Part 3 - Survival Guide to the St. Louis Family Court Racket
Document everything, know your Constitutional rights, and learn a bit of the law. You'll defeat the Racketeering Enterprise.
You are about to head into St. Louis Family Court and, having read our first two chapters, you already know that it’s a well-designed racket:
Further, you now know that you are not special, and that whoever you are, the Racketeering Enterprise™ sees you coming and already has their techniques to extract maximum money and misery from you and your kids:
There is much more to learn about how this racket works, including the laws, regulations, and felonies implicated. But first, let’s just get you the most practical survival tips on what to do as you engage in the hard work of creating a healthy, balanced life for you and your kids. The Racketeering Enterprise™ depends on your total ignorance as well as your complete trust. Reading this series, you’re fixing both vulnerabilities.
So let’s get practical. If you live in St. Louis (or elsewhere in Missouri, where it often works the same), what should you do when you need to make contact with the Family Court?
Prep: Get all new digital devices and paper filing systems
Before we create a knowledge management system that will save your kids, there is a little housekeeping and a shopping spree needed. It’s not too expensive—maybe about the same as one hour of an attorney's time.
You want brand-new digital devices that only you have ever owned. These need to be kept separate from any other members of your household and any attorney you might hire. You should purchase, in cash if at all possible, the following:
A new cellular telephone, pay-as-you go
An audio recorder not associated with your phone
A new laptop
A plastic file folder container and manila file folders
Plan to keep all of the above in a location only you know and control. You are going to be creating an archive of accurate documentation that can hold up in a court of law anywhere in America, including Federal District Court.
Make sure your passwords on any devices are new and never have been used in any device before, especially not one known to any person involved with the upcoming litigation.
Now, let’s get to work!
1. Organize documents from your household
Before you contact an attorney or file anything, create and organize all the documents about your household.
As to documenting your household, this can start before any litigation. You may already have everything in a convenient place because you’re an organized adult who has maintained a steel safe for years containing your last wills and testaments, car insurance, bank statements, and your fourth grade report cards. Or you may have military-grade ADHD and organize your affairs via the occasional Post-It Note. Either way, you need basic documentation well-organized before you start anything to do with the Family Court. Make sure you have the following ready to go:
Marriage licenses and birth certificates for any children in the household
Tax returns, at least three years, pay stubs, small business accounting (if applicable)
Real estate documentation, whether from buying or leasing a home
Financial documents behind any major assets (retirement accounts, stocks/bonds, collectibles, boats, vacation timeshares)
Records of any credit card, loan, or personal debt
Three months of invoices from all utilities
Receipts showing grocery and clothing purchases, especially those for the children
Pediatric and school records for all kids in the household
Exported archives of all email accounts used during the marriage
Screenshots or other archives of phone text messages relating to domestic abuse or potential financial fraud by any other parties involved with the children
Documents showing your healthy, happy relationship with the minor children - picture of you at school events, videos of you opening presents at Hanukkah, Christmas, or birthdays, photos showing you making or eating meals with the kids
Your own medical records
As far as the artifacts from your domestic life, the above will cover most all of what they will ask you about under the law in a “dissolution of marriage” aka divorce. The tax returns will establish whence your derive income and the financial documents will quantify the assets to split 50/50. That’s the easy part.
The medical records, school records, and documents showing the life of the kids will answer upcoming questions about a Parenting Plan. Those records should hold more weight in actual court versus the fraudulent evidence the Racketeering Enterprise™ will try to create. Your records are the “substantial evidence” that the judge must consider or face an appeal of their Order whereby they “abuse their discretion” because it is “against the weight of the evidence.”
In 99% of cases, your initial documentary evidence will outweigh anything that the Racketeering Enterprise™ will try to cook up. Plus, this organization of records in advance will save thousands of dollars in attorneys fees.
Prepare to file your Form 14 child support calculation, assess your marital assets correctly, and keep the pediatric, school, and parental medical records handy. This will prepare you for the vast majority of what is ahead.
(Note: If you have an actual history of domestic abuse in the household, or if anyone has a documented history of mental illness, then the situation gets more complex. Also, the Racketeering Enterprise™ is less likely to run their classic shakedown on you because there are real issues now, and the racketeers are painfully lazy. Nevertheless, have all records of police interactions, hospitalizations, and therapeutic treatment ready as well.)
2. Document every single interaction with attorneys
Perhaps by the time you read this whole survival guide, you may not need an attorney at all. However, there is a lot to learn. If you can convince an attorney that you are knowledgeable, organized, and not naïve—and that they can make a good living doing the right thing by you—then having an attorney can be valuable.
That doesn’t mean you should trust a St. Louis Family Court attorney as far as you can spit one.
