First off, let’s not forget this in relation to Judge Denise Pratt:
Judge Denise Pratt is incompetent and should resign or be removed from office. And since it is too late for her to remove her name from the Harris County Republican Party Primary ballot, voters should reject her and put her out to pasture.
Sorry to have to keep reminding you of that but every day she sits on the bench is a day that families’ lives are being negatively affected and you need to realize that.
Now, about the Family Courts and fundraising. I’m going to use one donor and Judge Pratt to illustrate this but the same could be said in most of these courts. And no amount of defending these practices by my fellow Republican Tom Zakes is going to change these basic facts.
Let’s take a look first at the contributions of one Shannon L. Boudreaux. According to her website, she specializes in divorce and family law. I have no idea if she is a good attorney or bad – I just want you to see how the money flows in these courts. Here are the donations from Ms. Boudreaux to various political candidates in 2013:
[table id=20 /]
Adding that up gives a total of $12,481.01. Adding up donations to Judge Pratt gives us a total of $5,581.01 – above the maximum amount allowed by law but that is a mistake that is correctable by refunding $581.01. I’ll let you wonder about that donation to Harris County Republican Party Chair Jared Woodfill, who also makes money in these courts via judicial appointments.
In addition to her own contributions, Ms. Boudreaux held a fundraiser for Judge Pratt on August 29, 2013. Here is the invitation:
$500 minimum to attend. Pratt’s finance report shows that she received 10 contributions on 8/29/2013, although they must have relaxed the minimum because a couple of them were for $250.
Why would anyone give that kind of money to judicial candidates and hold a fundraiser getting thousands more? Probably several reasons but since we are looking at money, let’s continue down that road.
It turns out that Judge Pratt appointed Ms. Boudreaux as the Amicus to guard the interests of the children in one of the cases in the 311th Family Court. Yes, she appointed her to other cases but I only have the facts for this one, so bear with me. In the course of this case, a contested divorce with custody issues, Ms. Boudreaux has billed the mother and father of two children approximately $11,000 EACH. That’s $22,000 for just one case. Thus far because the case hasn’t been resolved. Multiply that amount by dozens of cases and you come up with a big ol’ pile of money. Are you getting the picture now?
Family court cases are lucrative. Especially if you have a judge that will not hear cases in a timely manner, with reset after reset after reset. The longer the case drags on, the more money that the attorneys get to bill their clients or, as in this case, the already financially stressed couples that did not hire them. Ms. Boudreaux may be a fine attorney and doing good work for these children – but that doesn’t take away the fact that the case should have been settled long, long ago and stability brought into the lives of these children.
A protest is scheduled in front of the Family Law Center tomorrow to lay out more stories of Judge Pratt’s incompetence. Last I heard it was going to be held at 11:45 am. Go and talk to some of the families that have been affected by Judge Pratt. Especially if you vote as a Republican in the primary.
UPDATE
The protest against Judge Pratt has been cancelled due to forecasts of inclement weather. If it is rescheduled, I will try to let people know.
Money…. it corrupts. These poor children.
If you would like to have an opportunity to hear Judge Pratt, she will be speaking at the Cypress Texas Tea Party meeting THIS Saturday from Noon to 2PM at the Spring Creek BBQ on the south side of Hwy 290 near Spring Cypress, (right in front of Office Depot). Here is a list of the confirmed speakers:
Saturday, January 25, 2014 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
– Chris Mapp, Candidate for US Senate
– Denise Pratt, 311th Family Court Judge
– Donna Detamore, Candidate for 311th Family Court Judge
– Katherine Cabaniss, 246th Criminal District Court Judge
– Jay Karahan, Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 8 Judge
– Louis Guthrie, Candidate for Precinct 4, Position 2, Justice of the Peace
– Paul Simpson, Candidate for Harris County Republican Chairman
David M. Wilson
Director, Cypress Texas Tea Party
580-749-9020
Families, especially children, should not be penalized by the incompetence of a family court judge. As for the egregious monetary practices, it is time to clean up the unethical practices.
Since Stuart is not a lawyer and I am, I will jump into this controversy (again), a) to correct some statements and b) to shed some light on the subject.
First of all, I have never been appointed an amicus attorney by Judge Pratt in her almost 37 months on the bench.
It doesn’t bother me, because I don’t go looking for that kind of work.
I have worked as an appointed amicus (back then they called us ad litems) in other courts, by other judges.
As with virtually every lawyer I know, I charged those parents less than my normal hourly rate.
As with most of my retained clients, most of them did not pay my even reduced fee.
My way of looking at it is that attorneys appointed to these tasks are providing a service to the court and the community, just like when we volunteer for the boy scouts, our church, or the local swim team.
