The Fortress: The Consequence of Protecting Justice

by Gretchen Rachel Hammond
Part four of five

[F]amily members, like so many others in Oakland County and across Michigan, feel helpless. In trying to find legal counsel for themselves or their loved ones, they scoured the State Bar of Michigan’s website and methodically contacted each on its substantial list of estate, probate and elder law attorneys.

According to numerous families who spoke with this investigation, if their case has anything to do with the Oakland County Probate Court, attorneys either declined to represent them or asked for an unaffordable retainer.

Two such attorneys stated that the reason was a high probability of facing punitive sanctions or a disciplinary investigation by Michigan’s Attorney Grievance Commission for challenging a probate judge’s appointee.

They spend day-after-day desperately seeking help from the Attorney General, and, since their cases involved public administrators appointed as guardians and conservators, State Public Administrator Michael Moody. ...

A Task Force of Their Own

MI AG Dana Nessel

During the run-up to last year’s election, [Mimi] Brun and[Jayne} Collins met with then–candidate for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who pledged to do what her predecessor had refused and take their complaints about the Oakland County Probate Court seriously.

During a March 25 press conference at her office in Lansing, she announced the creation of an Elder Abuse Task Force. With the participation of Michigan Supreme Court Justices Richard Bernstein and Megan Cavanaugh, Nessel presented a number of reforms to Michigan’s guardianship system as among their primary goals.  Although attendance to the press conference was restricted only to members of the press, [Randy] Asplund, McCasey, Abood, Rice-White and her husband Jeff went to Lansing anyway.

There, alongside families fighting probate cases in both Oakland and Wayne counties, they carried signs demanding an investigation of Michigan’s probate courts and asked Nessel’s staff if they could join the event.

Since it was their lives and those of their loved ones that had been devastated by the probate courts, they were surprised to be denied access. During the press conference, no mention was made of investigations into alleged crimes committed by probate judges, public administrators or attorneys. Supreme Court Communications Director John Nevin told a reporter that “we don’t have specific instances of wrongdoing.”

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The Fortress: Part Four of Five: The Consequence of Protecting Justice