Family law specialist hires lobbyist to get more judges appointed

What lengths would you go to get your matter before a judge?

Mark E. Minyard, a longtime family law specialist in Newport Beach, became so frustrated by the judge shortage in Orange County Superior Court that said he hired a lobbyist in Sacramento to nudge the governor to pick up the pace on appointments.

"People think that it is somewhat unusual that I did that," Minyard laughed. "I guess it is."

Shortages of judges are a problem throughout the state, judges and attorneys say. Driving the vacancies appears to be a wave of retirements this year. Changes in the retirement system are expected to result in an even bigger exodus from the courts in January.

In Orange County, there are 12 superior court judge vacancies, according to the Judicial Council.

Minyard said another four judges are either on medical leave or are using up accrued vacation time before their upcoming retirements. He said it is taking at least six months to get a hearing on requests for temporary orders for things like child support or child-sharing disputes.

Minyard

"The people who are most disadvantaged are the self-represented underserved. People with means can hire private judges," he said.

Judges of the court are essentially powerless to do anything about the long delays, he believes. Orange County Family Law Supervising Judge Julie A. Palafox "sees her position as a calling not a job and is doing all she can to address the family law crisis," he said.

Palafox could not be reached for comment.

Minyard said he believes Gov. Gavin Newsom needs more staff working on the judicial selection process. "There are a lot of names in the pipeline," he said, "It sounds like to me they just need more manpower in the appointments' office."

Luis Céspedes, who became Newsom's Judicial Appointments Secretary in 2020, could not be reached for comment.

"We're moving expeditiously to fill these vacancies and remain focused on appointing highly qualified, well-rounded candidates from a diverse and experienced pool of applicants across all sectors of the legal community, including family law," Danella Debel, a spokeswoman for Newsom, said in an email. "The administration has launched a Judicial Mentor Program to help recruit prospective applicants from a variety of backgrounds, including outreach efforts to family law lawyers through workshops across the state."

As an example of these efforts, Debel shared a flyer from a July program where Céspedes spoke, titled "Family and Youth-Focused Practitioners: The Los Angeles Superior Court Wants You!"

Debel added, "The governor has appointed 23 judges in the last two months alone, and recent appointees with significant family law expertise include Ami Sheth Sagel to Orange County, Lenita Skoretz to San Bernardino, Sabrina Schneweis-Coe to San Joaquin, Kimberly Parker to Santa Clara, John Hinely to Sutter, Kinna Patel Crocker to Sonoma, and Sara Kirby to San Diego."

That is the irony. Newsom has been appointing superior court judges at around twice the rate of his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, during a comparable part of his term.

Newsom appointed 129 judges so far this year. The appointments have made a dent in the shortages. According to a report by the Judicial Council, there were 89 open superior court seats at the end of last month, down from 103 at the end of September and 111 at the first of the year.

"We're constantly seeing judges getting appointed," said Alphonse F. Provinziano, a family law practitioner at Provinziano & Associates in Beverly Hills.

"In family courts in Orange County, they are very backlogged, primarily because they don't have enough judicial officers and resources," he added.

Provinziano said backlogs in family courts have been "a perennial problem," especially in overburdened counties like San Bernardino. But the issue appears to have gotten worse. Courts are statutorily required to hear some family law motions within 21 days, but backlogs have often pushed these out to "four or five times" that long.

"You can only imagine if child custody is involved," Provinziano said. "A judicial officer we were in front of said, 'I'm going to give you this date, but I have many, many domestic violence cases and you may not be able to go forward on that date.'"

Minyard, who has practiced family law for nearly 47 years, is writing a series of articles published in the Daily Journal about the judge shortage and also why he believes family law courts get short shrift in courts' allocation of judges.

He said he decided in early July to hire a lobbyist "to be a nice squeaky wheel" in the judicial selection process. But he didn't just hire any lobbyist to make his case in Sacramento. He hired Jason Kinney of Axiom Advisors, who is known as a close friend of the governor (infamously when they were photographed dining together at The French Laundry for Kinney's birthday during the governor's pandemic lockdown in 2020).

"He's a very likable guy and very connected," Minyard said.

Kinney could not be reached for comment, and his disclosure forms with the Secretary of State do not list Minyard as a client. Axiom offers a variety of related services, including consulting and strategic communications.

Minyard in a followup email said that he had used the word "lobbyist" colloquially. He said he didn't know who Kinney was before he hired him.

"The way this started was that I called all the people that I knew who I thought had influence with the governor. They did not have influence or did not want to use it. One of my friends knew Jason and asked if I was willing to spend money to be a squeaky wheel. I said yes, and he made the intro."

Asked exactly what Kinney was being paid to do, Minyard laughed and said, "Well I don't know."

"I think what they are supposed to do is rattle the cage for you and ask questions and be diplomatic and motivate the powers that be to do whatever you've asked them to do, which in my case is not partisan," Minyard said.

"I'm not lobbying for any particular person to become a judge. I'm just saying of the people in the pipeline, 'Can you push harder?' Nobody loses here. Everybody wins. The guy who becomes a judge wins. The governor wins because he doesn't have me writing articles. The lawyers win because they don't have clients unhappy with them because cases are continued out seven months. The judges win because they can take the time they need to make decisions that are judicious."