Investigating your attorney. Is it a good idea? You can bet your cheesecake it is!

Attorneys can scheme tactics against opponents, and hire detectives to win a case. Should the public investigate them and their activities before engaging services?


An attorney is operating a business. With divorces and civil suits, lawyers have the capacity, tools and connections to destroy or improve lives while profiting and sometimes stringing parties out over months and years. They have proven schemes at their fingertips, to utilize the courts and police to further a case. They can even be connected to the underworld through their businesses and associations.

There is no real police system, because the Bar Association seldom seriously prosecutes its own. And lawyers rarely sue lawyers for the benefit of the public-at-large, so they're well-protected among comrades. In Virginia, 1960's lawyers tied up a widow's estate for nine years. By the time lawyers delivered what was left, her children were grown. In Maryland recently a distraught divorcee fled the state of Georgia in fear for her life, sanity and safety after dirty legal tricks were played against her utilizing Georgia's twisted divorce laws. Still she's stalked and fearful of living a life near anything comparable to normal, because of tailing stasi-style-detectives and ongoing, costly, geographically complicated Georgia "legal" divorce loose-ends. After an encounter with Georgia justice–– expect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to come to a screeching halt. It's a big-business game down there.

Lawyers use children in Georgia courts to send their own parents to hell. More than one mother has fled the state looking back at Georgia and the family left behind like it's communist North Korea. They sever relationships and destroy families. The more successful lawyers love the inheritance money they "earn" (that would otherwise go to the children) with their scheming advice to totally destroy a spouse and parent.

In investigating curiosities regarding lawyers, information is relatively easy to gather. There might be associations, religious affiliations for moral character, or one might find whether they're involved in politics with possible powerful connections spanning states. Have they cared for politics enough to donate to candidates? Are they sports oriented? Do they have hobbies? Have they represented criminals or criminal organizations? Which civic organizations are they connected with and how have they contributed to their communities? Country clubs? Golf networking? Are they involved in improving communities? Family oriented? Or are they involved mostly in personal endeavors and success? Criminal or disciplinary records?

Most people aren't aware the information that's free and available regarding the general population, including attorneys, business owners, managers, directors, and professionals. What's usually hidden is a networking machine lubricated with human connections. For instance, you might hire an attorney to find out he's also employed by a friend of your opponent - an obvious conflict of interest. Or you might find a networking group of attorneys and businesses connected to the highest offices of government. At the very worst there could be a networking system tied to organized crime.

Here are some examples, including a gossipy but relevant story regarding Georgia's House Speaker, Glenn Richardson, who proves lawyers and legislators often play by a different set of rules. Caught with a mistress, Richardson was able to quietly divorce his wife in a about month's time and carefully seal the records. For a person without a lawyer's license in Georgia this would be nearly impossible. But looking further at Mr. Richardson's law practice you will find that his firm handles the legals for the county of Paulding, and among his comrades are those invested in banking, at Westside Bank, including Congressman Phil Gingrey.

Note Richardson didn't concoct stories about his wife, have her thrown on the streets, have her arrested to coerce her to sign papers, or spar over the children or child support. He didn't plot to get an "incurable insanity" verdict and have her locked away in a filthy state institution for life. The last article I read indicated Richardson's income was under $20,000 per year: poverty! He didn't drag the case out over months or years, or drag her long distances to comply with court orders and postponed-at-the-last-minute trials. He didn't force her to live in motels or in the streets while lawyers dickered over the money. He had the tools in his offices, and connections in the courts to handle his situation so it would do the least social, financial, emotional, and physical damage to himself, his wife, his mistress, and his children. Quite respectful for him, but tragic for other Georgians who don't have Richardson's position and authority.

Georgia attorney, Michael Broadbear's family is socially and politically active in the Atlanta social scene and Republican party. He's a former captain in the U.S. military. He's aligned with powerful people, like former Secret Service officer, Homeland Security expert Robert Fisak. Mr. Broadbear assisted Mr. Fisak in setting up his security business. Broadbear's past and present business connections range from a pipe and tube company in Tampa, to truckers, to contacts in Germany. He's well connected in business and legal circles with years of experience. One of his companies is

HERE

More than one successful, Georgia businessman profited from 911 and homeland security, including Mr. Jerry Vereen who was able to form a security uniform business, coincidentally, on that very day. Lawyers represent businesses everywhere, and there are incredible and powerful social, political, and business networks that revolve around them.

Another Georgia attorney, Theodore Erck, has an interesting list of past customers, with tentacles reaching to Alabama, Knoxville, Florida and Georgia and branching to Texas. The Erck family name and Mr. Broadbear share a "Heidelberg" restaurant connection from the past, and both are in some way connected to Germany, past or present. Besides his membership in Swift Boats Veterans, Mr. Erck appears to be a stauncher-than-staunch Republican, his donations available at the NEWSMEAT site. One of his affiliations is connected to short term storage facility design, his clients having a wide array of interests, and curiously, he also has an association with the

CHEESECAKE INDUSTRY

and paint horses, which will lead us to yet another company and cheesecake affiliated attorney. He was one of the transplanted financial wizards steering the engineering/architecdtural design ship called "Facility Group" in Cobb County, Georgia.

