Britney Spears and the Conservatorship Con

become a sustaining member of the commonwealth  club for just ten dollars a month join today so good morning everyone and welcome to today's  online program of the commonwealth club of   california brittany spears and the conservatorship  con today's program is hosted by grown-ups one of   the member-led forums at the commonwealth club  a big thanks to the forum chair denise michonne   for her work to make today's program happen i'm  gloria duffy president and ceo of the commonwealth   club and your moderator for today today we'll  be talking about a subject very much in the news   conservatorships also known as guardianships  in many states in large part due to the current   controversy over the conservatorship of the  pop star britney spears conservatorships are a   legal construction allowing others to take care of  those who are not able to take care of themselves   they are obtained and managed through the court  system with the intention of protecting vulnerable   individuals health and financial well-being  but a lot of things can happen during the   conservatorship process and practices are being  brought to light now both in california and across   the nation on the part of attorneys conservators  guardians fiduciaries family members courts and   other actors that point to much needed reforms  in particular attention has recently focused on   practices where attorneys fiduciaries conservators  and courts may collaborate in a predatory manner   to place individuals in conservatorships to access  their assets or for other self-serving reasons   sometimes the conservative or awards health  or well-being is damaged in the process   and deaths have even occurred sometimes  conservatorships are necessary whether they   are needed under current court practices which  lack effective judicial review of attorney fees   attorneys may exploit the process to take as much  as possible of the persons or families assets we   have four outstanding panelists to talk about this  situation today who i am pleased to introduce rick   black is the founder and executive director of the  center for state administration reform or seer he   is from charlotte north carolina thomas coleman is  an attorney executive director and founder of the   spectrum institute which advocates for those with  disabilities and he's from palm springs california   lisa mccarley is an attorney from los angeles and  the founder of betty's hope leanne simmons as a   human rights advocate entertainment industry  professional and co-manager of free brittany la   each of these experts is trying to improve  the conservatorship and guardianship system   in california and across the nation and they're  here to tell you about their important work each   panelist will make a short presentation on their  views about conservatorships and their work to   reform the system and then we will take questions  from our audience please write your questions in   the youtube chat and i will convey them to the  panelists so first let's turn to rick black   rick over to you thanks dr duffy and thanks for  the opportunity to speak to the commonwealth club   this morning and for the panelists joining  me today my wife and i were first exposed   to guardianship or conservatorship in california  eight years ago when her father was taken captive   and through all the efforts that we undertook  through law enforcement through local attorneys   we quickly recognized that the system that  claimed to be there to protect the vulnerable   and the disabled seniors as well had one intent  and that was to continue the exploitation   of a vulnerable adult since that time we we  have investigated over 4 000 cases since 2013   we were never able to protect my wife's father it  cost our family over a million dollars in the life   of a dear loved one but what we've learned over  the last five years is that our experience was not   unique in fact it was not isolated in any regard  our advocacy in the state of nevada yielded the   criminal conviction of 10 professional guardians  and attorneys who commonly use guardianship as a   cover for criminal acts and since founding seer  in 2018 we've learned that there are hot spots   so hot spot states hot spot counties across the  country where predatory attorneys routinely use   guardianship and conservatorship as a weapon  to exploit seer advocates seven days a week   on behalf of anyone who comes through  our website or through our hotline   we tell people what the legal community refuses  in most cases to even admit fortunately today   we have two attorneys joining us thomas coleman  and lisa mccarley who have made a career out of   educating the public on what routinely happens  within adult guardianship and conservatorship   a domain where predatory and sadly parasitic  attorneys those who want to create as many   conservatorships and guardianships as possible  participate and once they get the coveted   court order to commence a guardianship or  conservatorship which is the only way anyone   can be appointed into those roles is via a court  order they then have really complete authority   to liquidate an estate for their own personal  benefit we've coined a phrase here at seer which   describes better than 90 percent of the cases that  we counsel isolate the victim defame legitimate   protectors and liquidate the estate isolation  of a vulnerable adult whether it's by their own   choice living alone after a spouse has passed or  someone who's lived alone for their entire lives   creates an opportunity for the nefarious distance  to loved ones distance to legitimate protectors   is is an ally of an exploiter and it's it's  so very important that as our wealth grows and   as we age that we have documents in place that  best protect us from interception of our estate   the two documents that we define as the most  important documents that anyone can execute   are the durable power of attorney with backup  agents a primary and a secondary as well as the   healthcare advance directive again with a primary  and secondary agent have those documents notarized   and give them to your legitimate protectors  who you trust implicitly will come to your aid   in time of need and who understand sadly that the  system that creates conservatorships in california   is too often committed on furthering exploitation  versus truly protecting the vulnerable   you might ask why in  california it's estimated that   billion dollars a year transfers generationally  in the state that is those who are elderly who   have their documents in place and intend to  transfer their assets to heirs whether it's   a non-profit or family or other recipients  the legal community understands how easy it   is to intercept those funds through trust fraud  conservatorship fraud and other probate fraud   activities within the conservatorship industry we  don't know how many wards are in california and   to be a ward subject of a conservatorship that  affects anyone 18 or over we see many disabled   young adults whose parents are promoted to place  them into guardianship as soon as they turn 18   