Steve Mills and his wife have one daughter. They previously owned two coffee/ice cream shops, currently operate an internet sales company and teach classes, but his primary job involves the paper industry worldwide. Hobbies and interests lie in gardening, photography, recorded music and of course, their pets.

Have a question, or statement about the legal system.

Posted Saturday, July 19, 2008, at 12:16 PM

We have watch a divorce and custody case from the sidelines for what seems like a year or more. I will purposely avoid describing which side is which, since that does not matter in relation to my question.

One side is obviously wrong and crazy, documented with a visit to a hospital, destructive to property but more importantly the children. This case has had restraining orders, and what appears to be unlimited delays granted by the judge to the point of making the following statement and question.

The outcome has been almost certainly sealed for months. I say almost, because we have all seen some screwy judgments come out of our court system at times, and the only people benefiting from all the delays seem to be the lawyers.

Does the judge benefit from this in some way as well? Are the judges paid based on the time they spend in court? I am trying to understand why the numerous, I mean NUMEROUS, delays keep being granted.

Are they hoping that they do not have to make a ruling on it and it will go away, or be resolved in another manner?

We don't have anything personal involved in this case, but we have seen this delay granting in other cases as well and saw a case stretch over years and the legal bill run up to 3/4 of a million dollars. The person at fault had their hands slapped and the fine did not even pay a tenth of the legal fees, let alone the loss of income etc. that came about as a result of the infringement. Again, the only real winners were the lawyers.

What gives?