or her approval/enforcement of the associate judge’s or magistrate’s determinations. Then we could recruit such custody judges from a wider range of social service backgrounds than just the law–with an emphasis on keeping the welfare of the children the focus of the parent’s attention. Such a system would leave the property division and ultimate divorce issues to the formal legal process overseen by the elected district judge with the associate judge (if that job is not converted to the custody judge). Such a system might even help to streamline the process and make it less expensive for the parents–thereby preserving more of the parents’ resources to be used for the children’s welfare.
One other thought–
Maybe a “custody judge” could be assigned a case like mediators, or even guardians, are currently assigned by our courts: with a limited number of files at any given time, so that they can give personalized attention to each family as they navigate the system toward a custody plan. They would be compensated on a flat fee per case basis by the county/state, but paid an extra amount, equally shared by each parent, if the matter becomes complex or lengthy–so as to provide an incentive to the custody judge to provide the needed attention such cases would demand and to avoid the problem we have with some court-appointments who take their fees and do little work.
I think courts should consider requiring both parents in custody cases to write an essay about how they will nurture and support the relationship between the child and the OTHER parent. Parental alienation is child abuse!
Many years ago I worked for Bob – in fact, he hired me out of a dead-end job into his consulting company, a move that I parlayed into a very successful IT career. He is a good guy.