by school districts by hospitals by the legal  community and others and yet the durable power of   attorney in the healthcare advance directive can  easily serve to protect that class of individuals   versus a guardianship the point  that we want the audience to know   today is that once you're under the control of  the courts you and your loved ones control nothing   the judge controls everything and generally they  are highly influenced by attorneys who practice   before them every day you're a stranger in that  environment and you need to understand that   within conservatorship we estimate seer  based on national numbers that there's 140   000 wards in the state of california and those  words would represent over 30 billion dollars   of estate value those that is a profit center for  the legal community within the state whether it's   70 000 which has been estimated by other groups  or 140 000 or anywhere in between the sad part is   the state of california has refused through  the state bar and through the supreme court   to force and force rather a census within  the state so that there's total transparency   on how many individuals lose their rights each  year and are placed into a conservatorship   throughout this hour we're going to hear from  how things were missed in the britney spears   case and many many other cases within the state  and i hope that the listeners are enlightened   to their risks to conservatorship in the  state of california thank you dr duffy thank   you rick and please call me gloria everyone  i can't get that doctor off of the screen uh   for a zoom but um rick would you just mention  you know you talk about profit center and so on   i think your background is so interesting that you  essentially have left your very successful career   to focus on this tell us just a little about  your own background yep yeah i was an executive   an engineer by training uh but i was an executive  with general electric for 18 years i left there   and went into private industry worked in private  equity for about 15 years in 2015 thanks to a   successful career and the odyssey that our own  family was placed through in a guardianship   i chose to leave my desired profession uh and  work seven days a week as a free volunteer for   families across the country and then eventually  my wife and i formed cyr in 2018 but uh to your   point gloria we approach this from a financial  perspective follow the money is the key to all   of our investigations because that is the driver  uh in these cases whether it's estate trafficking   another term that we've come up with over the  years or medicaid fraud medi-cal medicaid the   federal entitlements that flow into california for  the disabled presents a quite large piggy bank if   you will that people can draw from regardless of  whether the vulnerable individual receives those   treatments and therapies that are claimed so yeah  we're very much a follow the money organization   thank you rick now let's turn to lisa mccarley  tell us about yourself and your work so good   morning my name is lisa mccarley and i'm an  attorney in los angeles county focusing primarily   on probate conservatorships in orange county  and los angeles county i have been documenting   dysfunctional conservatorships for the last  decade because i spotted problems in the system   in fact um as a practicing attorney i actually  became so disenchanted with what was going on   i stopped being a court appointed attorney um  i have a different perspective than the other   panelists because i'm sort of an insider as  well as someone though that is very critical   of the system and what i am seeing um in the  britney spears case since that's the focus   was um what i call incompetence and cronyism  and um this is a feature where our judges   have no training no supervision no accountability  in other communities we call that qualified   immunity meaning that the system is broken  because the legal community does not have a   valid checks and balances on the judges who are  presiding over these cases i mean we literally   have people that come out of careers of 30  years in the criminal courts that 30 years   perhaps in other areas of law they put on their  black judicial robes and suddenly they are tasked   with making life and death and very critical  decisions that frankly they have no business   making um and that's why most of the judges  that we see here judge penny who's presently   in the brittany spears case something of an  exception but most of the judges are what i call   short-term employees they're temps they come in  for a few years they get to a point where they're   familiar enough with probate and i think other  panelists would agree then they have a career   very lucrative careers in mediations but the  idea is that we have judicial officers that   should not be presiding in these cases one of the  facts that i point to is that on february 4th 2008   which is when britney spears was denied justice  because the commissioner at the time riva gets   would not allow i believe adam streisand a very  well-known attorney in the probate community to   represent brittany i mean this failure  on the commissioner's part was stunning   when she fired adam streisand there's no statutory  authority that was the violation of ms spears   constitutional rights to have counsel but from  there what i point to is that apparently not   a single person in the courtroom in that moment  knew that britney spears had the 100 unequivocal   right to be represented by an attorney of her own  choice so then the question is why did that happen   and that is because judge reeva getz was told  to rely on the favorite crony sam ingham i've   known sam mingo most of my career since the late  1990s i don't know that he's any different anymore   maybe a bit more egregious in what he did to  britney spears but this is normal this is judges   who don't know what they're doing being allowed  to be run around by attorneys that are perhaps   equally incompetent and unscrupulous but the  judges are being told by the judicial council of   california to rely on reports and statements made  by these attorneys so the attorneys are running   the show and nobody is looking at what the law  actually is in the state of california um so these   injustices although um now we look at it we can't  even believe what happened to britney spears   this is what is happening to seniors and other  adults facing or in conservatorships every day   so my charity that i started because of cases like  britney spears betty's hope is a an attempt to get   our legislators as well as our county supervisors  to acknowledge that judges and lawyers are a   terrible mix judges should not be picking lawyers  paying lawyers appointing lawyers they should have   nothing to do with who is appointed or um chosen  to represent persons facing or in conservatorships   so to me the fix is preventing people from being  traumatized exploited and abused as britney spears   most definitely is being uh subjected to but  it's because of this flaw where the judges   are told to rely on their favorite probate uh  