The KGB apparently has an old saying, доверяй, но проверяй, “Trust, but verify.” That barely covers how cautious you will need to be with attorneys, especially your own.
First, remember that audio recorder you bought? Missouri is a “one-party” audio recording consent state. This means that if you are in the conversation, you can record it without penalty. In states such as California, they are “two-party” consent states, and it is illegal to record someone without their knowledge. Not the Show Me State. You can record every single interaction.
Do as much in writing as possible. Be too busy for phone calls. If you have phone calls or in-person meetings, follow those up with emails asking for “clarification” on something you “didn’t understand.” This will create a contemporaneous record of the relationship with your attorney, which you may require down the line if they are attempting racketeering activities with their pals.
Organize all of these interactions chronologically and by date. Print out any emails and file them on paper. Absolutely keep track of invoices for services, and make sure that you have a copy of the latest services a minimum of every 30 days.
This attention to detail could very well inspire your attorney to actually do their job and represent your interests with zealous competence. That will be rare and refreshing!
In the meantime, trust, but verify.
3. Analyze the Petition for Dissolution
To start any divorce in Missouri, someone has to file a petition for dissolution of the marriage pursuant to Missouri Revised Statutes Section 452.310.
(Note: Go ahead and click on that link! It shows the laws of the state from the Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Those are all the rules. The Racketeering Enterprise™ hopes you will never read about them, so this is your chance to make them sad and get smart about the law.)
Under Missouri Revised Statutes (RSMo, for short) § 452.310, each petition must include the following elements:
The residence of each party, including the county, and the length of residence of each party in this state and in the county of residence;
The date of the marriage and the place at which it is registered;
The date on which the parties separated;
The name, age, and address of each child, and the parent with whom each child has primarily resided for the sixty days immediately preceding the filing of the petition for dissolution of marriage or legal separation;
Whether the wife is pregnant;
The last four digits of the Social Security number of the petitioner, respondent and each child;
Any arrangements as to the custody and support of the children and the maintenance of each party; and
The relief sought
This Is Important: If there is no history of domestic abuse, criminal record, mental illness, or other serious allegation mentioned in the petition, and it is not raised in a subsequent motion before the court, then it is irrelevant and you do not need to play along. If some issue is not properly pleaded before the court, such as danger to the children or parents, then it is irrelevant to the proceedings.
If your spouse is a documented domestic abuser, make sure it is pleaded. If you are accused of a history of mental illness or domestic abuse, make sure that it has been pleaded. If these things are not pleaded before the court, then they are “irrelevant” in a legal sense, and your attorney should object to their mere discussion.
Meaningless discussion of half-cooked accusations is where the Racketeering Enterprise™ makes their money. Cut this off early. If nobody pleaded anything serious, then those accusations are irrelevant bullshit designed to upset you and are not worth discussing.
Your own attorney may say, “Look, your snorting Robitussin is a real issue” or “there’s a mental illness issue we must address,” then look at the Petition or subsequent Motions. If the issue isn’t in there, then there is no issue.
Also, if you’ve raised your spouse’s three drunk driving arrests and history of robbing banks, your attorney better have raised it early in those pleadings.
The way to know what is under discussion is to have copies of the pleadings and to analyze them.
4. Refuse settlement conferences
This is huge, because if you stop this part of the Racketeering Enterprise™, it falls apart. You do not need any settlement conferences at the courthouse prior to time for trial. The attorneys are going to tell you that you must meet at the St. Louis County Courthouse and wait around while they disappear into judges’ chambers so they can force you to sign a “settlement conference order” that does not create a record for review by an appellate court. They are lying. By law, you must do a preliminary hearing after the Petition has been filed. There should be Hearings about any Motions filed in the matter. And there must be a pre-trial conference to see if any issues can be settled prior to a Trial on the merits of any Petitions or Cross-Motions. But you are not obligated to have fake settlement conferences at $2000 a pop where your attorney can hang out with their buddies and do business off the record.
Your attorney may drop you as a result of refusing to do settlement conferences. Fine. Read the rest of this series and you may not need an attorney, most likely, except to look over proposed settlements for the fine print. Even then, it’s not like the Racketeering Enterprise™ will enforce these judgments that you spend 18 months negotiating. So you might as well refuse to do settlement conferences.
Instead of settlement conferences, make sure your attorney is scheduling depositions and issuing subpoenas to elucidate the issues raised in the Petition or subsequent Motions. In other words, a settlement conference might be appropriate as long as you are actually preparing for a trial on the merits of the case. But otherwise, the settlement conference is nothing more than a tool to run up the bill while failing to create a record of the court proceedings. This helps the Racketeering Enterprise™ take your money and evade meaningful review on appeal.
