Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

1) Do not attempt on cellphone! Or, probably, in just one sitting.  2) This post shows how I systematically I work, and how any analysis of a single story’s context can take on its own life.  3)  If nothing else, get to the section quoting the Association of Computing Manufacturing (ACM) 2016 article on The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth,” “Five Orders of Ignorances” and why this is so important in the fields of domestic violence advocacy and the family courts,  or the reform of such courts  4) Some of my links to off-ramped posts, with title and shortlink, aren’t yet published.  Some are, but not all.  To find out, just click on the links.  

‘How reporting domestic violence [allegedly] works against women in family court.’ (per TheMarshallProject.org: EIN# 46435634, reporting focus CRIMINAL justice system + ‘LongReads’ ℅ Automattic.Inc. [Runs WordPress]: reporting focus narrative storytelling) July 8, 2020. [My ShortPost, Begun May 30, 2022, but only Published, @15.7K words, July 25, 2023]].  (short-link ends ‘eD2’).The post title features the article’s descriptive subtitle.  Its main title is: “She Says Her Husband Hit Her: She Lost Custody of Their Kids”

‘How reporting domestic violence [allegedly] works against women in family court.’ (per TheMarshallProject.org: EIN# 46435634, reporting focus CRIMINAL justice system + ‘LongReads’ ℅ Automattic.Inc. [Runs WordPress]: reporting focus narrative storytelling) July 8, 2020. [My ShortPost, Begun May 30, 2022, but only Published, @15.7K words, July 25, 2023]].  (short-link ends ‘eD2’).The post title features the article’s descriptive subtitle.  Its main title is: “She Says Her Husband Hit Her: She Lost Custody of Their Kids”

Opening Paragraphs, Points of Reference, Terms, Which Court Professionals (not) Named: What’s It Actually Saying? TheMarshallProject, July 8, 2020 ‘How Reporting DV works against women in Family Courts’ [ContentMoved Here July 25, 2022]. (short-link ends “-eWG”),

so pro-forma,<–Investopedia; Merriam-Webster:(“Carried out in a perfunctory way or as a formality”),

so boilerplate<–Merriam-Webster; Investopedia: (“standardized text, copy, documents, methods, or procedures that may be used over again without making major changes to the original… for efficiency and to increase standardization”),

so lacking originality in approach,and contributing so little to the field or public knowledge about it,”

^^New Off-ramp:

Opening Paragraphs, Points of Reference, Terms, Which Court Professionals (not) Named: What’s It Actually Saying? TheMarshallProject, July 8, 2020 ‘How Reporting DV works against women in Family Courts’ [ContentMoved Here July 25, 2022]. (short-link ends “-eWG”),

As an investigative blogger — I investigate, I also write it up — I benefit personally (except financially, where it’s a loss) more than any reader expecting my summary would.

I continue showing what, why, and how I do this in hope it will at some point become contagious: so others will — or at least can — decide to engage in looking for themselves and for themselves, through their own look-ups, build that awareness of fields — not just awareness of what experts A,B, or C have to say within their spheres of interest.

We need to understand and talk more, and relentlessly, about the infrastructure of BOTH domestic violence advocacy and father-engagement, fatherhood financial sponsorship by the U.S. government and universities (public and private both) when talking about the problems in the family courts.

That this isn’t going to happen on standard journalism or most non-profit websites (including typical “Family Court Reformist” or “Protective Parents” websites) should be obvious by now.  NationalSafeParents.org and National Family Violence Law Center (whose leading expert was quoted on this article, in association with an earlier nonprofit she started at law.GWU.edu) aren’t about to…

But how can what you just don’t know about yet be “obvious”? Someone besides me, LGH, has to stay on this and talk about it.  Time is limited, so perhaps for a change, talk about it INSTEAD OF what we’re being conditioned to, first THINK about (and too often simply told), conditioned to say, do, vote for, and tell our legislators to do.  #FamilyCourtReformists and Protective Parents (websites) specialize in this and are in that regard not much different from the fatherhood practitioners, researchers, evaluators, and service-provider organizations.

In this area— just saying “No!” to standard-protocol, points-of-reference-omitting journalism OR reporting– individuals still have some collective power — if they exercise it responsibly.

(1)  ‘How reporting domestic violence [allegedly] works against women in family court.’ (per TheMarshallProject.org: EIN# 46435634, reporting focus CRIMINAL justice system + ‘LongReads’ ℅ Automattic.Inc. [Runs WordPress]: reporting focus narrative storytelling) July 8, 2020. [My ShortPost, Begun May 30, 2022, but only Published, @15.7K words, July 25, 2023].  (short-link ends ‘eD2’).

