11241996 - News Article - County guardian ad litem program stalled by rule

County guardian ad litem program stalled by rule
NWI Times
Nov 24, 1996
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/county-guardian-ad-litem-program-stalled-by-rule/article_82aad8bf-0311-54d3-8d91-4a31bb0a8268.html
VALPARAISO - Because the new court rule governing the appointment of guardians ad litem is limited to divorce cases, Porter Superior Court Judge Thomas Webber unilaterally could - and did - appoint a guardian ad litem to a guardianship case.

Webber said his appointment of non-attorney Beatrice Lightfoot of Burns Harbor was made with the agreement of the attorneys involved in the case.

In addition, all of the attorneys who had been serving as guardians ad litem have resigned, Webber said Thursday afternoon, and the only guardian ad litem left in the system is Lightfoot.

"The attorneys agreed, and even if they hadn't, the only person I had to appoint was Bea Lightfoot," Webber said.

Valparaiso attorney Gregory Hagan, who represents one of the parties in the guardianship case, said he has not had an opportunity to read the rule, which sets out training, qualification and appointment procedures for guardians ad litem in divorce cases.

"(Judge Webber) asked if I had any objection," Hagan said. Hagan told the judge he had none.

"(Lightfoot's) the perfect person to look at the particular matter in this case," Hagan said.

Still, on Oct. 29, following public criticism of Lightfoot's performance, the six Porter County judges approved their new court rule, the first since 1989.

Besides establishing requirements for guardians ad litem, the court rule prevented judges from making unilateral appointments in divorce cases. The rules call for the court to name a three-person panel from a list of approved guardians ad litem; each party in the divorce case will strike a name from the list and the remaining person will be appointed to the case.

Yet on Nov. 7, nine days after the judges adopted the court rule, Webber appointed a guardian ad litem to a guardianship case, which is not covered by the new requirements.

Thus questions regarding the level of such services to children overall remain.

Also, as the judges feared, the availability of local attorneys to serve as guardians ad litem appears to have suffered as a result of the new rule.

Several contacted by The Times on Friday indicated they anticipated not doing as many cases, if any, primarily because of the elimination of the $75 an hour the county had authorized to pay them for their services.

Also troublesome to some attorneys was the 12-hour training requirement even though the judges hoped to offer free continuing education credits.

As a result, the judges amended the rule Thursday to restore some payment and exempt from the training requirement those attorneys who have served as a guardian ad litem in at least one case in 1995 and 1996.

Porter Circuit Court Judge Raymond Kickbush, the court's presiding judge, said he will limit his control over the issue to seeking the rapid approval of a state rule that will grant free, on-going continuing education credit to attorneys willing to provide the service.

Kickbush said the judges may - and do - act according to majority decision.

The law also provides that the court "shall designate one of the judges as presiding judge and fix the time he shall preside, and said judge shall be responsible for the operation and conduct of the court and for seeing that said court shall efficiently and judicially operate."

Since the judges did not vote on a presiding judge, the position goes to the judge with the most seniority, which is Kickbush, who has been critical of the use of a guardian ad litem in divorce cases.

Kickbush, also the juvenile court judge, is mandated by federal law to appoint a court-appointed special advocate to represent abused and neglected children.

No such federal mandate, however, exists for the appointment of guardians ad litem in divorce cases, which generally are approved by Porter Superior Judges Thomas Webber and Roger Bradford.

Kickbush said while he's not saying he has no concerns about Lightfoot's significant campaign contributions to the court, the judges' practice has been to not interfere in each other's courts.

"We've always operated the court with all six of us as a sort of knights-of-the-roundtable with no one (judge) asserting dominance over the others," Kickbush said. "Everyone operates their court as they see fit. We seldom have any disagreement. It works well."

Taking the lead in seeking the continuing education requirement, as the other judges asked, is his swan song, said Kickbush, who is leaving the bench after nearly 20 years of service.

"I'm planting a seed," Kickbush said, conceding he's aware the new court rule offers no guarantee of improved services nor a remedy to families who believe their cases may have been compromised by the relationship between Webber and Lightfoot.

Webber co-founded with Lightfoot a children's visitation center to which he approves divorce cases under his jurisdiction.

Nationally, appointing a guardian ad litem to represent a child in a troubled family has become popular with the judiciary in recent years as families have been splintering in response to changing cultural and social conditions.

Indiana Code gives powers to a guardian ad litem that surprised even the attorneys attending a two-part continuing education workshop recently held in Crown Point.

The workshop was sponsored by the Lake County Bar Association, Southlake Center for Mental Health and the Valparaiso University School of Law. It offered attorneys 12 hours of free continuing education training in exchange for their agreement to act as a guardian ad litem without charge.

"It's an extremely powerful tool," said Merrillville attorney Don Levinson about the role. "One thing I didn't know at all is that a guardian ad litem has the right to terminate parental rights, and no other body has that power other than the welfare department and possibly the prosecutor's office."

For attorneys who accept the role, Levinson said, the issue can contain a whole array of ethical questions, such as lawyer-client privilege.

"If a child comes to me and says, 'I hate Mommy and want to go live with Daddy, that's lawyer-client privilege for an attorney." But as a guardian ad litem, he could be made to testify to that effect.

Despite such troublesome questions, according to Levinson, the approximately 30 attorneys attending the workshop found the prospect of helping children very appealing.

"These were not just lawyers going for free continuing education credit," Levinson said. "They saw the service to society."