A fact you may not realize: divorce is expensive. Child custody fights are even more so.
Lawyers have to charge for their time.
Landlords have an annoying habit of coming by monthly saying that four letter word, RENT.
Utility companies send out pink notices if you ignore them long enough.
Hired help likes to keep food on their tables.
So unless utopia comes to earth, lawyers need to get paid something.
I pulled Ms. Boudreaux’s cases from the District Clerk’s website.
In her ten years of practice, she has appeared in 44 cases in the 311th.
That compares favorably to the 52 that I have appeared in since 1989.
Of those, 13 are not finally disposed.
Most of those, she is the appointed ad litem for one or more kids.
In others, she is representing a missing spouse, or was hired to represent a party, or was appointed mediator.
In 9 cases, the order appointing her orders a fee deposited, ranging from $500 per side to $2000 per side.
The total fees ordered to date in those cases is less than $20,000.
Obviously, the Bishop case is an exception, since it is hotly contested.
But when an attorney files a motion to recuse the judge, the amicus generally will show up for the hearing, even though she doesn’t have a dog in that fight.
When judges set the fees to be paid to an amicus, they will consider the complexity of the case and the ability of the parties to pay.
In one of the cases, not only did the judge order each side to pay $2,000 to the amicus, but also ordered the husband to pay $15,000 to the wife’s attorney for interim attorney fees.
Does donating or raising ten grand for a judicial campaign get you $40,000 in legal fees? I’m not convinced.
But if you want to know who really pays a lot of money for influence, pull the finance reports for your local county judge, or mayor, or state rep, or congressman, or . . .
I’m Tom Zakes, fellow Republican, and I approve this message.
Tom,
Somehow I knew that you would rush in and defend this. 😉
Regarding your pulling files off the District Clerk’s website and coming up with some financial numbers, I can tell you straight up that your numbers are grossly inaccurate. I have a copy of the Amicus order in the case I discussed above and it is exactly as I reported – at this point in time, Ms. Boudreaux has billed over $22,000. And I have other parties telling me similar stories, but I do not have the actual orders so I did not put their numbers out.
And once again, you argue that other political positions are more corrupt, so it excuses the goings on at the Family Law Center. I disagree.
No, what is inaccurate is to pull one case and say that because there are big numbers in that case, and there are other cases, the numbers in the other cases are that large also.
I know you’re at a disadvantage in your research because lawyers can actually see documents in family cases without going to the clerk’s office, but let me clarify for you:
There are 13 cases in the 311th that are active that Shannon Boudreaux is associated with. When I first pulled the cases up yesterday, it did not pull up images for case no. 2000-42911. I got it to pull up now, and saw that one party was ordered to deposit $2,000 and the other $500 for Boudreaux, the ad litem.
2003-55818 is the one that the article is about. Mom’s attorney has filed motions in excess of 100 pages, which have to be dealt with. That takes time, which again translates to money.
2005-01025 ad litem, $500 each.
2006-76386 ad litem, $1500 each
2010-11194 ad litem, $750 each
2011-35177 mediator, no fee specified
2013-00161 ad litem, $1,000 each
2013-08671 represents the petitioner
2013-39352 ad litem, $500 each
2013-42366 represents missing spouse served by publication, $1,000 from petitioner
2013-43631 ad litem, $1,000 each
2013-46298 ad litem, $1,000 each
2013-49648 ad litem, $2,000 each. In this case, dad was also ordered to pay mom $15,000 in interim attorney fees.
So please tell me what I said that is grossly inaccurate?
And please, don’t take anything I said as an accusation that any judge, county commissioner, state rep, or congressman is corrupt. I know many of them, and believe them to be good people.
But the numbers tossed around for judicial campaigns are miniscule in comparison to other races, especially when taking district population in to account.
We had an open seat for state rep 4 years ago. The man who won, who I supported, spent over 3/4 million in the primary, much of it raised from folks who did business with the school district where he was board president.
Voting out one judge, or all nine family court judges, or all 59 district court judges, or every judge in the state is not going to change the fact that judicial campaigns cost money.
My preference would be that voters would look at the candidates websites, would go to pachyderm and Lone Star meetings to get to know the candidates, and vote for the best qualified. I would also like to see every lawyer do what I do, which is tell their clients who is best qualified to be judge.
But unfortunately, most folks are lazy. And as a result, they get the government they deserve.
I’m Tom Zakes and I approve this message
2011-08849 so far the parents in this matter have paid the amicus $4,000.00 for Judge Pratt not to review the case or make a ruling on a motion to modify filed by the mother or a motion to modify and a motion to enforcement filed by the father that has been outstanding for 11 months. This caused the father to file for a jury trial, set in March that will cost, per the amicus’ estimate each parent at least $5000.00 more bringing the total to $14,000.00 to the amicus. This does not include attorney or filing fees, or all the days missed from work by the parents because of the resets due to Judge Pratt not showing up to work for several day in 2012 and 2013.