The post title features the article’s descriptive subtitle.  Its main title is: “She Says Her Husband Hit Her: She Lost Custody of Their Kids”

**NB: My phrase “alternate reality version of family courts” (and by association family-court fiascoes) (<–Cambridge Dictionary) will become more clear below, in the section In the world of this TheMarshallProject.org / “LongReads” article, but know up front I’m not saying custody isn’t switched from mothers to system-documented abusive fathers.^ That it is, I know experientially^^ and from networking, reading, and generally.

Here, my usage of “alternate reality” refers to writing as though specific entities, and government policies, and what they’ve been doing (and were formed to do) just do not exist.

Remember the phrase “the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth”?

Such reporting is not done under that oath, “so help me God” or under penalty of perjury, as a witness providing testimony at a trial in court, so half-truths are fair game. Commitment to nothing BUT the truth (stated, or implied) is going to vary widely with the authors and publishers.

(I looked up that phrase):

[FYI, “Where Did We Get Our Oath?” (Slate.com, 4/2004), and “The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth: A Pragmatic Guide to Assessing Empirical Evaluations” (Association for Computing Machinery, Oct. 2016, Article No. 15, pp. 1-20, multi-author)]. Well-stated!

Its first reference (dated 2000) discusses The Five Orders of Ignorance.  The ACM article is discussing computer and software systems, but communicates points I’ve been making about the “family courts” field for years.

“An unsound claim can misdirect a field, encouraging the pursuit of unworthy ideas and the abandonment of promising ideas. An inadequate description of a claim can make it difficult to reason about the claim, for example, to determine whether the claim is sound. Many practitioners will acknowledge the threat of unsound claims or inadequate descriptions of claims to their field. We believe that this situation is exacerbated, and even encouraged, by the lack of a systematic approach to exploring, exposing, and addressing the source of unsound claims and poor exposition.

This article proposes a framework that identifies three sins of reasoning that lead to unsound claims and two sins of exposition that lead to poorly described claims and evaluations. Sins of exposition obfuscate the objective of determining whether or not a claim is sound, while sins of reasoning lead directly to unsound claims.

Our framework provides practitioners with a principled way of critiquing the integrity of their own work and the work of others. We hope that this will help individuals conduct better science and encourage a cultural shift in our research community to identify and promulgate sound claims.”

SINS OF REASONING LEAD TO UNSOUND CLAIMS.

SINS OF EXPOSITION LEAD TO POORLY DESCRIBED CLAIMS and EVALUATIONS.

(That’s where claims are even stated openly, but this “She Says Her Husband Hit Her: She Lost Custody of Their Kids” article doesn’t directly state, it only implies a cause-effect relationship exists between women’s reporting domestic violence and their losing custody of (unsupervised access to) their children).

COMMENTARY: “In the world of this TheMarshallProject.org / “LongReads” article:”

~~>nonprofits and federal funds targeting the family courts (under state, not local jurisdiction, remember???) do not exist (i.e. in America, WelfareReform never happened);

~~>the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and its collaborations with the National Council (sic) of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (since when is the USA run by “National Councils” — are we one giant tribe?) USA and, in the UK, with CAFCASS (the “Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service“), Resolution, and the ‘RELATE‘ federation (“The Relationship People” “Relationship Support for Eveyone”) do not exist;

Let me compile some of those acronyms and organization names (US, UK, Australia):

AFCC, NCJFCJ (USA), Cafcass (and Cafcass Cymru), the UK, Resolution (dba for “Solicitors Family Law Association,” a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales), and RELATE (The UK: “counseling for everyone…)”, all of which I’ve been referencing in this posts for years, including lookups of Companieshouse.gov.UK histories and accounts.. or Relationships Australia, either.

AFCC leadership is quite fond of Australia’s family court system; in explaining this as part of my “Commentary” I realized I’d better split that section off, as pertinent as it is to show context… There’s plenty to handle from this article and its quoted experts and two publishing/producing entities, The Marshall Project and LongReads/Automattic alone.

I’d looked into specific AFCC leadership at Denver University’s IAALS (below)/Australian Family Relationships Centres (“FRCs”) connections not too long ago, but probably not posted, so will try to get that information out soon, alongside this post…

Denver, Colorado is also relevant as home to other heavily family-court-oriented experts and/or evaluators, whether:

• producing that couples relationship curricula [Example 1, Prep, Inc, below, which is actually a whole family of privately (and most, individually) controlled LLCs and Corporations, by Scott Stanley, occasionally with Howard J. Markman and/or Galena K. Rhoades (ALL out of University of Denver), running these programs with help from government sponsorship of relationship education, i.e., a big boost from the US Department of HHS for the trademarked curricula, train-the-trainers, facilitator qualifications, diversifying market niche, and all that..]

