About 11 years ago, I started to divorce my wife of seven years in the Fulton County Superior Court system. While I knew most of the judges on a personal basis, I did not know how they ran their courtrooms. When my case was assigned to the chief judge of the Superior Court, I asked an acquaintance who did lots of work before the chief judge, “What are my chances of getting custody?”

“Well, Bill,” she said, “the chief judge has done some wonderful administrative things, primarily in the area of collecting child support payments that are far superior to the way the state of Georgia collects support payments; but, he's extremely biased when it comes to awarding custody of children. Bill, if you were a combination of Jesus Christ and Santa Claus and your wife were a convicted crack cocaine dealer and a convicted prostitute, and a convicted child abuser, and you and she both wanted custody of your child, you'd have a 50-50 chance of getting custody in the chief judge's court. Sorry, Bill.”

I was very sorry. The chief judge lived down to my expectations and after two years of legal wrangling, I filed charges against the chief judge for bias and incompetence. It took another year of legal wrangling; but, I did get a new judge and I did get my divorce; but, I was advised by Circuit Judge Culpepper that my case could have gone on for three or more years — I was “lucky.”

Anyway, “sorry” is a good way to describe how most divorces, separations, child custody issues, etc., are handled in Georgia. Did you know that Georgia is one of only two states in the United States that does not have a family law or domestic court system? The current system in Georgia takes a troubled situation and pours legal gasoline over a family mess and then sets it on fire. The parents suffer and the children suffer. Who wins? Answer: the lawyers.

About half of all legal fees that the lawyers in Georgia collect are related to domestic court issues. The experience of other states that finally created a domestic court system (most recently the state of Texas) is that mediation and counseling were encouraged, passions were toned down and court costs and legal fees fell.

That's a scary possibility for the Trial Lawyers of Georgia, which estimated that their lawyers could lose more than $50 million per year in legal fees if a Ddomestic court system similar to the Texas model were enacted. The lawyers lose; the general public gains.

Ask your state representative and state senator if they will support the creation of a domestic or family court system for Georgia. If they don't, let us run a slate of candidates who are pro-child and pro-family. Contact Fathers are Parents, Too at 404-521-3237, or Children's Rights Council at 678-643-5924 (local) or 1-800-787-KIDS (national). We can save money, families, parents, and most importantly, children!

Bill Bryan
Peachtree City

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