California Supreme Court Divorce Attorney Misconduct: Vexatious Litigant Law Misuse in Family Courts
Channel: Sacramento Family Court News
Date: 2019-03-05

The California Supreme Court has ignored the bad faith use of vexatious litigant law by unethical attorneys in divorce and family law cases. The law is often used by lawyers against financially disadvantaged litigants and parents who can't afford a lawyer. 

It is very easy for an unethical lawyer to win against an opponent who isn't a lawyer and can't afford one. Judges are supposed to keep the playing field level and hold unethical attorneys accountable. But they don't. Too much work. Trial court judges in California make $200,000 per year.  

Once an attorney obtains a vexatious litigant order against an opposing party, that person is effectively banned from using any court for any purpose without the permission of a presiding judge. Court records and statistics show that presiding judges virtually never give permission. The vexatious litigant designation effectively revokes the constitutional right of access to the courts. 

In most cases, the "vexatious litigant" designation is a scarlet letter that stays with a person for the rest of their life. Lawyers use it as a bludgeon to disparage and discredit opponents without counsel. 

In this video, San Francisco Bay Area lawyer Dominic Porrino is interviewed about his alleged misuse of vexatious litigant law against a mother in a divorce case in Alameda County, California. 

For a price, divorce attorneys like Porrino use this bad faith litigation tactic in family court, where the law was never intended to be used. The law originally was passed to prevent people with, for example, mental health problems from repeatedly filing meritless litigation in civil court.  

California Supreme Court judges have played deaf, dumb, and blind to the problem. Justices Tani  Cantil-Sakauye SBN 114470 , Carol Corrigan SBN 65527, Leondra Kruger SBN 218924,  Mariano Cuellar SBN 199381,  Ming Chin SBN 46603, and Goodwin Liu SBN 200745 have all failed or refused to address this serious problem and hold unethical lawyers accountable. The Supreme Court is the final authority on attorney misconduct in California. 

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