I’m off-ramping this “Example 1” topic for further exposition to:

• Amplifying the standard USA domestic violence coalition policy, which includes NOT mentioning fatherhood or access/visitation grants to the public, or nonprofits that profit from mandated consumption of diversionary services, etc. [Example 2, NCADV.org based in Denver; that “Donate” page also shows, no mention of its EIN# or showing of its financials…], or
• supposedly in a neutral manner, evaluating government grant-funded programming, such as those promoted by access-visitation grants (mediation, etc.) and of course HMRF (marriage/fatherhood grants), Example 3, Center for Policy Research, Inc., (“CPR”) whose leader also co-directs a “Fatherhood Research and Practice Network (FRPN.org) as a joint project with (HHS grants to) Temple-University (Philadelphia, PA)— but hey, is still somehow supposedly gender-neutral and unbiased. Jessica Pearson, Ph.D. (Princeton University Ph.D. was in sociology; essentially she seems to be into demographics (Investopedia defines briefly, 2021) — likes to talk about population by their profile characteristics, from afar, and describe in a nicely detached manner, as befits the posture of neutrality) and Jane Venohr, Ph.D. )  I’ll post a LITTLE bit just below here (Example 3):
• Example 4, NACC (the National Association of Counsel for Children NACCChildlaw.org) since 1997, also has a Denver address.  The NACC (besides it’s shared conferencing and some overlapping memberships with the AFCC) works closely with the ABA Center on Children and the Law re: more lawyers in child welfare cases (hence the word “COUNSEL” — as in lawyers — for children).

Of these, I’m only providing substantial details on Example 1, and in a separate post, Example 3. Example 4 is its own major topic. Example 3, Center for Policy Research, Inc. is also a major topic unto itself (and came up early in this blog as a key to understanding the larger family court framework, i.e., overlapping people with their influence on different nonprofits and public institutions... Alongside CPR

Some CPR images may help however also under “staff” we see that founder Jessica Pearson, Ph.D. (in Sociology, Princeton), stands-out in the “our Team” photo with her aqua-blue shirt (Jane Venohr, in maroon-colored shirt) and as you can see, at least in the photo, this is all women, which historically its leadership has been.  All the more powerful when connected with AFCC (Pearson is) and specializing in adjusting child support, evaluating fatherhood and parenting time interventions, and taking personal credit for spearheading the ten  million dollars a year “access and visitation grants” so impacting the family courts USA.

Pearson’s bio under “Our Team” is light gray font on a white background; selecting any phrase makes the contrast even less visible:

[Dr. Jessica] Pearson founded CPR in 1981. Her research includes some of the first national studies of mediation in custody and visitation disputes, parent education, and supervised visitation. She has also completed leading evaluations of new initiatives in child support programs including hospital-based paternity, family-centered services, collaborations with workforce agencies, early intervention strategies, methods of avoiding and addressing child support debt, and addressing parenting time orders and access and visitation problems.

Dr. Pearson served as co-principal investigator of a seven-state demonstration project that resulted in the creation of the State Access and Visitation Grant Program that now awards $10 million annually for programs to support parenting time.

That this comes under Social Security Act, Title IV-D and is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, that by legal definition it can ONLY go to one recipient in a state per year, and that recipient MUST be a government entity, i.e., state agency. This isn’t so with the domestic violence prevention grants, at all, or even the marriage/fatherhood promotion grants. Yet “access and visitation grants” help set up and sustain the exact professions encouraged and promoted (for decades) by AFCC – of which Jessica Pearson seems to have been a very early (i.e.. 1980s or earlier) member if not founder.

I heard she was also an original founder of (David Levy, Esq.’s — d. 2014) “CRCKids.org” (Children’s Rights Council, and admitted fathers’ rights organization also featuring “access and visitation” programming and provision of services, since the mid-1980s). What I’m saying is, this is nothing if not a well-coordinated, strategic plan to get public funds justified as going into private hands to help “improve families” and transform the court systems.

How much more straightforward “we support fathers’ rights” could you get?  One wonders whether Pearson (or Venohr, or others) ever married, had children, underwent the divorce process, or ever worked primarily supported by private — versus federal, state and foundation-supported — industry:

Also note on CPR’s website, the absence of any divulging EIN# audited financial statements, or recent (or, any) IRS Forms 990 on the site.  From past look-ups, CPR isn’t that large, but it has leveraged its early entry into this field to drive it.

Example 2 (NCADV) is simple enough:  The entity isn’t legally domiciled in Colorado, but has been saying it is (on tax returns) for many years now, and it feeds off the federally-supported state coalitions against domestic violence.  Despite all those years based in Denver, NCADV to my knowledge never breathed a word about what was going on, simultaneously ℅ Denver University professors well-known in the marriage/fatherhood field.