Nah. Hard pass. No settlement conferences are necessary. Motions and Hearings only.
5. Resist the appointment of a Guardian ad litem
The attorneys and/or judge will desperately try to justify the appointment of a Guardian ad litem or “GAL.” Resist this with all your might.
A GAL in most states outside of Missouri is only required when neither parent is capable of considering the interest of the minor child. If the parents are mentally incapacitated, in prison, or have a documented history of abusing the child, then it is not unreasonable for the Court to ask that the child’s interest be represented by a neutral third party. If both parents are capable, there is no reason for a GAL. If both parents are squabbling, that’s called a “divorce,” and there is no reason for a GAL. If at least one parent is putting the child’s interests first and if ample records from the pediatrician and school are available to show how the kid is doing, then there is no need for the court to hire a private attorney to steal thousands of dollars from the parents under the guise of “discovery” and “representing the child.”
As thousands of parents in Missouri will tell you, the GAL is a hostile actor who will likely never meet your kids, does not care what happens to them, will not obtain records that you can’t give the court for free, will lie under oath, will fail to produce a fact-based report to the court, and is not regulated or disciplined by the state. The GALs are a small group of attorneys and are key to the Racketeering Enterprise™. They are the ones who will take your money, abuse your kids, and destroy any record of this litigation so that it cannot be reviewed by an appellate court.
If the court insists on appointing a GAL, do not sign any settlement conference order permitting it with your consent. Judges may do things sua sponte, which means on its own motion and not from the motion of a party. Otherwise, someone must make a motion to appoint a GAL. Demand a Hearing for such a Motion, and insist that this Hearing be on the record with a court reporter and a transcript of that Hearing.
If someone is going to accuse you of being a mentally-incompetent, homeless Robitussin snorter, make them do so in open court on the record. If your co-parent has a history of drunk driving, domestic abuse, or other serious problems, make sure that those issues are raised when a GAL is appointed. Make sure the GAL is appointed for a specific reason. Then, if the GAL deviates from that reason when discussing your case, object on the basis of relevance.
GALs must adhere to the guidelines of the Missouri Supreme Court, which you can read here. If they fail to perform according to these guidelines, or do something completely bizarre, you can and should report them to the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel down the line.
In the meantime, resist the addition of a GAL to the case, do not speak with the GAL without an attorney present, audio record all interactions, and get everything in writing. Create the largest record of the GAL’s performance possible. You will need that record later.
6. Prepare for trial
As you know from Part 2, the algorithm of the Racketeering Enterprise™ depends on settlement of the case, not a real trial. You, on the other hand, are only ever preparing for a trial on the merits of the case based on the issues alleged properly in the pleadings, of which you have multiple copies, and which you have analyzed.
Because you have fought tooth-and-nail against the improper appointment of a GAL, and you know what is alleged and what is not, you only need to prepare for a trial that involves the allegations before the court.
As you know, the marital assets part is almost always a 50/50 split by statute. Child support is calculated by Form 14 and is not up for much discussion. What the Racketeering Enterprise™ fake-fights about is custody of the kids.
A custody order must be issued by the court pursuant to 452.375 RSMo, which sets forth the evidence that must be considered by the judge.
(1) The wishes of the child's parents as to custody and the proposed parenting plan submitted by both parties;
(2) The needs of the child for a frequent, continuing and meaningful relationship with both parents and the ability and willingness of parents to actively perform their functions as mother and father for the needs of the child;
(3) The interaction and interrelationship of the child with parents, siblings, and any other person who may significantly affect the child's best interests;
(4) Which parent is more likely to allow the child frequent, continuing and meaningful contact with the other parent;
(5) The child's adjustment to the child's home, school, and community. The fact that a parent sends his or her child or children to a home school, as defined in section 167.031, shall not be the sole factor that a court considers in determining custody of such child or children;
(6) The mental and physical health of all individuals involved, including any history of abuse of any individuals involved. If the court finds that a pattern of domestic violence as defined in section 455.010 has occurred, and, if the court also finds that awarding custody to the abusive parent is in the best interest of the child, then the court shall enter written findings of fact and conclusions of law. Custody and visitation rights shall be ordered in a manner that best protects the child and any other child or children for whom the parent has custodial or visitation rights, and the parent or other family or household member who is the victim of domestic violence from any further harm;
(7) The intention of either parent to relocate the principal residence of the child; and
(8) The unobstructed input of a child, free of coercion and manipulation, as to the child's custodial arrangement.
Any trial on the merits must deal with these issues when it comes to a court-ordered Parenting Plan. Anything else is irrelevant. And any time you spend with your attorney should be in preparation for a trial which establishes, through substantial evidence, why your wishes as to custody under § 452.375.2(1), represented through your proposed Parenting Plan, should be what the Court also orders.
