Legal Question in Legal Ethics in California
I was recently in a family court hearing where an expert witness that the judge allowed to state their "opinion" of events on the record (a professionally paid supervision monitor). I found out right after the hearing that this professional supervision monitor has a current custody/visitation case with my same judge and has had 8 hearings with this same judge in the last 3 months. This is totally shocking and outrages me.....We would of never hired this person if we knew she had a current case with the same judge. Additionally, we provided the judge the week prior a list of the witnesses we were planning to present live / oral testimony, pursuant to california family code 217, so the judge was aware also. There must a law that requires disclosure by a paid professional expert witness to advise parents of such a thing.....as well as some law required by a family court judge that they have to disclose
2 Answers from Attorneys
Wait until you find out that the visitation monitor is the bailiff's sister-in-law. Or something like that. This is how judges and other California family court insiders funnel money to their friends and relatives, by appointing them as 730 experts and visitation monitors. And you have to pay for their services.
I am a little confused why you would be shocked and outraged. This is what this person does for a living. There are only so many judges and only so many monitors. What reason would you have to hire a monitor that has not appeared before this specific judge before or does not have another case going on right now (other than you did not like what the this expert said). The other cases have nothing to do with yours. I am not aware of any law or rule that requires monitors, or even attorneys for that matter, to disclose that they have other cases in front of a specific judge.
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