So, EXAMPLE 1 it is, then: In this context, I referenced “Relationships Australia” and a Denver University-based, AFCC-friendly (staffed) “IAALS” there (started in 2006) particularly friendly with Australian family court practices, and even attempted to introduce such models (though it failed) locally within the last few years i.e., within the last decade.

(EXAMPLE 1 CONTENT is OFF-RAMPED TO POST (2) in this series, which is also likely to be split again into (2A) and (2B).  I’m not inserting the numbers to the post titles because I remember the last time I planned that (June, 2014), I ended up unable to post on the blog for a year and a half, resuming it only July 2016.  Due to personal life circumstances (including but not limited to litigationa nd getting driven out of my long-term lease (begun as a single Mother with children living there also), and actively/effectively prevented from engaging in a new one.  In other words, third parties had assumed and continued to enforce control over my housing options.

Resolution’s “About” Page (self-description, checked recently):

Resolution was founded in 1982 by a group of family lawyers who believed that a non-confrontational approach to family law issues would produce better outcomes for separating families and their children.

Over the decades, Resolution has maintained a commitment to a constructive way of working, enshrined in our Code of Practice, while growing to become a membership organisation for professionals that work with separating families.

(Resolution Members):

Resolution members come from many professional backgrounds, including solicitors, legal executives, barristers, financial planners and family mediators. Our membership also includes students, trainees, judges, academics and others committed to a constructive approach to family issues.

By bringing together all the different practitioners working in the family justice sphere, the ethos from Resolution’s Code of Practice spreads to new practitioners, helping ensure families dealing with separation and divorce receive the support they need to resolve their issues.

Resolution fine print (bottom of its web page):  “Resolution is the trading name of Solicitors Family Law Association (a company limited by guarantee)  Registered: England & Wales. Company no: 05234230

A few quotes showing AFCC (USA) / Australian Connection, specific to “Relationships Australia” and Family Resource Centres as a desirable model for the family courts…

Relationships Australia is government-supported and addresses, among other things, Family Violence (People experiencing or who have experienced violence).  Its fine print (bottom-right of home/About web page):

Relationships Australia acknowledges the funding provided by federal, state and local governments across Australia, which underpins the services we deliver. We thank the Commonwealth Department of Social Services and Attorney-General’s Department in particular for the ongoing trust they place in the Relationships Australia Federation to deliver crucial services in support of Australian families and communities.

And its service goal is for everyone in Australia:

We are a leading provider of relationship support services for individuals, families and communities. We aim to support all people in Australia to achieve positive and respectful relationships

If you don’t understand why I bring up Australia, perhaps seeing DU (Denver University’s) IAALS (“Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System” (IAALS.DU.edu) obsession with how Australia is handling its family court issues may help explain.

Then, again, I already was following AFCC activist members, several leads of which led here, repeatedly, including (most recently), Andrew Schepard of Hofstra University (and its AFCC-joint publication “Family Court Review”).  Searched at IAALS.

This entry (at IAALS on Schepard) shows his AFCC connections and focus, and should illuminate IAALS’ obsession with trying to import Australian (shown here) “Relationships” format to the US, basically in the back door here.  One senses regret that the USA couldn’t be more — well — like other countries with more developed mental/behavioral health, (government-funded) archipelagoes.

(Section written here, now allocated to: (2) Why Denver and the University of Denver? IAALS.DU.edu (2006ff: AFCC IAALS leaders want to import/embed Australian FamilyCourt models despite their own failed pilot 2013-2017). What Other Family-Court-Facing Entities Call Denver ‘Home’? [Begun June 18, 2022]. (case-sensitive short-link ends “-eGa”)

[That post is also likely to be split between discussion of IAALS and the Center on Family & Marital Studies referenced (depending on how much I edit this post!) above.  Thanks for your patience.  //LGH July 23, 2022]

This ends my section referencing the USA/Australia “IAALS /Australia’S FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS CENTRES” warm and fuzzy relationship with AFCC-professionals based (in part) in Denver, Colorado.