The standard under the law is an equal split of time between parents. If there is any deviation from that standard, it must be for good cause shown. That good cause is shown through substantial evidence. That will be from pediatric records, school records, any relevant medical or police records about the parents, and to a lesser degree, the in-person testimony at trial.
Here’s the low-down: In most cases, neither parent is perfect, and both should get equal parenting rights. The future relationship for the purposes of decision making in the best interest of the child will be helped or harmed by this litigation. So keep it a clean fight, do not let your attorneys ramp up the conflict, and hew very close to the evidence itself.
That means it’s your job to tell your attorney that you’re not doing the standard GAL-settlement-conference mess, and that you’re here to prep for trial.
Ask how many subpoenas are going out for records.
Ask how many have been propounded on you, and whether any of them are unreasonable and should be quashed through a motion asking the Court to limit them.
Ask when depositions are being taken. A deposition is testimony under oath prior to trial. It’s on the record and will be written down for later reference. Whatever you say in deposition better be what you say on the stand at trial. First the parties get deposed, then expert witnesses, then fact witnesses.
This is how to prepare for trial, not a bunch of endless settlement conferences. That’s how they take your house. Subpoenas and depositions are how you condense the nonsense and get your family on the road to its future.
Most cases don’t require a trial. Get to that point as quickly as possible and you’ll keep your kids and your money.
7. Resist the appointment of any psychologists by the court
There may, during trial prep, be an effort to call one or both parties mentally ill. Just as the Racketeering Enterprise™ depends on fake evidence from a GAL, they also rely on fake evidence from pseudo-psychologists.
First, some background on the role of mental illness in child rearing: it is not legal to reduce the presumptive equal parenting rights of any individual simply due to their suffering from mental illness. Being depressed or bipolar or even schizophrenic does not mean that you cannot see your children unless this mental illness demonstrably harms the children and this harm can be proven in court. Some parents are incapacitated due to mental illness, and it is not inappropriate to discuss that adult’s history of hospitalization and treatment goals when determining, pursuant to 452.375 RSMo, their capability to dole out goldfish crackers and seek a doctor’s care when the kids need it. Otherwise, it isn’t relevant.
The Racketeering Enterprise™ makes a ton of money on flinging false allegations of mental illness. To back these up, they get the judge to appoint one of their co-conspirators to produce a fraudulent “psychological evaluation.”
You can put a stop to this.
Like with the GAL, demand that such a psychologist be appointed pursuant to a Hearing on the record. Demand that the court schedule a Rule 60.01 Hearing if everyone feels so strongly about mental illness being a factor.
If they want a psychologist to evaluate the parties, then put it on the record why they need this expensive expert opinion. Any such order must be made according to good cause shown. So never agree to a psychologist in a settlement conference order. Make everyone show good cause in the form of substantial evidence on record. Make sure a court reporter is there and get a transcript of the Hearing.
Further, establish that the expert appointed to conduct such an evaluation has the licensure required by the State, training to conduct such evaluations, certification in every test they administer, and up-to-date continuing medical education for their license. Any expert testimony must be compliant with what is known as the Daubert standards of expertise, adopted by the state of Missouri in 2017 under Section 490.065 RSMo. The pseudo-psychologists of the Racketeering Enterprise™ generally do not meet these qualifications, and as such their testimony should be inadmissible. Not just unpersuasive, but inadmissible. If the court still looks like it’s going to allow a quack to testify, file a Motion in Limine, to argue that this person does not have the proper qualifications. If the judge still allows the testimony, that’s an abuse of discretion.
Apply these standards to any private expert retained by the other party as well.
Conclusion: Document everything, prep for trial, and make sure they follow the rules
Here’s the reality. If you are getting a divorce or need a court-ordered parenting plan to take care of your kids, you are vulnerable. You are probably scared, your emotions are raw, and your own childhood traumas may be causing you additional pain. That is all normal, I am sorry, and we have all been there. In that pain, you will look for good advice. Sadly, hiring an attorney is not enough to get that good advice in St. Louis and around Missouri. You need to advocate for yourself and your kids, and you need to know the law to do that.
This is your basic toolkit. Prepare to keep clean, organized documents of what is about to happen. Demand everything happen on the record. Do not be distracted by inflammatory accusations. Insist that all experts be legitimate professionals seeking information for good cause. Drive toward your day in court. Embrace your Constitutional rights to due process and to parent your children. Make sure everything is as transparent as possible.
Then, you can move on to the hard work of healing, growing as a person, and raising those wonderful kids.
You can do this.