The most shocking and impactful moment in my developing desire to become a Family Lawyer was when I witnessed two parents struggling with addiction, terminate their parental rights due to substance abuse. Every person in the room was crying. At that moment, I committed to never do a Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) again, and to become a family lawyer.
After leaving the ivory tower of law school and a brief stop in corporate America, I entered the world of domestic litigation. This was a place where I did some good, but the overwhelming stench of self-absorbed lawyers seeking to increase their financial bottom line, judges with too many cases to truly care, and misguided clients focused on winning, caused me to reevaluate my professional choice.
In one instance, I had a case that was prime for settling but the opposing counsel did not want to settle the case because they were going to make more money if the settlement was delayed until the day of the trial. The unnecessary stress and anxiety just for some extra coin was disheartening. So was a judge telling me in chambers that no matter what the evidence yields he would only grant every 2nd, 4th, and 5th weekend for child access.
So there I was, a former family law fellow, with a desire to add value to families, but struggling to navigate a system where you have thousands of filings in one year in one jurisdiction, overloading the system, making it unable to provide support, perspective, and counsel for families in conflict. What I learned in law school and while clerking was the polar opposite of what domestic litigation truly is.
Thus, I created Biadvo, to truly help parents advocate for the best interest of their children. The name stands for Best Interest (Bi) and Advocacy (Advo). It’s an online platform with free resources and also paid resource options. In essence, it is like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer for co-parents. Once completed you can file your co-parenting agreement with any court to get a child custody, access, and support order, or you can use it to modify an existing one. The worksheet is the blueprint for you to build your co-parenting agreement.
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