As I said above, again:

In the world of this TheMarshallProject.org / “LongReads” article:

~~>nonprofits and federal funds targeting the family courts (under state, not local jurisdiction, remember???) do not exist (i.e. in America, WelfareReform never happened);

~~>the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and its collaborations with the National Council (sic) of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (since when is the USA run by “National Councils” — are we one giant tribe?) USA and, in the UK, with CAFCASS (the “Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service“), Resolution, and the ‘RELATE‘ federation (“The Relationship People” “Relationship Support for Eveyone”) do not exist; … …

To admit AFCC exists is to notice what it’s doing, and what practices it promotes — and that’s, consistently, diversionary services, try to keep parents OUT of the courts, and mandate “dispute resolution,” “mediation” “parent education” and things psychological… including supervised visitation, batterers intervention, parent coordination, and ALL kinds of services their members just so happen to specialize in providing….  That this might negatively impact “families experiencing violence” (battered spouses) should be obvious…  But somehow not to the author Kathryn A. Joyce with support from The Marshall Project, Inc. and LongReads / Automattic…

~~>AFCC’s being a nonprofit with membership primarily focused on family court professionals (judges, lawyers evaluators court administrators, trainers, parent coordinators, some Guardians at Litem (who can also join the National Association of Counsel for Children) seeking to internationalize family court procedures, having first helped (with the ABA) legislate family courts into existence, county by county, state by state) is irrelevant

~~>and neither AFCC nor NCJFCJ were EVER involved in any financially shady operations — although AFCC was caught at this before my time (early 2000s) and I have within this blog showed NCJFCJ doing the same, when it comes to its “NCJJ” (out of Pennsylvania) which was specifically referenced in a piece available on the Ohio Supreme Court website (as if it was not part of NCJFCJ, which it is and has been all along) as having helped promote and get family courts instituted across the United States, although even by the late 1990s, not in all states and most likely not within all counties within states where they do exist). FAMILY courts are not at the state level… but (typically) county…

That these (family) courts specialize and by intent seek to divert people from the superior courts, and in doing this, specialize in offering, or mandating (individually or sometime as legislated at the state level) ordering therapeutic “attitude-revising” services supporting entire professions (such as psychologists), some of which are regulated at the state level by “Boards” — but (as I was publicizing (when I began this post draft, May 30, 2022)  the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards, (“@ASPPB”) has been — successfully so far — getting state after state to sign laws legitimizing “PsyPact” so their members can operate, if registered in one state with PsyPact, in others with the same. Based on a Twitter feed dedicated to this, it seems that PsyPact was first legislated in Arizona, then Utah, in 2016, and continued from there on.  If I can locate my Twitter thread looking into this:

________[[INSERT My, and Its, PSYPACT TWITTER FEED]]

One of the individual professionals (the judge) mentioned in this story has a Change.org petition reporting her harm, including financial ruin of families.  It took me maybe three minutes to find — but this article’s author didn’t feel it relevant? I’d like to do ALL the homework on the professionals named, but have off-ramped some of it (July 25, 2022) to:

The preview was published July 14, so the above Juy 25 off-ramp is not mentioned (yet) in its list.

There’s always:

The storyline (the hook connecting the narrative, the “clothesline” along which are strung out, usually over a very long, narrow, format with NOT so many links for supporting evidence — this is storytelling  + expert-quoting + hypothesis (Suggest causation, don’t claim it, hope the readers believe it — but whether or not they believe the hypothesis, they’re reading it…)

The on-line context (here, website courtesy TheMarshallProject.org, a website with dark black background and clear-cut stated focus on the CRIMINAL JUSTICE (not FAMILY Court) system.  The Marshall project being both “nonprofit journalism” is going to attract — and need — sponsors who get tax deductions (and public credibility, if they want their donations acknowledged) for donations — and a staff or outsourced professionals — editors, local journalists, Staff Writers, Contributing Editors, Contributing Writers were categories I found in a simple and quick view of the website.

Yet the article doesn’t do justice to the topic and distracts real victims from other probable causes of their family court woes.  I have long maintained, and still maintain, that standard storytelling and basic journalism (built on story-lines) is not a friend to those who seek system change based on system an unfair and corrupt system infrastructure.

Those who only seek to get in on the ‘retraining” to better practices (i.e., at the software, not the operating system levels speaking figuratively) of the family courts thrive on articles like this which reference problems, quote experts, but analyze little — because their format is storytelling, gesturing, indicating, NOT observation, analysis and any form of logical argumentation to support a theories, assumptions, or to in any way connect cause and effect in a way which would withstand serious questioning or debate.

Let me say this again more directly:  the “FamilyCourtReformists” (my term, I’ve defined by type who it refers to and listed many, over recent posts and on Twitter)  thrive off storytelling and letting readers “go with the flow” of unproved assumptions that lead to the pre-planned solutions desired.  This article even mentioned a few.  It took about 15 paragraphs but here’s the first “expert” quoted (emphases mine…)

Conventional wisdom has it that women automatically have the upper hand in custody fights, and a mother claiming she’s been abused has a powerful case to sway the court. But when domestic violence charges are in play, advocates and researchers suggest, mothers are often at a disadvantage.

“The legal system is set up on dealing with agreeableness,” said Margaret Bassett, then the deputy director of the University of Texas at Austin Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, who would help during Coronado’s case. Family courts often favor the parent who will cooperate to maintain their ex’s relationship with their children.