court appointed council it's despicable it is   absolutely something that all of us needs we need  to contact our state legislators and tell them   that they need to to change this system it is a  systemic flaw anytime you see judges and lawyers   participating in mcle credits together  this this is bad news that's part of   what i believe to be the grave injustice that  was visited upon britney spears in particular   thank you so much lisa now tom coleman let's  turn to you you're an attorney you've been   investigating the role of attorneys  in particular in probate cases so   tell us about yourself your organization and  what what you're doing my uh involvement has   been in civil rights advocacy over um you know  it's gonna be coming up um five decades uh so   time flies for many causes and constituencies  and around 2012 i was introduced to the first   my first taste of abuses in conservatorship  cases and then not representing anyone but just   as an outside civil rights attorney that people  would come to and like isn't there something wrong   here or whatever and after going through a few of  those i decided to start doing auditing of cases   and going into the court records and  what i found was a pattern in practice   of civil rights violations and um our organization  mine is a spectrum institute or a non-profit   advocacy organization and um basically i take a  kind of a bifocal approach to this um so one lens   looks at the financial but the other lens is  looking at the civil rights violations because   in many of these cases the individuals wind  up getting a public defender if they get an   attorney at all to defend them they don't have  significant assets and so it's not so much the   financial abuses that are going on although  there's a little bit of that too with respect   to government benefits but it's more somebody  trying to control and take over their life   maybe a young adult with developmental  disabilities and someone doesn't want to   see them have sex or have relationships or  their it can be benevolent uh motives but   uh whatever the motives you know um stifling  someone's freedom uh in the name of for   benevolent reasons are is still stifling  their freedom so i've looked at this and   you know every year i would look at different part  of the system this is a very complex system and   the cases are very complex there are many parts to  the system and there are many players in the case   and so finally after all these years of  continuing non-stop seven days a week uh research   and analysis and publishing reports and so on i  i think i have a pretty good handle on the the   players and so on people hear little tidbits about  things and they know that there's something wrong   but rarely do they have a chance to  really listen um to some of the in-depth   analyses by people who have experienced these  problems first-hand either personally like rick or   in the trenches like lisa and or in individual  cases you know like britney's case and   and leanne advocating uh you know for her  freedom i'd like to take the uh the viewers   um through a little bit of this with a screen  share here um so let me uh get to the first window   and this is i called it a matrix that i did  of what's involved in a conservatorship case   and i call the person a respondent they're  responding to a petition that's been filed   and need to respond and do something to defend  their rights because if they do nothing then   you know the petitioner will just win by default  so to speak so you have a petitioner who files   the case the petitioner has an attorney in  many cases sometimes not and then you have a   court investigator that may be involved you may  also have a guardian ad litem who's appointed   you have capacity experts you have regional  centers sometimes you have the department of   developmental services who could be a petitioner  uh also petitioners can involve besides family   members it can be involved the public guardian  if the public guardian is involved then you have   the county council representing the uh public  guardian and then of course you have a judge   so you've got all of these various participants  and then you have you know the the adult with   the uh who's the target of the proceeding who  may or may not be given an attorney who may   show up with an attorney of their choice only  to have the judge refuse to acknowledge them   and then in some cases the judge does not appoint  an attorney and the person has to go through   the proceeding without anyone to defend them the  issues that are involved are constitutional rights   safe alternatives to uh conservative ships that  should be considered um the threat of major life   decisions being taken away from the individual and  also the possibility that they could be given a   conservator to control their life for the next  several years or decades depending on the age   of the person uh who could neglect their rights  or abuse them so that's how complex the the that   individual case is the system itself is complex  so i did a symposium a presentation uh a while   back um and uh kind of gave people an overview  of what's involved in the system itself you've   either directly involved or indirectly you've got  federal state and local government entities you've   got judicial legislative and executive branch  officials you've got professional associations   and disability rights organizations and so on in  terms of reform every single one of these entities   uh has a role or a place in reforming the broken  system and believe me all parts are broken but if   we make the wrong proposal to an agency they'll  just ignore it because they'll say it's not in my   purview so we have to target the proposals to the  right entity now the entities and i'm not going   to go in detail on this but there are details and  i'd be happy to share it with anyone later if you   you know go to spectrum institute.org and contact  me but you've got the supreme court the judicial   council the court of appeal the superior court  the legislature the state bar the department   of developmental services for people with  developmental disabilities the department of   fair employment and housing is there if uh should  be there to protect people's civil rights if any   of these participants violate their civil rights  disability rights california is funded 10 million   or more per year and should be there to help  people but hasn't been lifting a finger to do so   the county governments have a  significant role supervisors choose   which entity is going to provide legal defense  for indigents the county council is involved and   other entities at the county level like the public  guardian the u.s government has could be involved   more involved than it has been if it chose to but  so far has just been nibbling around the edges   the legal profession is could really be  spearheading reform uh but isn't doing   anything really other professions medicine  psychology and social work are all involved   so you see there's this you know complex uh system  and reform is a complex multi-faceted uh approach   the i believe