‘Big business’ of divorce to be discussed at D.C.-area conference

The nation’s family court system is overdue for reform, said advocates who met over the weekend to discuss ways to update state laws on divorce, alimony, child custody and child support.

The current system is “adversarial,” as it turns parents into winners or losers and encourages lawyers to act “like gladiators” in battles over children and assets, said Dr. Joseph Sorge, the leader of the Family Law Reform Conference held in Alexandria, Virginia.

Family law has been intentionally grown into a lengthy, complex process that forces divorcing couples to hire experts to get them through it — and this has given rise to a lucrative, $50 billion-a-year industry, said Dr. Sorge, writer/director of “Divorce Corp.,” a 2014 documentary that recounts stories of corruption, collusion, greed and abuse in family courts.

Over the weekend, some 300 participants listened to law professors, abuse experts, mental-health professionals and reform advocates on problems in the system. The goal of this inaugural conference was to create an action plan for reform in the states.

For instance, Alan Frisher, a financial adviser and leader of an alimony reform group in Florida, said that now that the midterm elections are done, he and his allies would again seek to pass a reform law in Florida.

Alimony reform is sought in many states because it can result in grotesque financial abuses: Hefty payments can be ordered for life — even if a marriage was brief — and can be hard to change or terminate even when the payer loses a job, falls ill or reaches retirement age and end of a salary.

Another abuse is for an ex-spouse to cohabit with — but not marry — a new partner so the alimony payments continue. New Jersey’s recently enacted alimony reform takes aim at this abuse by clarifying that nonmarital cohabiting is now a reason to terminate alimony payments.

Other subjects of discussion at the conference included child support, custody, domestic violence, mental health, mediation, and the “rigid culture” of family courts, which has lawyers and other professionals currying favor with powerful judges.

The “Scandinavian” model of divorce was suggested as a place to look for solutions for the United States, despite substantial differences in national populations, economies and social welfare systems. In countries like Sweden and Iceland, for instance, divorce and postmarital child care and support are usually established inexpensively, without courts and lawyers, experts said.

The “Divorce Corp.” film, which is narrated by Dr. Drew Pinsky and features feminist attorney Gloria Allred, aired in some theaters in January.

While many groups hailed it, more than a few family lawyers said the film was “biased.”

“Notably absent are the spouses of the victims and decent family lawyers and judges,” Martha Chan, marketing consultant to family lawyers and divorce professionals, wrote in Family Lawyer Magazine after the film’s debut.

“In my 37 years of practicing law, I have yet to come across such a biased and misleading portrayal of the many attorneys, judges and other professionals involved in matrimonial and family law,” wrote David H. Levy, founding partner and former managing partner of Berger Schatz, a major family law firm based in Chicago.

To suggest that “Divorce Corp.’s” “scenarios” are “typical” of divorce cases is “false” and “unfairly maligns the hard work divorce lawyers do to resolve cases efficiently and fairly,” Mr. Levy wrote.