This “friendly parent” principle, sensible overall, since it’s healthy for most children to maintain bonds with both parents, can become a blind spot—or worse—in cases of alleged abuse.  ..

That’s interesting, because UTexas-Austin/ LBJ School of Public Affairs has for a LONG time (since 2011) had its fatherhood promotions, ℅ Dr. Cynthia Osborne, however I hear she’s now taken that show over to Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

I see I mentioned it (with two annotated images) in a July, 2020 update to my Oct. 2012 post on National Fatherhood Resource Centers (see first insert on the post) WHAT is a “Resource,” Corporately Speaking? National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (“NRFC”) // Fatherhood.gov [Publ. Oct. 30, 2012]. (short-link ends “-1cH”), about 12,000 words. Image gallery next: I picked those two images and two more (from Osbornes c.v.) already posted here.  That might be an interesting “addenda” to The Marshall Project/Longreads article, do you think?

CFRP-About (UTexas-Austin, Cynthia Osborne-founded in 2011, Child & Family apparently means ‘Fatherhood’ (see right column) ~~SShot 2020-07-31

CFRP-About (UTexas-Austin, Cynthia Osborne-founded in 2011, Child & Family apparently means ‘Fatherhood’ ~~ 2020-07-31

This article contains few links — it’s meant I can see for basically a read-through in one sitting.  So there was no link to this expert’s IDVSA, but I see it started in 2001 (i.e., a decade before the CFRP, above), as described here:  focus is criminal justice reform, and at least one paragraph says, they’re helping victims.

Apparently not the one featured in this article, though:  This IDVSA is at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work.

…Since its inception in 2001, IDVSA has managed more than 90 research, education, training, and curriculum-development projects with external funding of more than $14 million from federal, state, and local sources. In addition, IDVSA provided $40,000 in “Seed Grants” to eight researchers.

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Education

IDVSA’s robust portfolio of educational products are designed for faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, practitioners and allied professionals, such as social workers, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and civil attorneys, victim service providers, physicians, and nurses working with domestic violence and sexual assault survivors.

(not designed directly for the DV and Sexual assault survivors, obviously).

IDVSA co-sponsored seven national and state conferences and its principal investigators have written more than three dozen publications and conducted hundreds of presentations at state, national and international levels. All told, through our “research-to-practice” focus, thousands of students, professionals, and laypeople are reached nationwide each year.

The Expert Witness Program and Research Fellows Program are two examples of educational initiatives managed by IDVSA.

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Collaboration

IDVSA works with more than 150 affiliates that include researchers, practitioners, law enforcement, prosecutors, city, county, and state representatives, and faith-based and community organizations.  Our researchers and staff are active members of nearly a dozen coalitions and task forces, focused on developing interventions and prevention strategies to end interpersonal violence.

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Accomplishments

Through IDVSA’s work, thousands of practitioners and students have received research-based education and thousands of victims and survivors of interpersonal violence have received better services from them as a result of this research-to-practice collaboration.

This “Who We Are” describes their rationale, and agenda:

The Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, formerly known as the Institute on Violence Against Women and Their Children,** was founded in early 2001 by a small group of researchers from the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin who had significant direct service and practice experience with survivors prior to joining the University. Most of these faculty members were licensed social workers and were still involved in providing direct services to survivors through volunteer work.  Faculty members at the School of Law and Nursing joined the collaboration.

Based on their depth of professional experience, they hypothesized that a multi-disciplinary, research-practitioner collaborative approach which utilized an ecological perspective would be the most effective strategy ….,/blockquote>

Strategy to do what? stop DV & SA? Help survivors? Not exactly, not directly, but …. multi-disciplinary, research-practitioner, collaborative approach with an “ecological perspective” hypothetically would help…

to develop the knowledge base further and to develop the competencies of members of the university community.

Here’s a link to Margaret Bassett’s faculty page at the school of social work — she’s focused for decades on this field.  Two posts (only) are mentioned; here’s one from 2021 (next, below) lamenting another familicide, it looks like.  There’s no mention of family courts in the article, although the wife had “a protective order” — and here’s Bassett’s recommendation (20 years after the start of this IDVSA).  She’s basically (in hindsight) blaming the community and references one of the (federally-funded under 1984 FVPSA, which is part of CAPTA) DVRN (Domestic Violence Resource Network), or a closely related entity to its hotline.  I’ve blogged this one, some EIN# anomalies came up years ago…

To Stop Domestic Violence, We Need to Listen to Science About Abusers

The recent tragic triple homicide in Austin is a stark reminder that perpetrators of domestic violence can, and sometimes do, escalate to homicide. That happened at least 178 times this past year in Texas alone. The Texas Council on Family Violence’s compelling and gut-wrenching annual report offers a brief account of each Texas victim.