I've wondered since whether, while we lived in Charlotte and my husband managed the construction and track maintenance machinery for the railroad whether he might have known some of Facility Group's "Carlson" Charlotte employees. There it was known as Carlson, but not located so far from his office. Having a common interest in engineering, surely the connection was possible and the Massachusetts/Long Island origination of my husband's family made the possibility even stronger.

Curiously another Georgian in refrigeration named, Mr. Child ers, was invested in Facility Group in Massachusetts and Georgia as well. Imagination suggests Mr. Child ers was introduced to the group because of his cheesecake worthy refrigeration machines. But we could be wrong! He's apparently not a lawyer but he was somehow heeled-in.

Since my late son, Gerard J. Sniffen, III, disappeared down south of Atlanta before allegedly terminating his own life in the midst of a dirty Georgia divorce latent with questionable lawyers, it's good to know what kind of people are doing business down there. If those Georgia lawyers would scheme for their client to put a grieving mother in jail while her son's being buried–– nothing is beneath them. Facility Group seemed to have influence, not only in building court house facilities, but in school systems, as well. The day my daughter came home saying she'd been called to the front of class at Harrison High School and asked if I "beat" her, was shocking enough. Her honest answer kept me out of more hot water. "Those are birth marks," she said. She'd had them from the day she was born. Maybe the school was interested in my divorce, as well.

Speaking of engineering, the engineering department of Norfolk Southern railroad just loved to entertain Cobb County commissioners. I'd recalled seeing some of those at a Christmas Party hosted by VP Engineering, Phil Ogden and his department in Atlanta not long before my son disappeared and died. The Railroad's "Lawmen" are a pretty good group who moonlights as musicians when they're not being police. These Christmas parties in Cobb County can be pretty damaging for some of us uninvited, as one attorney mentioned, "I was at a Christmas Party last night with Judge Grubbs and Michael Broadbear and we were laughing about you and your case." It wouldn't have hurt so bad if he hadn't been on my payroll. So much for attorney-client privilege!

Another attorney was associated with a Georgia guy named Bruce Rains. Why did CPA Rains pick up and move elsewhere to practice? Because somehow he and his accomplices owed more than $6 million in some form of criminal plot. He seemed to find immediate clients in another state!
So good networking can be profitable, while darker networking can move on to landlords, real estate, banks, credit authorities, and cross state lines to politicians, "brotherhood" lawyers, and retired military networkers. A naive, unsuspecting defendant might soon find himself living beside a US Air Force base, at the mercy of a drug involved-landlord who spent years at Dachau, Germany; and flee the area only to be tortured and stalked by organized criminals, and losing everything–– children included - across state lines!

Crime pays! And the American justice system quite often fails or even assists the crafty criminals and legally astute schemers.

There's another lawyer in Georgia named George Childs. He had a client who had a medical collections business in Florida, that she later moved to Georgia after her husband mysteriously and suddenly died. The lawyer she had in Florida, Mr. Gruver, was unfortunate and died in a car crash. So now, it appears Mr. Childs is handling collections his Georgia client can't. Mr. Gruver was collecting for other Florida medical collectors, as well, and one had connections to Monroe, NC.

So when a medical bill collector contacts you, it pays to be a little suspicious.

Child's partner, Jim Knight, left the partnership several years back and appears to have connections outside Georgia somewhere around Fernandina Beach, the border beach of Florida/Georgia.

Then there's Identity Ventures, and Mr. Mark Bailey, whose name is actually Keith Markland Bailey. He boasts at his site his wife works at Jones Day, a huge international law firm. His connections with his company,

IDENTITY VENTURES

span from Texas to Israel and involve retired military intelligence officers, and multi-millionaire real estate guru, General A. Bowen Ballard. These are powerful people to place on a web site! The Destin office is shown here, with visiting vehicles bearing Texas tags.



But so what? Jack Abramoff worked for a huge, global law firm–– Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff is in prison and will probably be out before his trail of comrades and associates are sent to join him, if they're ever weeded from society at all.

Moving on to Kentucky an exiting attorney cautioned this author to be very careful because Kentucky has attorneys who can get people killed. So if attorneys can get people killed it's all the more reason to investigate–– if you dare.

What percentage of your state legislature, county or town government is controlled by lawyers? What about attorneys seated on corporate boards? You can bet a cheesecake, their numbers in key positions are pretty high.

It's a good thing most attorneys are honest, and Americans can count on them to save this country from those who aren't. But it doesn't hurt to imagine if the world would graduate more doctors, and less lawyers her people would live longer, happier, and healthier lives.

NEXT: Coroners and how they're selected, and trained.