that the key to reform is through  the uh attorneys who are who should be advocating   for these individuals uh that first of  all you've got to get the judges out of   appointing attorneys the judges should just be  sitting there and whoever appears before them   they should have to deal with that person and  they shouldn't have direct or indirect control   over who gets appointed to an individual  case they shouldn't be paying the attorneys   and they shouldn't be training or coaching  the attorneys that should be for somebody else   there's a the attorney should have performance  standards just like a doctor that's performing   surgery doesn't just do what he or she feels  or wants to there are standards that guide them   through the process and there are consequences  legal and otherwise if you fail to perform   according to standards these attorneys have  no performance standards the trainings are   are terrible i just wrote a commentary last week  about a recent training program that was just it   omitted the important things that  people needed attorneys needed to know   and it gave them misinformation on others we sent  a request to the california supreme court there   are about 10 organizations asking them to convene  a work group on conservatorship right to council   standards that it's the the supreme court is in  charge of the state bar the state bar reports   to the supreme court the supreme court therefore  promulgates uh the rules of professional conduct   it also therefore is in charge of the discipline  and system and the complaint system for attorneys   therefore the buck stops with the supreme court  so we want the court to finally acknowledge its   responsibility for allowing this mess to occur  because the mess is most because the attorneys are   basically trying to please the judges and to keep  their income stream going and they're not trying   to please their client or protect their rights so  this is pending recently we're taking again a look   at legal services as the key to reform and the for  the last year we've been looking at public funding of legal services indigent legal defense  services every county provides legal services for   people without assets who have an attorney  appointed it could be a public defender department   in some counties it could be a contract public  defender a law firm under contract with the county   supervisors or it could be the court appointed  attorney system like los angeles which is the   worst of all so we're going to be releasing our  report on the public funding of legal services   in uh gee about a week september 7th  and uh stay tuned go to our website   spectruminstitute.org and you'll be able  to review it and basically what we found   in a nutshell is a system in  disarray that's fragmented   that is providing deficient services and needs  major reform and so we have are targeting our our   recommendations to the various entities  that would have authority to make sure that   people who don't have assets but whose civil  rights are are at risk in these proceedings   receive proper legal representation the second  part of it has to do with the fee gouging the   fee for all the abusive fee system if you want to  call it a system but it's ad hoc where individual   judges can do whatever they want without guidance  without accountability without appeals generally   by paying in cases where the people do have  assets their assets might just be their home   maybe they have uh you know 300 000 in assets  in the home well believe me that's going to be   eaten up in attorney's fees you know in a  wink it's going to happen to the judges uh   are making the individuals pay not only for  their court appointed attorney who may be   actually advocating against them and their and  the individual the senior is having to pay the   attorney to advocate against the senior which  is another uh abysmal situation but they also   have are being forced to pay for the attorneys for  the petitioners sometimes the objectors and also   the attorneys for the temporary conservators  the attorneys for the permanent conservators   so that when you one attorney in a case told  me that uh there was an and i'll end with this   the um um katherine dubrow in her 80s had you  know significant assets in her case she did not   have a court-appointed attorney as an advocacy  attorney and yet at one point out of her estate   she was being ordered to pay five attorneys  not her own because she wasn't even given one   so this whole we will be working for the next  year or more on the uh fee abuse situation   and issuing a report on that so i again  encourage people if you go to our website at   spectruminstitute.org you can sign up to get on  our mailing list and we'll send you information   when we have reports and other things but uh the  system is badly broken every part of it is broken   no one is funding conservatorship reform it's  people like us who are doing this as volunteers   that's why it's taking so long if some foundation  you know macarthur foundation the ford foundation   were to donate you know a chunk of money and  if the money were targeted on cleaning up this   attorney mess we could speed up and accelerate  uh the reform process so thank you for your   attention and and gloria for this opportunity i  appreciate it last but not least uh leanne simmons   lisa touched on the britney spears case i know  you've been extremely involved in that case and   advocate advocation advocating for britney spears  so please tell us about yourself and what you're   doing sure well first i would like to thank the  commonwealth club for having this program because   it's so important that we're educating the public  about these issues and i think that in brittany's   case in particular the lack of awareness about  this type of thing has what is what has allowed   it to continue for 13 going on 14 years now um so  i myself started as just a britney spears fan who   was kind of concerned about the seemingly really  microscopic control over her day-to-day life   and the fact that she was working  for 13 years you know doing tours   bringing in hundreds of millions of  dollars seemingly able to do so yet   under this conservatorship that had taken away  all of her rights to make her own decisions and   we were just fans dabbling in the law we didn't  know too much we just knew something felt off   um in in 2019 there was a whistleblower a  paralegal who was familiar with britney's case who   sort of confirmed a lot of our concerns and the  fact that britney at that time was allegedly   being held against her will in a facility and had  been mistreated for most of her conservatorship   and that's when the ball started rolling and for  the last two years we have been fortunate to team   up with other advocates and activists who've  been working on this for many years decades and   we realized that this is so much bigger than  just brittany this is systemic this is it   involves cronyism and just the lack of oversight  in our systems these judges and lawyers are able   to sort of do whatever they please and there isn't  a lot of checks