http://buddalelaw.com/-Stories--and--Interests-.html

I call this page "Stories" and "Interests" to reflect my approach.  Everyone has a special "story."  Below are some that captured my "interest."

Every person and every case has a story, sometimes a "cause."  These stories speak volumes about the people involved, their situation, and their circumstances.  In my story, I have been blessed with wonderful formal instruction from professors at graduate school in psychology and in law school, from supervisors in specialized training programs within major psychiatric hospitals and treatment systems, and from colleagues willing to lend another set of eyes or ears to a difficult case.  I am always learning and revising my story.

I seek to help others with their "story."  I have also been blessed with literally hundreds of "teachers" about life - my patients during twenty years as a psychologist and my clients during my law school years and beyond.  I understand everyone who comes to me has attempted to solve their problems on their own.  I work to respect efforts people have made on their own - and choose to add my advocacy efforts in line with their goals.  Listening and learning in this way constantly improves my advocacy - to help with your story.

Below are three writings reflecting my interests and efforts at advocacy: helping children in high conflict divorce and working to provide children with access to their biological fathers when these men stepped up to assume parental responsibilities.

Linda Elrod & Milfred Dale, Paradigm Shifts & Pendulum Swings: The Interests of Children in the Balance, 42 Family Law Quarterly 381 (2008).   This article covers 50 years of child custody law and was written for the Golden 50th Anniversary of the Family Law Quarterly, a publication of the American Bar Association.  Professor Linda Elrod is a distinguished family law professor at Washburn University School of Law.  She and I share an interest in helping children and parents in high conflict families.  I am one of her law students. This article tracks the developments in law, judicial systems, and social science over the past 50 years.

In the Adoption of A.A.T., 287 Kan. 590, 196 P.3d 1180 (2008)(cert. denied).  This is an adoption case where I (and two others) provided writing assistance to William Vickory, a Wichita attorney, in an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.  In the case, a biological father sought to regain his biological son after the son had been adopted.  The biological father did not know of his son until six months after the child's birth.  The biological mother had moved from New York to Kansas while pregnant and told the father the pregnancy had terminated via miscarriage.  This was not true.  The Kansas Supreme Court took almost a year to decide the controversial case.  The United States Supreme Court refused our petition to hear the case.  I have an interest in helping responsible fathers assert their legal rights and assume their parental responsibiliites.

In re KMH, 285 Kan. 53, 196 P.3d 1180 (2008)(cert. denied).  This was a case about artificial insemination.  The document is an Amicus Curiae brief written to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the children.  The case involved a dispute between the sperm contributor and the biological mother of the children. Without a written contract between the parents reflecting their agreement to co-parent the children, the biological father was denied standing to assert his claim as the children's legal father.  My position was that the children deserved both parents when both were able and willing to support them.