All of which could have been avoided if Judge Pratt had made a ruling on the cases or at very least paid attention during either hearing instead of placing an amicus on the case and doing nothing further.
ANY JUDGE WOULD BE BETTER THAN ONE WHO HOLDS HER OWN AGENDA ABOVE THE LAW AND CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SHE SWORE TO SERVE.
Why would Judge Pratt appoint Shannon Boudreaux as an amicus in the first place.? Check HCAD records and Harris County District Court records. Shannon Boudreaux is married to Richard David Crow. He is a convicted child sex offender with a long prison history for drugs and a conviction that was charged as Sexual Assault-Child and plead down to Indescent Exposure. Could you trust an amicus in that situation? I can’t trust my kids safety to that.
I read in previous blogs, as well as this one, that you accused Judge Pratt of buying one of her endorsements b/c she paid for advertising with said endorser. What I don’t understand is that this information is very easy to find, as it is public record on the Texas Ethics Committee site, and if one were to look up the other Harris County family law judges, one would see that many of them paid for advertising with the known big endorsers, as well as other organizations.
So that has made many people wonder, when it is so easy to find this information and so many other family law judges have advertised with these endorsers during their campaigns, why you single out Judge Pratt for advertising.
You claimed in a previous post that if there is one thing you can do, it’s to inform your readers and let them know who is paying. Apparently, that is untrue because you are informing them only of Judge Pratt’s advertising expenditures and no one else’s. If I can find this information, then I’m certain you can, too.
In a more recent post, you printed that your assistant is a pit bull about these matters, so I thought that meant your assistant would be the one looking up all the family law judges and informing us which ones paid for advertising with endorsers. Wrong again. Instead, you followed up with a posting about Judge Pratt and an amicus she has appointed.
In that same vein, one can also easily research which judges have had writs of mandamus filed against them. I looked up four of them, as a start, and learned they all have had writs filed against them. Some were dismissed, others were not. Having a mandamus filed doesn’t necessitate wrong-doing, and judges make a lot of enemies b/c of course, losing parties are going to be unhappy. But once again, what I so easily found about other judges, you single out only Judge Pratt. I assume we can expect you to present a list of all the family law judges who have had writs filed against them. Otherwise, people might assume from your reporting that Judge Pratt is the only one, which is far from the truth. And we all know that the truth is of utmost importance to you, as your moniker “because truth matters” would imply.
I feel it was becoming apparent from previous articles dating back a few months whom you supported for this bench, so I can only assume that is why you aren’t reporting about any of the other family law judges; you want someone you favor to sit on the bench, and what better way to do that than to try to destroy Judge Pratt’s reputation?
What is really a shame is that you claim every day Judge Pratt sits on the bench is a bad day for families, yet you don’t report anything about things like the letters she has received from children, thanking her. I guess the help and work she has done for so many children isn’t really of concern to you. Instead, you claim she does just the opposite when in truth, so many have thanked her and appreciated her thorough and careful consideration in their cases.
J. Ryan Davis,
Obviously other judges have given money to the pay-for-play slates. Judge Pratt was unique in 2010 because she did not campaign. I don’t know you or know if you were “on the campaign trail” that year but it is a fact that she didn’t campaign and sent her sister out to campaign for her. She would not have won that race if she had not bought it. It is really simple.
Search through the website before you make claims that I haven’t pointed out other contributions to these slates. Don’t embarrass yourself.
I do not have an assistant – the post you reference is for another website.
It is true that other judges have writs of mandamus filed against them. It is not true that Judge Pratt’s problems stem from disgruntled or losing parties. Read them.
While you may “feel” anything you wish, you are completely wrong when you say that your “feelings” lead you to believe that I supported anyone for this bench “a few months ago”. I’d suggest that you get your feelings checked out because your “feelings” are leading you to false conclusions.
I have no doubt that someone has found Judge Pratt to be helpful to them and have sent a letter on her behalf. That doesn’t change the fact that she is not a good judge and because she refuses to resign from the bench, continues to hurt families to this day.
Perhaps you know her. If so, you should tell her that it is in her best interest to resign immediately before she harms someone beyond repair.
David
I currently have a custody case pending in the 311th. It has been on the docket since August of 2013. Judge Pratt made a ruling based on NO EVIDENCE, that I, the father, shall be prohibited to see my child until the next setting. The next hearing is scheduled for APRIL! That is over 8 months of not seeing my child. This court room is in such diarray, it is sad. Denise Pratt is tearing apart families and the hearts of good parents.