Coparent Academy Podcast
Lifechanging Coparenting
Coparent Academy Podcast
#100 - Conversation with Louisiana Therapist Connie LeBlanc - Part 1
This week we're joined Connie LeBlanc, Marriage & Family Therapist, MS, LPC, LFMT. Connie has decades of experience helping families in Louisiana. She's also Linda's very best friend. In this episode, we discuss some of the differences in family court procedures in Louisa, Oklahoma, and Virginia.
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Hi podcast listeners. This is Linda and I'm here with Ron and my bestie who is also a therapist for many years and her name is Connie LeBlanc and she is from Lafayette, louisiana, and we actually met about 15 years ago on the fairgrounds in New Orleans at Jazz Fest and we've just been extremely close every since and have had each other to just run cases by and do a lot of consulting about various things therapy wise. We both have worked with the court cases and we've both been long time members of the Association of Family Conciliation Courts, which has given us a chance to see how things are similar in various states, much less around the world in other countries, but also how things can be different and, surprisingly, some things may be similar. Our listeners know that we come from Oklahoma, but some things can be more similar to Oklahoma courts in Australia or someplace compared to how it would be in Louisiana.
Speaker 2:I have found oh well, it's great to be here and to support my friends. I'm a regular podcast listener. Every Monday I get to hear my wonderful friends from Oklahoma talk about cases and how to help people going through divorce. My primary focus is helping children. I've done lots of teaching, as well as acting as a parenting coordinator in Louisiana and working for the courts.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm just excited to be here with these ladies, and so I primarily am going to do what I should do more often and just shut up. So please, please, take it away.
Speaker 1:Evidently Ron Hessman, sometime around the two of us, because we, when we do get to be together, we do a lot of talking. So no, we really want your input on this, and primarily, I think, with the legal side of things, because I have noticed a lot of things to be. For example, what are the interesting differences I've noticed, especially with what I do a lot? I work a lot with Guardi that Lightham's in Oklahoma and they represent the children's best interest and kind of do some I see it kind of like detective work to find out what's really going on in a case, and so they, like myself, do a lot of talking to the child. But you guys don't have Guardi that Lightham's.
Speaker 2:We do not. There are custody evaluators who do this sort of thing, but primarily the information is gathered by the attorneys On both sides that are representing the Right.
Speaker 1:It's really yes.
Speaker 2:And so things are presented in my jurisdiction, or the jurisdictions that I work within, to a hearing officer and the hearing officer tries their best to get it fixed or taken care of. At one point we thought there'd be lots of mediation in Louisiana, but it doesn't really happen. You go to a hearing officer and the hearing officer tries to make decisions to let the couple go with. But if it goes to trial what we have is a situation where once it is judged by the judge, then it becomes very difficult to change whatever orders are there. So many people try to go with the hearing officer information so that they don't get it so caught in stone on how things have to be with the child.
Speaker 1:So when they've been with the hearing officer, can he finalize the divorce, really, really final, or then does it go in front of the judge.
Speaker 2:No, it's just. It can be signed by a judge, but it doesn't have to do. It doesn't have to go directly to the judge to get a final judgment on it. The hearing officer recommendation can go, and sometimes I'll get orders for parenting coordination, for instance, either from a hearing officer or from a judge.
Speaker 1:Wow, Okay, well, that would be like a guardian and item, for example. You don't really order things, though, do you? You would do a recommendation. Sometimes I've received a GAO recommendation to do something with the child.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the GAO's through the recommendations. The hearing officer sounds more like our version of a parenting coordinator, where a parenting coordinator can issue recommendations or decisions and then those go to a judge, and if the judge accepts it it becomes an order of the court. The judge doesn't have to accept it, though. Is that kind of like what a hearing officer does?
Speaker 1:I think they have more power than the PCs. It sounds to me like.
Speaker 2:A PC would be totally different. As an appointed PC I'm appointed, so if parents cannot work together then I have to sit with them and try to get them to get along. There becomes a time that if they can't make a decision then I have to present it, my recommendation, to the court and then it becomes an issue. Then it becomes an order. But normally couples would get custody agreement. They try to work toward a custody agreement with all of those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:I think I need to go backwards and say that they only judge community property, custody and child support. Excuse me, so that's all that we can address the court with it's the custody stuff that gets real icky and sticky on who gets how much custody, how much time, who gets primary custody. Most of the time in our jurisdiction is joint custody with a custodial parent who has, I say, 51% of the votes, so they have more decision-making. But then when you have that, then you have to be able to give all the information to the person who is not custodial and it puts a lot more pressure on the custodial parent to do it that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So you're saying the PC can recommend something. That then becomes an order.
