Thursday, January 1, 2009

Evaluate Clinicians and Lawyers

It is generally not a good idea to file professional complaints in the midst of litigation, though it could force an abusive contractor or judge to leave a case. (One Family Court judge left the system because lawyers practicing before him also loaned him money for his gambling habit. This did not prevent one of those lawyers from becoming a Family Court judge. The court system ignores ethical failures when no one bothers to complain.)

In Rhode Island, you can file well-documented complaints against clinicians with the Department of Health:
http://www.health.ri.gov/hsr/bmld/complaints.php

You can file well-documented complaints against lawyers with the Disciplinary Counsel:
http://www.courts.ri.gov/supreme/disciplinary/defaultdisciplinary.htm

You can file well-documented complaints against judges with the Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline:
http://www.courts.ri.gov/supreme/jtd/defaultjtd.htm

In addition to filing complaints against contractors (clinicians, lawyers, etc.), you can register your concerns in numerous online websites when you google a contractor's name and state. Your comments will appear in a single paragraph. Be sure that what you write is accurate, provable, and not intended to harass. Here is an example that is posted at:

Http://providence.citysearch.com/search?context=directory&query=lori+meyerson&cslink=cs_topbar_search&searchOpt=cs

(This appears to have been removed, but you get the idea. Here is what it said:)

Lori Meyerson’s work fails national standards

RI Family Court recruited psychologist Lori Meyerson in 2004 for a case involving a former court employee who sought custody of his 10-year-old daughter despite a long history of police involvement relating to domestic violence and weapons charges. Chief Judge Jeremiah’s aide David Tassoni stated that he had been searching for a guardian ad litem who “understood parental alienation” to serve at no charge in this case. Without visiting either parent's home or seeing the father and daughter together, Meyerson recommended removing the girl from her mother and giving her to her father, against the advice of the girl's physician and her therapist--both of whom Master O'Brien stopped from seeing the girl, based on Meyerson's recommendation. On the witness stand, Meyerson minimized the girl's fearful comments and the father's remarks about slicing the mother's face. Meyerson criticized the mother's behavior without recognizing it as symptomatic of post-traumatic stress disorder. Although O'Brien decided against awarding custody to this father, the case established Meyerson's role in Rhode Island Family Court cases. She moved from a cramped office in Riverside to a suite at the Regency Plaza and became the Court’s leading promoter of the so-called “Parental Alienation Syndrome.” In 2006, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges warned that references to “parental alienation” fails to meet evidentiary standards and should be stricken from custody evaluation reports. See page 24 of Navigating Custody and Visitation Evaluations... at the NCJFCJ website. Complaints against Meyerson and others who base recommendations on “parental alienation” should be submitted with documents to the RI Department of Health, using complaint forms on their website, to the professional standards and ethics committee at the RI Psychological Association website, with copies to: Parenting Project, 134 Mathewson Street, Providence, RI 02903.