I just won my first custody case today (helping a pro se litigant) and I shouldn't say that because the woman I court watched for and counseled is amazing and deserves to be successor guardian. She will credit me; I will credit a gentleman at the State's Attorneys Office who let me in on this not so secret secret...
How to Win Guardianship
Three steps that are far from easy:
1. Do NOT join any online guardianship group until after you win custody. (Joining one or being associated with one will not help you win.)
2. Apologize. They're going to emotionally abuse you and the AIP (Alleged Incapacitated Person). You're going to go off on the lowliest employee to the highest and everyone in between because you're protective instincts kick in. You can't help yourself because your loved one is an elder/disabled person that is defenseless and vulnerable... the people who entered their lives are just looking at them as cash cows.... it's very natural to go off but if you continue, you won't win custody. You need to apologize for your bad behavior. You don’t have to apologize to the lowliest employee that they (interlopers) set up to antagonize you but it’s really in your best interests to apologize to the rest…. You’ll understand why after.
3. Do NOT disrespect the Judge! I CANNOT emphasize this enough! I don’t understand it when people walk into the courtroom with chips on both shoulders then give the judge a piece of their minds? Let me give you a hint... if you're going to get into a power struggle with a Cook County Probate Court Judge, you're going to lose and lose big. If you can't say, "Yes ma'am", "No ma'am" or "Yes sir", "No sir" and "Your Honor" then you've got no business being anyone's guardian. Love has no pride; it has no shame and if you can't leave your ego out in the hallway then don't walk into that courtroom expecting to win. The judge decides whether or not you're fit (and that includes blood relatives) and if you're acting like a hooligan, you're unfit.
These are the steps it takes and they're not easy but if you need help, you can contact me and I'll counsel you through it. This advice won’t work for everyone either but it's a really good start. After you win, I strongly urge you to tell others or blog about it. Give a review of an attorney, who helped you, how, etc. Blogging does nothing for reform, it does warn and help others. You should get in contact with Latifa Ring at NOTEGA since she got all her members heard by the CFPB. I'm a member of her organization.
I wrote this post because respect is earned, no one can earn that for you and without it you lose.
I can't take my eyes off this winning petition and I'm going to win more.... this is just the beginning.....
When you see Circuit and Probate Courts destroying a life-time's worth of work which families have been engaged in, then a person is fortunate if he or she is civil at all;this is not Nazi Germany; even students at the Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law at the Yeshiva University in New York, have recovered assets which were taken by the Nazi's over 60 years ago;I am sure that museums in Europe never thought that it would be possible for Jewish families to recover paintings and artifacts taken by the Germans.
ReplyDeleteRoger Plafkin-Plafkin Brothers-Grand Rapids Bolt and Nut Company-Plafkin Farms, Ada, Michigan
How is it that guardians can destroy generations of accomplishments by an individual and his family; in Kent County, Michigan, the Probate Judge appointed our 18 year old son guardian over his mother and me-his father; our son proceeded to liquidate all or most of our assets which included businesses and realestate-his remark to me was that if you give us a problem, we shall put you away; other relatives encouraged our son to take control, thus preventing my wife and myself from having any say as to what he did. The Probate Judge-Dale Stoppels, never talked with me; he just took everything that we owned.
ReplyDeleteRoger Plafkin-Plafkin Brothers-Grand Rapids Bolt and Nut Company-Plafkin Farms-Ada, Michigan