Stephen Broderick, who is accused of the shootings in Austin, had prior allegations of family violence, including strangulation and sexual assault of a child. His wife applied for a protective order after he was arrested. She stated, [[**I’ll quote this below also]] “I’m afraid he will try to hurt me or my children because these allegations have come out and he may lose his career. Stephen has prior military experience and is SWAT trained. If he wanted to hurt someone, he would know how.”

. . .And the community did not do enough to stop him.

We didn’t stop him in part because domestic violence is considered a personal or family issue and not a community issue.  …Domestic violence is a public health crisis. It is a pandemic. It is not a personal or family crisis.

Just as we manage our current public health crisis with a coordinated community effort and science, we need to address the pandemic of intimate partner violence similarly. We need to dispel myths, biases and misinformation to ensure victim safety and to hold offenders accountable in a meaningful way.  …

Abusers are motivated by control, and that motivation is connected to risk and threat. Abusive behavior is complex and nuanced. The misinformation, myths and biases about domestic violence are getting people killed. We can fix that by educating those in power.

We should encourage multidisciplinary intimate partner violence education for prosecutors, law enforcement, domestic violence advocates and judges, similar to what Gov. Greg Abbott’s office is funding at The University of Texas at Austin, to provide training on the ethical use of expert witnesses in interpersonal violence cases.

These trainings offer an opportunity for participants and experts to work together to increase understanding of nuance and context with the ultimate goal of improving prosecutorial response. Right now these trainings are voluntary. They should be mandatory.

Margaret Bassett is the director of applied research and innovative instruction and director of the Expert Witness Program in the Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, Steve Hicks School of Social Work, at The University of Texas at Austin.  

This op-ed was produced by Texas Perspectives and represents the views of the author, not of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work or The University of Texas at Austin.

Not shown:  the training she’s recommending is training she’s, apparently  coordinating through this IDVSA.  Also notice:  “prosecutorial response.”  You’d think there were no family courts operational within reach.  You’d also think that Texas (of all states) had no strong “fatherhood” movement operational in those courts, although it most certainly does and has, for years… At least the about twelve years I’ve been blogging here..

Internally linked article to the post above, the time is April, 2021 — not that long ago as I write:

Former detective accused in 3 killings had history of violence accusations [Link from “She stated” in above quote]

Stephen Broderick had been accused of strangling and sexually assaulting someone…. [There is a video with graphic here] ..

AUSTIN, Texas — Documents obtained by KVUE in the wake of a former detective’s arrest show that Stephen Broderick had a history of violence accusations.

Alyssa Broderick, the former detective’s daughter, has been named as one of the victims in the deadly April 18 attack. Willie Simmons and Amanda Broderick, Stephen’s ex-wife and Alyssa’s mother, also died in the shooting. Simmons was a senior at Elgin High School and Alyssa Broderick had withdrawn from Elgin ISD in the fall.

In June 2020, Stephen Broderick, formerly a detective with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child. According to court documents, Broderick has been indicted with nine counts of sexual assault of a child, all of which happened with one child.

Court documents also show he allegedly strangled a family member, and has been indicted on three counts of family violence assault.  // He had an ankle monitor when he was released following the June 2020 charge, but it was later taken off.

Looking further into this report (I’m trying to figure out whether the “protective order” referenced was a civil or criminal one.  It’s unclear, but…

Broderick’s lawyer argued that Broderick had worn the monitor for 142 days with no substantial violations and that it should be removed. A state district judge agreed, which left him unsupervised months after his daughter and Amanda stated they feared for their safety with him released from jail.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, State District Judge Karen Sage said she typically agrees to remove tracking devices when a defendant has shown a pattern of compliance and has not incurred any violations. She also said she rarely keeps defendants on GPS tracking for more than 90 days if they have been compliant.

Court documents show Broderick’s bail conditions required him to surrender all firearms and not obtain any new ones.

Amanda applied for a protective order after his arrest, saying she was worried for her and her children’s safety. // “I’m afraid he will try to hurt me or my children, because these allegations have come out and he may lose his career,” she said in the application. “Stephen has prior military experience and is SWAT trained. If he wanted to hurt someone, he would know how.”

Here come a few more quoted experts, from the ‘How reporting domestic violence [allegedly] works against women in family court.’ article.  Notice that while studies are referenced (one, by the National Center for State Courts in 1997 (!), another (not dated) funded by the NIJ) no identifying details of the studies this author is summarizing show up in the article, nor links, nor footnotes.  It’s more like a young student giving a “show and tell” report without too much “show” — just telling. I’ll emphasize (color or underscore) the unidentified sources and/or studies referenced.