Speaker 2:They can, but it was something I avoided at all costs. I wanted them to learn. The idea was for them to learn how to do it themselves. So it was almost like didactic at the same time or teaching at the same time, and I would begin the process with two-hour sessions with the two individuals where they could come in and give me whatever background information they needed to give. They could bring new wives, parents, anybody they wanted to, but the first session we then began in the present and not the past, and we brought up whatever issues were there who picked up the kids after school, who had lots of times it was stuff like shoes and who had the shoes.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a typical PC thing here too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean literally. In the last week I made a recommendation about shoes going back between the houses, because one parent gets new shoes so the parent doesn't think they need new shoes, and so one parent will let the cake go outside and play in the dirt in the new shoes and the other parent thinks they should only be for school and be taken off when they get home and then play in old shoes. It's that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Well and belts. They can fight more over an $8 belt than anything I've ever seen. I'm scared. I don't think belts will ever come up. Well, belts. The kids have to wear belts more in Louisiana than they did in Oklahoma. They have to wear belts to school. They cannot go to school without a belt.
Speaker 1:There are more private church schools, I think there. Oh, I see.
Speaker 2:But even the public schools. They have to wear belts. They do Interesting and they wear uniforms to school.
Speaker 1:They do. Okay, see, we don't wear uniforms as much as this one.
Speaker 3:I have some questions about, procedurally, the hearing officer. Co-parenting is complicated. No matter how good your relationship is with your co-parent, unnecessary conflict makes everything harder, not just for you but for your child. Produce co-parenting conflict. Live a happier life Practical courses solving real problems Co-parentacademycom start today.
Speaker 3:So when you go in front of a hearing officer, is it who walls in the room? Is it like a trial? Yes, so you have both parties and if they have counsel, they both have their counsel. And is the hearing officer receiving evidence by a person being sworn under oath and testifying? Yes, are there objections that they make? Yes, so it's just like a trial in front of a judge, but it's happening in front of a hearing officer. Yes, see, they have something like that in Virginia which I used to do when I lived in Virginia. It called a commissioner and chanceery, and a commissioner and chanceery could handle a lot of issues as well, and I used to be a commissioner and chanceery for partition suits. So if you had real property and you had eight family members and they couldn't figure out what to do with it, there would be a partition suit where you would take evidence about what they think should happen and all of that stuff, but that's what it sounds like to me. So it's a judge, except not called a judge.
Speaker 2:They dress in robes, and I think you probably are correct. The big problem is, once the judge is gone before then the burden of proof becomes really, really difficult to change anything that's been done. So it's unlikely that custody will not be changed, that that visitation will not be changed, and so the going before hearing officer gives them the ability to make changes if they need to.
Speaker 1:So we go back in front of the same hearing officer three years later, or whatever.
Speaker 2:And they stayed with the same hearing officer and the same judge.
Speaker 1:And they don't change who's the hearing officer in family law. Very often I don't think either did.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 3:So if they disagree with the decision of a hearing officer, do they then essentially appeal it to the judge?
Speaker 3:That's exactly right, and it starts over brand new, as if the hearing officer had never had the hearing. Yes See, that's so. That has another parallel to Virginia, because in Virginia for custody visitation and child support they have what's called a juvenile and domestic relations district court and that court has limited discovery, Usually doesn't have court reporters and all of the decisions made are subject to what's called a NOVO review. So if you appeal it to the circuit court, which is like the district court in Oklahoma, then it's like the hearing in front of the juvenile domestic relations court judge never happened. It's a brand new hearing for the first time in front of the circuit court judge. So it sounds extremely similar to that process.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Interesting.
Speaker 1:I just love hearing this.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's fascinating, I think, because the ability for the child to be represented doesn't happen in Louisiana. As far as I'm concerned Now, as a therapist, I've been invited to back a child up in a room with a hearing officer, but I had to sit behind her so that she could not literally back the child out. I literally backed the child up to give her courage. She asked that I be able to. She wanted to speak to the hearing officer and she asked that I go with her.
Speaker 3:So when that happens, when a child speaks to the hearing officer, are the parents in the room?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Okay, are the attorneys in the room?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:So it's just the child and the hearing officer and if they need, then you could be there as well to provide support for the child and in that particular instance the hearing officer asked me questions after the child stopped speaking, Gotcha.
Speaker 2:But I've also been in another case where the judge listened to everything and didn't do anything the child wanted, Right. So it's not necessarily guaranteed.
Speaker 1:Well it's what he is here to. Yeah, but I, there have been lots of times when children have said they wish I could be with them just in the room when they talk to the judge. They want to talk to the judge, but they are scared to death of the circumstances. Sure, so that is really cool. I don't think I've all our conversations. I don't think I've ever heard you talk about that and didn't think to ask about that.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite stories is the little girl that said yes, ms Connie, I went to talk to a guy in a black dress.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Like we assume that kids know what the circumstances is and you know, they just don't sometimes.