and balances nothing's there's no   oversight and that's a huge part of what i think  needs to be implemented in this situation because   as tom had mentioned this is a very complex system  there are all these puzzle pieces and i think   it's overwhelming to the average person it's  overwhelming to those in the legal community   even it's just a very intricate system so we  need to simplify it and we need to make sure   that there is oversight into it um in brittany's  case in particular i think could be a really great   catalyst for this reform and i i think it's  wonderful that the narrative is happening now   people are talking about conservatorships people  who had never heard the term before are now aware   of what it is so yes britney is theoretically  very rich she's young and able-bodied from what we   can tell in a young white woman and it's easy to  dismiss that and think there are bigger issues out   there she's got money she's fine but when you look  at it she doesn't have control of her money so how   much is that fortune worth when she doesn't have  a say in how it's spent and i think that that's   important to recognize and another thing that  tom had said is you could just have a home that   might have some assets in it you don't have to  have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank   these predators look for even the smallest  things and you know you'd be surprised what   people will do for small sums of money so it's  important as you know i as a fan with a mom and   aging grandparents friends myself this is a  threat to all of us this system is set up to   take control over anyone and oftentimes over  kind of false accusations of disability or   ineptitude that aren't even true so we should  be very aware of this and we should fight   as we're moving forward because the baby boomers  are aging up and we're all getting older and this   is a predatory system that tends to go after those  who are elderly and also those who are disabled so   i am very honored to be a part of the free  brittany movement which has kind of evolved into   this kind of passion for the rights of  conservatives and and reforming this   system because it is so much bigger than just  brittany who you know we want her to be able to   go have children or go to starbucks or you know  be able to institute her constitutional rights   of course but beyond that it is again coming  back to that systemic problem that we sort of   opened a can of worms as a fan base and i think  the majority of us are really grateful to have   teamed up with other advocates and um i firmly  believe brittany will be free and very soon   but the work is not done at that point you  know we need to take this further and continue   to reform these laws and make sure that this  sort of thing is not happening in the future   thank you so much leanne and  thanks for your work and advocacy   just please audience members please  type your questions in the chat i   will ask those but until we get some i  will ask you all some other questions um   britney's the britney spears case has um upscaled  uh visibility of this issue um it's not typical of   all cases obviously but just let's talk about that  case for a second since it is so visible right now   what would an appropriate situation look like  for britney spears what what what would be a   humane uh appropriate uh supportive situation  for her well i'm going to go ahead i mean i   am adamantly against the maintain maintaining  this conservatorship for a number of reasons   i am convinced that miss beers never  qualified for a probate conservatorship   a probate conservatorship is only  appropriate when someone is truly unable to   make decisions and take care of their own  needs and very basic food clothing and shelter   it does not require someone to be sophisticated  as a business manager it doesn't actually require   them to be shrewd or business savvy whatsoever  what happened to britney spears let's be   very clear was a violation of her constitutional  rights miss spears at this point should be free   of the conservatorship she should have people that  she has a point that she have vetted and appointed   to help her with her medical decision making as  well as her financial decision making and as rick   properly pointed out there is no reason that i can  see why this could not be managed with a durable   power of attorney health care directive and other  estate planning documents she has a living trust   her assets should be in the living trust she  should have competent fiduciaries around her she   does not need a probate conservatorship never has  um i'm appalled at what's going on i'm appalled   that the judges have allowed this to uh be  maintained especially in light of her statements   on june 23rd so right now in my viewpoint as an  attorney i've done this for over 25 years miss   beer should be free of this conservatorship she  does not need the protection of the court in fact   i would argue that she needs to be protected  from the los angeles county probate court anyone else no i agree with you on that  i think that that she's been abused   in the conservatorship what what would the  problem be to terminate the case see what happens   and if a new situation arose where there  needed to be some intervention then you   could always take a fresh look at it but give  her a chance right yeah i i look at the numbers   we estimate looking at what has been submitted  to the court that the attorneys have been paid   over 20 million dollars from her estate since this  guardianship conservatorship i'm sorry was begun   in 2008 at any one time and i've counted them in  the past there were at least a dozen attorneys   who were feeding off of her estate and  many of them maybe even all of them knew   that she didn't qualify for a conservatorship when  it started and she was actively arguing to end it   from as early as 2010 so there's  more than a decade here of more   than a dozen attorneys who were extremely  well paid who ignored britney unilaterally   for the 13 years the point that i also want to  make is britney is unique in that she's young   vibrant quite lucid in our government you're  allowed to make mistakes we're all given free   will and making mistakes is part of growing  up it's part of being human yet in this case   those couple of issues at a time which was very  very high stress for britney spears back in 2008   two young children going through a divorce  husband isolating the children from her   and paparazzi all over her we're going to use that  moment in time to judge this woman for 13 years   most wards don't have their abilities to fight  back many wards are targeted groomed thrown into   conservatorships when they've due to illness  or injury or dementia have lost their ability   to fight back and that's what should alarm the  public that here's a woman who's quite vibrant   quite articulate didn't qualify 13 years ago  and yet she still finds herself in one of these   so some questions are starting to come in and if i  look down they're coming in on my watch so i will   uh put those in front of you in just a second  