No fee settlement

I didn't hear back from the Bosso Williams law firm, after I offered to negotiate a settlement on the fees in dispute. Very strange. Maybe the firm has already written off the debt, and does not expect to get paid. Usually businesses at least return calls, when someone offers to pay a bill or settle an account.

Trying to settle legal fees

I contacted my ex-wife's law firm over a month ago regarding settlement of legal fees. Now I find out that her old lawyer is just now contacting my ex-wife about it!

The law firms thinks that I owe it some money, and that my ex-wife owes it some money. Or so I thought. Usually people respond a little faster than that if they want some money. Maybe the firm has lost interest in collecting. I guess that I'll soon find out.

Squeezing fathers for college fees

An Angry Daughter/Sister writes:

I am 31 years old, I have an 18 year old brother who is supposed to be off to college in less than a week. We have the same parents, but they have been divorced since my brother was 2 years old. Our father, decided to "abandon" us somewhere in these last few years. ... He has applied for financial aid and received many scholarships and grants, but there is still a balance due that needs to be paid in order for him to attend school. He has tried contacting my father to ask him to please help him out, whether it be to co-sign a loan for the remainder of the balance, or help him pay out the balance monthly....my father refuses to help out. Refuses! What kind of parent would deny their child a higher education??? ... My point, there should be a way to get my father to pay for his son's education. ...

I guess that the college has decided that the man should pay tens of 1000s of dollars, even tho he was never consulted.

The brother is an adult now. I think that it is unreasonable to track down some man who never had an opportunity to act as a real father to the boy, and then expect him to pay some huge fee that some college wants him to pay.

This letter is typical of those who have devalued fathers to be just a source of money. It would probably be better for the boy if the father refuses to pay.

Court clerk uses email

I just got an email message from the California court of appeal. Weird. I had never heard of courts using email. Lawyers tend to have funny superstitious ideas about email, and courts rules don't recognize email for any procedures, as far as I know.

Getting billed for a sales pitch

I just got a copy of my credit report, and there was a negative item for a $179 bill to Dr. Gregory L. Katz PhD.

I did call Katz a couple of years ago. It was after I got a court-ordered custody evaluation from Bret K. Johnson. Johnson's report appeared to me to be grossly incompetent, but I wanted to get an independent opinion from someone in the business. Katz agreed to look at the report so I sent it to him. I told him that I might want to pay him to give his opinion in court, and he said that he was interested. He also does custody evaluations.

After reading Johnson's report, Katz refused to give me his opinion. Instead he insisted on giving me a sales pitch for his more thorough evaluations. He also said that he charges five times as much as Johnson.

I suppose that I could deduce that Katz thought that Johnson's report was worthless, but Katz didn't say anything useful to me, and he certainly wasn't going to testify in court unless it was to defend his own $8000 evaluation.

Then he sent me a bill for $164.

I paid more money than that to others to get opinions, even when I disagreed with those opinions. But Katz refused to give me his opinion so I saw no reason to pay him.

Shopping carts unsafe

A Calif paper reports:

The nation's pediatricians are warning parents today against putting children in shopping carts.

"Parents are strongly encouraged to seek alternatives," says the American Academy of Pediatrics, which reports that shopping carts were involved in injuries to more than 24,000 children last year, mostly when a child fell out or a cart tipped over. ...

The organization of 60,000 pediatricians says many carts are unstable or have inadequate restraint systems, and they are urging stronger manufacturing standards.

The pediatrician recommendations on stuff like is idiots. Still, I could have used this when my ex-wife accused me of letting our kids run loose in the store.

Ex-lesbian lover wants custody

A mother and ex-lesbian in Virginia might lose custody because a Vermont court says that her ex-lover has some rights.Worldnetdaily reports:

A Vermont court awarded Jenkins "parent-child" contact and visitation. But a Virginia court declared Miller to be the sole parent, ruling the Virginia Marriage Affirmation Act barred recognition of civil unions. ...

Staver pointed out the Miller-Jenkins case is unique because, in addition to dueling federal laws, it represents the first time the courts of two states have issued conflicting decisions over a same-sex union case.

I guess we are going to hear about more cases like this.

Kids are back

My kids just got back from a two-week trip. They reported that they were flower girls in a east-coast wedding. Apparently they were sworn to secrecy until now.

I hope my ex-wife is happy in her new marriage.