Speaker 1:So many teenagers now like to think that they get to go talk to the judge and tell them what they want. How old does the child have to be there to talk to the hearing officer?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I know that the child does not make their decisions until they're 18. They have to be full 18 before they can really push anything that they want.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so they often I mean they do occasionally do it, but I've only gone to court with them twice, so that sort of says. And in those cases both of those cases I was not appointed by the court. Now I have testified as a parenting coordinator and a therapist and actually a custody evaluator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something else. They do a lot more custody evaluations and just the therapist the master's level therapist, license therapist always get the PC work and the custody evaluations. My first time she did custody evaluations was like oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so in Oklahoma it's usually only a PhD level that does the custody evaluations, but LPCs can be parenting coordinators. We just don't do that much anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody asked me again this week. It had been a long time since anybody had even asked if I do it and I said, oh no, but are they primarily? Are PCs primarily mental health professionals there, or is it a little mix of both attorneys in mental health?
Speaker 2:I haven't done it in a while but I think it's mostly mental health professionals Interesting. I could get you a copy of the statute because I have the statutes from whatever my ability to operate.
Speaker 3:Well, it seems like the focus that we get in Oklahoma is that attorneys send their clients to PCs to fix immediate acute problems. It sounds like in Louisiana there's more of a holistic view to the role of the PC and educating and sort of retraining the parents to not need to come to the PC in the first place, which is what we would prefer to do in Oklahoma, I think.
Speaker 1:I do hear that difference there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just that we wind up having more of an emphasis forced on us of not taking the time to train the parents, because we have in our statute the requirement that after we meet, you're supposed to, within 20 days, follow a report that's either a recommendation or a decision.
Speaker 2:I'm appointed for a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, we have appointments for three years or two years or whatever, but when we meet with someone, the expectation is you're going to meet with them, you're going to hear the problem If they can't reach an agreement. You're going to file a recommendation or a decision within 20 days and then they may litigate that. I would love to be able to have the opportunity to spend more time with parents to train them, like to help teach them how to better communicate and do these things, but that's. I don't think that's the expectation that's created for PCs in.
Speaker 1:Oklahoma? Not at all. You're right, it's a very acute gosh. Every time they try to exchange this kid there's a fight, and so that one issue is typically what they come to the table with, and the thing with the PC work. To me it is kind of like a two-sided thing because of the way we've done it for so long and the filing of a report to the court, the recommendations, that kind of thing seems so legalistic to me. I think and that's why I've cited the long-time jury had given me templates of how he wrote the PC reports, because there was that time frame that we had to get it done and I just I followed that, but I still felt like, oh, they're going to know, a lawyer didn't write this.
Speaker 3:Which may be better.
Speaker 2:Well, it's really much more of a general situation. They keep going back to court, and so the judge says, OK, you've got to learn how to do this better. And so there's not. In fact, I've never written a report on what I think it needs to be.
Speaker 3:Interesting.
Speaker 2:I get them to say OK, you tell me your position on this and I want your full position and your full position. Then I will bring it together and present it to the court in the best way I know how. So how do you present that thing? You do it in a legal document.
Speaker 1:OK, so you do write a report about that. Yes, ok, but it's not really your decision. It's what they agreed.
Speaker 2:This is what I say, this is what they want. This is how I think it should go. I mean, parents need to be able to make decisions about their children, and I'm so trained in mediation and I think I go to mediation so much of the time to look at how do you get to win-win. There's got to be a way that both of you can get something to make it better for your kids, and occasionally they just won't, but most of the time I was able to help them find some solution to how you get the gym bag or how you get the belt or what do you do. And sometimes people that aren't in the middle of the conflict can look at it and go what about this? And they go.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, no, that's true, it sounds like you. It sounds like what you're doing in Louisiana is like 80% will be what we call the Co-parenting Counseling.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And 20% PC work.
Speaker 1:Yes, very, very good way to put that. I was thinking about that while ago, thinking about how much percentage was which. So, yeah, I think so, and I'm real comfortable in the lane of doing the Co-parenting Therapy, which sounds a lot like what you're talking about too. And then sometimes I can get them to a point where, ok, take this back to your attorneys and make it so, but I'm not the one who writes that up usually.
Speaker 3:Well, I feel like this was a really interesting conversation about the differences between Louisiana and Oklahoma, and I feel like I'm hearing an entirely separate conversation about Co-parenting, counseling and some of the mistakes that parents make when they get separated and divorced and that kind of thing. That could be because it's got a different feel to it, right? So why don't we end this for now and then we'll have a twofer with Connie? There you go, because why not? She's here, she can't leave. You drove her here.
Speaker 1:She doesn't know where the keys are. She doesn't know where the keys are so. I think I do.
Speaker 3:Oh no, she probably does so we'll be back next week and we will talk about, more generally speaking, co-parenting, counseling and some of the mistakes and how Connie, over the years, has tried to give some advice to parents about how to do it better when they're in a divorce or separation situation. Sound like playing. Sounds good. Sounds good to me. All right, thanks everybody. Thanks for listening. You are not as lucky as I am, because I'm here with Linda.