um rick i want to go back to some of your early   comments you talked about winning some convictions  in nevada can you tell us a little bit about those   cases what was going on and when you've sort  of you and others have pushed some of these   issues what what kind of cases what were  the outcomes yeah nevada to date is the   only state where the attorney general of the state  launched an investigation criminal investigation   based on mountains of evidence that my wife and i  and other activists presented to him back in 2014   right after he was elected this was adam laxalt  was newly elected to the nevada attorney general's   office he was alarmed by the evidence that we  presented and launched the statewide investigation   the conservatorship guardianship system sadly  back to the dysfunction that's been described   is a haven for narcissists and sociopaths  it's an environment where lying   is rewarded and any litigator and i and  i want to make the the you know the dis   i want to define it more critically for your  audience attorneys are licensed by the state bar   you can you can get a law degree but then you have  to be licensed by the state bar in every state   to practice but then there's this unique group  called litigators and litigators make their money   in a courtroom and in a courtroom they don't  take an oath they don't have to tell the truth   and in an equity courtroom where billions of  dollars are at stake they can lie routinely and   what the attorney general of nevada uncovered with  his investigation and with the help of ourselves   was they're statutorily required to submit an  accurate inventory when a guardian conservatorship   commences they weren't doing that they are  statutorily required to define where each   and every penny is spent and who it's given to  every year they weren't doing that in nevada   less than four percent of all guardianship cases  that were reviewed were statutorily required uh   statutorily compliant and within that there  was an immense amount of criminal activity   that sadly was being protected by this court  so so that was how that investigation began   it was following the money it was showing the  statutory non-compliance and then getting those   bank statements to show that the money had been  misappropriated there's only two other states   that have taken action on this and they  were actually done by the federal government   which is also extremely alarming california has  never undertaken a criminal investigation at the   county or state level we're federal level in new  mexico the fbi came in because six professional   conservators had ripped off over a thousand people  and those six executives were sent to prison in   2020 and 21 but again it took the fbi it took  the department of justice to combat this from   a criminal perspective and the only other state  where we're seeing a prosecution underway is the   eastern district of pennsylvania philadelphia  where it's a recognized hot spot for estate   trafficking within the professional guardianship  environment um we do have a woman there actually   five conspirators no attorneys involved but the  uh the doj has 850 some counts on her and she's   currently going through criminal prosecution the  the federal government is starting to understand   the dysfunction of the system and the ability  for predatory attorneys to use it to violate   civil rights of the individuals as well  as to conduct criminal activity but we've   got 3 500 counties in the u.s and a lot of law  enforcement that continues to ignore these crimes   so um some questions coming in from our online  audience does a contested conservatorship   ever cost less than two hundred thousand  dollars to litigate i'm concerned that there   is an estate size for which only informal  solutions are available and it's a fool's   errand to challenge control of say a relative  who is exploiting a vulnerable senior comments well from what i've seen there first of all there  aren't that many contested hearings that occur   number one there just seems to be um a lot of  settlements and uh and a lot of settlements   occur because the estate would be eaten up in  contested hearings or trials or whatever i mean   theoretically the individuals have a right to a  jury trial and i examined the records of the data   from la county and over a period of uh 12 years  where 24 000 probate conservatorship cases were   processed there were two jury trials so uh uh i  think that that the real problem is occurring more   with the settlements and the back scratching of  everybody uh to get the conservatorship in place   and you know then afterwards there can still  be other objections and things that eat up   the estate but uh i think the real problem is  just the um collusion uh uh more so than the uh   contesting yeah i agree with tom's comment on  the collusion because we see it across the board   and we use the term parasitic as well as predatory  attorneys because the parasitic attorneys just go   along for the ride they really have no interest  in fighting for the rights of the innocent party   or the family desperately trying to free a  loved one from a fraudulent conservatorship   but i put a little different swing on it than  tom did although everything top said is accurate   um it's almost impossible for the  average family to free a loved one   from a contested conservatorship number one the  entire estate is taken over with the signing of   the first order which is usually done as a quote  emergency even though it's not but at that at   that point the attorneys and the court control the  estate so now you're trying to protect a loved one   with let's say you're a single daughter which  women are highly targeted in this environment   you're you've got your own little retirement  that you're working on you're 55 60 years   old your mother who's 80 85 90 who's lost her  complete estate and now you've got a pony up   50 000 and that's the minimum number to get an  attorney to take your case and fight zealously   on your behalf the issue that we see nationwide  is most attorneys won't take these cases   because they know suing a federal a fellow  attorney or challenging a judge who is running   a guardianship conservatorship mill is is  not good for um for for for job security   we have many attorneys across the country  who've been disbarred because a judge got   angry that they were being challenged in what was  clearly a trust fraud or conservatorship fraud   arrangement and they want they knew that the bar  would challenge discipline potentially disbar   the opposing attorney and and that's why those  complaints were made so we've got issues here with   the entire system running a propaganda campaign  to ensure the public continues to be duped on the   recognized issues and continue to allow themselves  to be open to the exploitation that occurs with it   your question is right on you got to have a lot  of money to contest a fraudulent conservatorship   and that's why these problems grow because  the sheer act when the estate is taken over   really minimizes how many people can fight  it gloria i'd