Contact: Bai Macfarlane, 440-871-5404, 330-690-8942

MEDIA ADVISORY, April 15 /Standard Newswire/ -- On tax-day Ohio residents are asking for an investigation of the divorce lawyers who waste tax dollars for their own personal profit.

Bai Macfarlane, the organizer of the call for investigation says, "Court-appointed lawyers don't follow Ohio law. They don't tell faithful spouses that the spouse forcing divorce is responsible for the full contribution to the family home. Instead, the lawyers charge clients for "pre-trial" meetings and coerce reliable spouses to sign papers, though there is no reason for a divorce case at all."

Taxpayers end up paying for split families according to the Institute of American Values in Washington DC. They are releasing a new report today, "The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and all 50 States." Ben Scafidi, Ph.D., economics professor at Georgia College & State University is the principal investigator of a report. This report "quantifies for the first time the astounding cost to governments from family fragmentation."

The request for investigation of Ohio lawyers comes from Macfarlane's non-profit educational organization, Mary's Advocates. Others asking for the investigation include a clinical social worker, civil rights activists, the secretary of an 8-county parent teachers association, and court watch organizations. All of Ohio is being invited to join: www.marysadvocates.org/eventsnews/tax_famad.html

They cite Ohio law describing families' rights during one-year separation:

• If the spouse wanting to force divorce can't prove fault-based grounds, he has no allowable reason to start any litigation until after one year of separation.
  
  
• The children and faithful spouse have the right to keep their normal routine with no visitation schedule forcing children leave home for half the free days.
  
  
• The spouse trying to force divorce is responsible for all his contributions in upbringing of children, household maintenance and financial support.
  
  
• If the spouse trying to force divorce neglects obligations to maintain the marital household, anyone could sue to reimburse costs to provide for family.
  

Pat Fagan, an experienced family therapist, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Social Services Policy in the federal government, reported nearly a decade ago on "The Effects of Divorce on America." Fagan said, "Mounting evidence in social science journals demonstrates that the devastating physical, emotional, and financial effects that divorce is having on these children will last well into adulthood and affect future generations."

Bob Lynch, an Ohio lawyer who doesn't profit from divorce says, "The legislatures' one year waiting period would allow for reconciliation and not force a capable spouse to be in adversarial litigations, with forced home sales, or coerced mediation leading to family break-up. Faithful spouses are coerced in the courtroom hallway to agree to child visitation arrangements they would never accept if given opportunity to calmly explain to a judge the disruption to their kids' lives. Additionally, it's normal practice to initially fabricate fraudulent grounds for divorce, proceed to drag the case out over one year, then proceed on the one-year rule without ever having to prove the initial fraud."

Lynch says, "Presently, lawyers are charging for legal services while grounds for divorce don't exist."