The Washington times., 1922-02-12
BAR
To AID IN FIGHT
OND|VORCEEV|L
Commonwealth Attorney Ball
Heads County Lawyers
Movement Toward Reform.
BY HARVEY L. COBB.
Copyright. 1922. by The Washington
Times Company)

BY HARVEY L. COBB.
Copyright. 1922. by The Washington
Times Company
- Declaring that they were not in
sympathy with the tactics Of the
Alexandria divorce ring, whose
members have clogged the courts
of justice of Arlington county,
members of the legal profession Of
that county yesterday offered their
services to the cleanup squad
waging war against the ring.
Ball Is Spokesman.
Attorney F. L. Ball, Common
wealth attorney Of Arlington county,
acting as spokesman for the Airing
ton county legal fraternity, in
statement to he Times. declared that
they were thoroughly In accord with
the overwhelming sentiment in
Alexandria and other nearby Virginia
| communities for cleaning UP the
Little Reno divorce ring.
at comes as a decided relief to
members of the legal profession in
our county to have the rottenness in
divorce procedure in our State
cleaned up" Mr.. Ball said.
THE records of Arlington county
show that the vast majority Of the
divorces filed in that county are
filed by outside lawyers, who have
made a practice Of coming from
Washington and Alexandria to file .
part of their suits in our county"
| AS a result of the action Of out
side attorneys in filing divorces in
that county, the Governments fig
ures show that Arlington county
ranks second in a comparison with
other counties of the United States
in the excessive number of divorces
granted. There is one divorce grant
ed to every three marriages per-
| formed.
The records of Arlington county
attorneys show that within the past
five or six years, there has been a
steady decrease in the number of
divorces filed by them, while there
has been a heavy increase in the
number of divorces filed by outside
attorneys, that is, attorneys OF Wash
ington and Alexandria, who have IL
cense to practice in that county"
Mr.. Ball said.
Efforts were made some time
ago by myself and my former part
ner, E. Gordon Finney, to put a
stop to the number of divorces be-
ing granted" Hall declared.
AT that time a bill was intro
duced in the legislature, drafted by
myself to change the legal residence
requirement from one year to two
years. Our measure passed the COM
mittee but died in the house."
Another effort was also made by
Judge Barley, formerly of the Cor
poration Court of Little Reno" and
succeeded to the bench by Moncure,
to prevent easy divorces. A bill
similar to the Hall measure was
drafted by Judge Barley but was
never passed.
| Lawyers Favor Cleanup.
Every lawyer of Arlington county
is in favor of some srep 10 kill the
insidious divorce practice Of our
State" Commonwealth Attorney
Ball declared, adding that the men,
bers of the clean up squad" could
depend on their support in stamp
ing out the evil"
Belief was expressed by Mr.. Ball
that there was much "rottenness
in the prosecution of divorce cases
in Virginia. although he declared
that he could not say definitely.
II do know, however, as other at
torneys of my county know, that
cases which we have refused TO
handle have later been filed by
Washington and Little Reno At
torneys.
Under the present system an
honest attorney is penalized for his
| honesty when he refused to handle
anything but legitimate case,
| when the plaintiff can go to another
attorney and get him to handle it
much quicker"
Commonwealth Attorney Ball ex-
pressed a belief last night that there
would be no difficulty in reopening
any of the divorce cases, where the
defendants had been victims of the
ring.
The divorces are not worth the
paper they are written on and can
be reopened at any time" he said.
land litigants who remarry under
the fraudulent DEGREES are running
2 great risk" Mr.. Hall said.
ReversaIs Likely.
The fact that so few divorces are
reopened, he said. was probably due
to the feeling of the victimized
spouse that 'it was good radiance"
of the worthless divorce seeking
mate.
AT any rate" Mr.. Ball said, amy
woman or man who has been di-
vorced without the legal require
ments of the State being fulfilled,
will have no difficulty in having the
| decree set aside.
Members of the Alexandria Bar
Association and legislators may
count on our entire support to sup.
press the activities of the divorce
ring, not only of Alexandria. but Of
the entire State, for we feel and
know that Arlington county is not
entitled to the same unsavory pub.
licity that has attended the activi-
ties of the Alexandria ring" Mr..
Ball declared.