like to give a shout out to um   just a second here to the uh the folks in nevada  because of the reform that was done there the   legal aid center of southern um nevada they are  funded without taxpayer money they represent   all people who don't have their own attorney  who are targeted by the guardianships there   they do not charge a fee to anybody even  if the person has a million dollar estate   they're getting free legal services they have  a dedicated team of 14 attorneys who are well   trained with performance standards who push back  and unlike california that has almost no petitions   that are dismissed last year they got 25 of the  petitions dismissed in favor of less restrictive   alternatives or they weren't nothing was needed  at all and 25 of their caseload last year were   terminations and they send out those that are put  into a guardianship they send out a staff member   not an attorney but a qualified staff member every  six months to meet with the individual so uh there   is a ray of hope uh uh uh that you know it's  not a perfect system and they're not perfect   but they're heaven shoulders above everybody else  so you know i just want to let people know that   that this all is not hopeless there are there's  a new emerging model that we can uh consider   let me i think playing off of the question though  of the last person um we we've seen some other   high-profile cases uh brooke astor and uh the case  of you get clark i actually had a program last   year with ian clark devine her net her nephew  these are cases of very wealthy individuals   who were being abused or exploited you get  clark you probably know the story it was uh   in the new york times and there was a book  about it she ended up at a very elderly age   an heiress silver heiress actually from uh family  wealth from nevada actually uh ended up living in   a hospital and the hospital in new york and  the hospital kept accessing her for millions   and millions of dollars of contributions to the  hospital as a condition of continuing to have   her live there full time and so on are there cases  where guardianships or conservatorships are needed   uh you know when there's abuse going on  one because that's part of the reason   is to uh for these forms is to try to protect  vulnerable individuals against genuine abuse   and then uh what kind of uh protections or  what about this issue of the high cost if   are there alternatives if somebody  is being abused uh to protecting them i'll just quickly say you know again we've we've  supported several thousand contested cases since   we started to work broadly in 2014. uh early  intervention is critical when you smell a rat   you got to start appealing because you've got  to get this case out of the probate court or   the equity court where the conservatorship or  guardianship was inappropriately commenced so   the very first order is the most critical order  to be appealed secondly you've you've got to take   action because usually the fraud or breach  of fiduciary duty is rather easy to define in   in certainly a trust case uh but where you've got  joint account holders legitimate protectors that   were a part of that person's life for you know  the transition from being fully lucid to being   vulnerable so federal breach of fiduciary duty  suits and state breach of fiduciary duty suits   are are a less expensive route although very  expensive but more effective in exposing the   true predators who normally use trust fraud  conservatorship fraud to exploit the vulnerable um one of our audiences the attorneys on  the phone i'm giving practical experience   but i'd love to hear from you any other  comments uh on that issue what about when a   there's a genuine need to  protect somebody from abuse   right and and those are the cases um that i  hope that i handle um in other words there are   reasons to have conservatorships there are  reasons to have guardianships what i have   am finding is that unfortunately the probate  courts because they're so badly underfunded   their probate investigators are not well trained  they're not doing a good job i would actually say   that you're better off not being a conservative  in some instances but there have been instances   there have been occasions where we have been able  to get the legitimate family member the protector   in place to protect mom dad from an infiltrator  from an outsider someone that would use harm undue   influence and so forth so yes of course there are  times and also a lot of times conservatorships and   guardianships are needed when people have failed  to do any type of estate planning i mean you would   be very surprised that statistically how many  people all of the conservatorships that i have   started for family members over the last several  months all of them have been the result of a   failure to plan so as you know people say if  you fail to plan you're planning for failure   unfortunately it is still very hard to get people  to come into an attorney's office and do their   estate planning early and often but there have  been times we have been able to recover assets   and mostly separate elders and adults with  developmental disabilities but it's you know it's   very difficult in this environment where  everything is so slow and so difficult   and very expensive and mostly because again  the judges don't recognize the distinction and   these subtle cases between what a person being  unduly influenced versus their own free will   um so it's it's still a challenge but we do need  to pay more attention to the training supervision   and accountability of all people in the courtroom  question from the audience aren't there court   appointed investigators that are required to meet  with the conservative on an annual basis to obtain   their input on whether they want to continue with  being conserved yeah that's theoretically that's   the case but i'll give an example several  years ago when we had a financial crisis   the first these these investigators are in the  court's budget they're paid for right out of the   superior court budget so when the superior  court wants to save money what does it do   it finds places to cut so they they  were understaffed by about 50 percent   they were backlogged for several years uh and  to really save money the judges uh stopped   appointing court investigators in the cases  involving adults with developmental disabilities   and told the court appointed attorneys to  serve that function in other words don't be   the person's advocate be the eyes and ears of the  court so again the problem isn't so much what's   in the statute books theoretically it's the  failure to implement the law as it was intended   and the fact that there's no consequence because  there are virtually never any appeals so the   supreme court and the court of appeal don't get  to weigh in and say this is wrong you've got to   do this you've got to do that so the judges know  and the attorneys know that they're untouchable   because there's no accountability so yes  theoretically that those protections are there   but uh they're pretty meaningless  and you can