Fees For Judicial Appointments Must Be In an Order and Reported

Harris County Court Scandal in 1990's Resulted in Supreme Court Order That is Largely Ignored 

Scandals involving judicial appointments in Harris County courts in the mid-1990's caused the Texas Supreme Court to issue an order that is still in effect but largely ignored.  {click to see full order}.  The 1997 order states in part:

Section 1. Every appointment made in a civil case, probate case, or proceeding governed by Titles 1, 2, or 4 of the Family Code, by a regular or assigned judge of any district court, constitutional county court, statutory county court, statutory probate court, court master or court referee of a person to a position for which any type of fee may be paid shall be made by written order. 

Section 2. Every application or request for the payment of a fee by such an appointee shall be approved by the court of the judge making the appointment. This approval shall be accomplished by a separate written order. 

The Supreme Court order requires the District Clerk to collect all orders for appointments and fees and compile a monthly report that must be available to the public.  The Office of Court Administration compiles all of the reports state-wide and posts them on line in an Excel spreadsheet. {click to see state-wide report}.  However, the spreadsheet is too big and covers the entire state.  I have taken the period September 2011 through March 2012 and created spreadsheets for each of Harris County's family district courts and sorted by bar number, so you can see who is getting reported appointment fees.  {Click here to see my analysis of reported appointments for each of the Harris County District Courts}.

However, a review of the reports shows that almost ALL of the lucrative amicus appointments in private cases and most appointed mediations are not being reported.  For example, the 308th on October 3, 2011 approved an order for a $6,925.85 fee for an amicus in cause no. 2011-38171 but that fee was not reported to the state.  In Cause no. 2008-71984, on February 22, 2011, Judge Pratt awarded a $10,000 initial fee to an amicus in a separate order but the fee (which was paid) was not reported.  These failures to report are the clerk's fault and the amicus attorneys and judges are not to blame because the fee was clearly set out in clearly titled orders.  In case after case, the fees for amicus attorneys and court appointed mediators in private cases are not being reported.  None of the very large fees for court appointed custody evaluations, special masters and receivers are being reported.  All of that violates the Supreme Court order and deprives all of us from knowing who is getting a lot of money in particular courts.  We have all seen the Supreme Court Court Appointment and Fees Report that most but not all mediators file with the clerk after mediation.  It would be a simple matter for each court or the local rules to require these forms to be filed by every amicus, ad litem, mediator, receiver, custody evaluator and special master and then the clerks could easily spot the fees to report. 

   

Campaign Finance Reports Are On-Line  

 

Every wonder who gave how much to which judge?   The Texas Tribune has a great web site where you can see the contributors for judges (or any Texas politician).  {Click here to go to the web site}.  You can also enter a person's name and see who they contributed to.  At the top of this web page it says: Search Campaign Finance Data then there is a box to type in the name of the candidate or contributor.  You can also view individual campaign reports. 

If you type in "Lisa A. Millard,' for example, her top contributors are listed as follows:

John McGill                        $5,000

You can search my name and determine that I have donated to a lot of Galveston County candidates and also given a whopping $300 to Judy Warne, $810 to Denise Pratt, $250 to Roy Moore, $750 to my neighbor Sherri Dean, $1,700 to Lisa Millard, $800 to David Farr, and $250 to Bruce Kessler.

Wonder Who is Getting Appointed? 

One way to see who is being appointed by judges is to look up a particular attorney in the District Clerk website using his or her bar number.  You will get a list of cases and you can click on each one to see the details, including orders of appointments and in theory orders approving fees.  For example, Jared Woodfill, according to the District Clerk web site, has always practiced civil law, mostly personal injury.  However, this year he has began to get appointments in family law cases, including  CPS cases.  The records show that Mr. Woodfill, who also serves our community as the Chair of the Harris County Republican Party,  has been appointed through April 2012 by these courts:

 

308th Judges Lombardino/Ramos - 16 appointments 

310th Judge Millard - 5 appointments 

246th Judge York - one appointment 

257th Judge Warne - one appointment 

309th Judge Dean - one appointment 

 

Jared is actually a very smart, personable guy and I highly recommend you get to know him as it appears he is yet another personal injury lawyer making the transition to family law (just like I did 15 years ago).  My hat is off to him if he is taking CPS cases with all the nitty gritty face to face contact with poverty in scary places that CPS cases usually involve.     

 

While the GOP chairman and I certainly disagree on a few matters of political philosophy, I am sure we both are strongly in favor of a government that is transparent, efficient and even-handed.  I strongly believe that the more judges understand that we all can see who is doing what for whom, the more we can expect them to do the right thing.  Elected officials just naturally tend to behave better if folks can see what they are doing.