satisfy it by spending   probably five minutes with the person uh if  you did go out right and let me just add to   that and then britney spears case in particular  apparently there were probate investigators that   went out and made reports that she was unhappy  with the conservatorship and wanted her father out   but what had happened already is that there was  this codependent financial arrangement and you   know maybe not even they probably weren't even  aware but they had a court-appointed attorney   signed or allowed to receive 10 000 a week so the  person that the court relied upon to determine   what was going what is appropriate in this case  had absolutely no incentive to abide by any of   the recommendations by his client or the probate  investigator in fact um the new york times did an   amazing article a few months ago where they talked  to they got apparently somebody leaked some of the   probate investigators reports uh to the new  york times and it was revealed that britney   had been fighting and trying to get her attorney  to terminate the conservatorship or at least make   a significant change and that attorney was  incentivized to ignore her because he was   receiving 10 000 a week and consistent with what  i'm trying to explain to the world is that the   judges do what the court appointed attorneys  tell them to do because literally the judicial   council of california is telling them to follow  those recommendations it's on the website so it's   like as tom says this is a huge mess all the  way to the top so um that's your the point is   yes there are probate investigators but in these  cases where there's a court appointed attorney   who has a vested interest in maintaining status  quo um it re these reports are routinely ignored   so i feel like we've just scratched the surface  and yet we're really at the end of our hour i just   heard the clock on the ferry building here on the  embarcadero in san francisco chime 10 30. i'd like   to do a very quick lightning round and i'd like to  ask each of you if there's one thing you could do   that you should think should happen one  practical thing to change uh and and improve this   conservatorship system what would it be so rick  i know you're always ready with an answer so   yeah it would be to implement the federal free  act which is currently in committee which gives   contested cases an exit ramp to go to a federal  court and have both the award focuses on the ward   have their constitutional rights upheld  and a full de novo review of whether   the conservatorship was appropriate and if it was  who should be the conservator of that individual   without federal oversight these problems  are only going to continue to grow lisa absolutely separate judges lawyers and  money tom also articulated the same plan but   i did actually study the model in las vegas where  they funded an entirely different group of lawyers   that are separate from judges other counties do  that that should be in california that should be   mandatory and i think that would start settling  a lot of these problems where judges no longer   are basically assigning their favorites to cases  and then following directions from those lawyers   leanne let's go to you um yes definitely going off  of what lisa said i think way too many conflicts   of interest are being allowed to continue and you  know how is someone who is incentivized to keep   a conservatorship going going to advocate  to end it um it gets messy there obviously   and i think that it comes down to oversight when  there's a single judge who is relying on her   you know favorite court appointed attorney that  single person has way too much power over the   wards estate and life so i do think um it needs  to be overseen at a higher level um potentially   federally because the states kind of just do  what they want at this point and and we need more   control over these systems um okay i um i agree  with everything that everyone said i think um take   something that interests you personally and you  feel that you can do for example a letter to your   state legislator saying that you support sb 724 by  senator ben allen it creates modest but necessary   reforms to the court appointed attorney system  so that's a very specific doable act the other   if you're in la county for example lisa and i are  going to be working together and trying to get the   la county board of supervisors to stop throwing  money at the court to allow them to operate this   court appointed attorney system and instead  to consider the nevada style attorney system   so keep in touch with us sign up again for  our newsletter at spectruminstitute.org   it's a simple thing you can do and then as you  get a newsletter or get some information from us   something will uh pique your interest follow up on  that because that follow your passion i'm going to   throw one on the table from some conversations  i've had actually suggested by my district   attorney in santa clara county here in california  which is that counties have local rules of court   and in santa clara county they've instituted  a local rule that fee petitions by attorneys   have to be closely examined by judges to make  sure that the fees are actually in the interest   of the protected person of their and their estate  and uh there are some criteria obviously for that   uh i'd love i think that seeing that as  a statewide standard in california and   elsewhere would be great because at least  then judges would be obligated to examine   whether all of these this fifa all uh you know has  inbuilt interests as you were talking about lisa   whether it's actually doing something for  the person who's in the conservatorship or   the guardianship i think all of you have  pointed to what is really a civil rights   issue in the u.s a human rights issue we don't  usually think of this area as among civil and   human rights but it is it fits that criterion  it is people who need to be protected from abuse   who need to be a system that needs to be reformed  so that there isn't uh a sort of a bias an abusive quality to it so thank you all for uh uplifting  and pointing to this issue which i think will   receive a lot more attention perhaps we  will come back for part two of this panel   talk more about solutions because we really  have just barely scratched the surface   so i'd like to thank each of you rick black tom  coleman lisa mccarley leanne simmons for all   that you're doing for being with us here today  wishing you well in your work uh thanking our   online audience who did provide a number of very  good questions and now uh this is gloria duffy   saying that this meeting of the commonwealth club  of california is adjourned thank you all thank you you

Channel: Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California

Views: 3,329

Keywords: CommonwealthClub, CommonwealthClubofCalifornia, Sanfrancisco, Nonprofitmedia, nonprofitvideo, politics, Currentevents, CaliforniaCurrentEvents, #newyoutubevideo, #youtubechannel, #youtubechannels

Id: EwFiWBy_qoQ

Length: 69min 28sec (4168 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021