But battered women’s advocates suggest that many “high-conflict” divorces—the single-digit fraction of separations that are extensively litigated—are actually domestic violence cases in disguise.

Some research backs this up. One small 1992 study found that there was physical aggression between parents in 70 percent of high-conflict custody fights, and “severe” violence (meaning battery or the threat or use of a weapon) in nearly half.

“Battered women’s advocates” is a vague term and could encompass anywhere in (for this story most likely but not necessarily only) the United States.  Besides, if it’s only what battered women’s advocates “suggest” as opposed to what they SAY, what kind of supporting evidence (for this story line) is that, really? Again, the author comes between the readers and whatever source she viewing or hearing from. Battered women’s advocates may be lawyers, or not ,social workers or not, work for a domestic violence shelter, or as graduate interns at a university center or at a “resource center” (for one sample, see my April 26, 2022 post categorizing some of the NYS Task force on Domestic Violence and COVID-19)… they come in different places, kinds and with various financial backers, too.  They may be executive directors of a nonprofit, or a chairman of the board not even paid…

“One small 1992 study” (note:  before either the Violence Against Women Act (1994) or even Welfare Reform (1996) passed…  What kind of small 1992 study would use the phrase “high-conflict custody fights” — did it say this, or is that an author interpretation?  HOW small?  WHOSE study?

The article is dated Summer 2020 and referencing a “small 1992 study” with no name, publisher, or author (but using the term “high-conflict,” this time without quotes.  What is or was the author looking at to come up with this?

Another study, published in 1997 by the National Center for State Courts and covering several cities, found documented evidence of domestic violence in 20 to 55 percent of contested custody cases. In one city where court mediators screened for it, “much higher” rates of abuse were revealed.

This study apparently had no name or author (NB: authors aren’t necessarily publishers, and yet others may fund it).  “Covering several cities” is more encouraging, but who (what categories of people) were studied — court mediators?  It sounds like it.  Why are we still in 1997 points of reference?

Yet merely raising the issue tends to work against mothers.

Again, so you say…. if this is identifying a trend, I think something more than 1992 (small), 1997 (covering several cities and referencing only “court mediators”) and, up next, a “2004 study funded by the NIJ” (who published it, who was its author?).  (This sounds like it MIGHT be a Joan Meier/Joyanna Silberg one, and it’s a rough summary of any such study. Or maybe it was a Center for Policy Research/Policy Studies, Inc. report:  who knows?)  What was the context?

A 2004 study funded by the National Institute of Justice found that mothers were more likely to receive primary custody if they had not made allegations of domestic abuse, while fathers were equally likely to get custody whether there were allegations against them or not.

If so, might that have anything to do with plain old sexism, or national fatherhood policy as much as with lack of understanding the nuances of domestic violence? Again, they’ll reference “mediators”…

The study also found that when mediators discovered evidence of violence when the mother hadn’t alleged any, they were more likely to recommend court protections like supervised child exchanges, meaning women who were open about being abused received less protection for themselves and their children than those who were not.

Again, the assumption that supervised child exchanges are somehow universally safer is a mistake.  Over the years, murders (whether murder/suicide or just murders of the children, or the mother) have taken place in such situations.  I’d be hard put to pick which state which year might be the most dramatic although 2013 in Manchester, New Hampshire (Muni Savyon, Joshua Savyon) might be one such (father shot son and himself IN a supervised exchange center at the local Y, which even had a metal detector — which wasn’t used.  As I recall).  Certain circles often toss in the word “supervised” or “unsupervised” as though one is actually safer overall than the other.  NOT universally true.

I could see what direction this article was heading from the phrases dropped of this nature.  Here comes some more speculation leading up to another expert quote (only the second in all this inconclusive, nonspecific summary text accompanying a long anecdotal narrative leading off the article):

One explanation for the different fates of men and women in family court may be how domestic violence victims can come across: hyper-vigilant, agitated, guarded, volatile. These characteristics can make mothers look unstable or unfit, but are also commonplace reactions to trauma or even symptoms of PTSD.

How helpful to know that how victims present themselves “may” work against them in family courts:

Many family courts and therapists have not kept pace with a growing understanding of the dynamics of domestic violence, or lack the training to interpret the impact of trauma on abuse victims, domestic violence experts say. And many are swayed by traditional assumptions about men, women and anger.

So now we’ve gone from “battered women’s advocates suggest” to “domestic violence experts say,” and here it comes — (“Wait for it…”):

“An angry woman might be vengeful and fabricating,” said Joan Meier, a George Washington University law school professor and founder of the advocacy organization DV LEAP, which handles appeals for battered women in custody disputes. “But angry fathers? We have no problem with that because of course he’s angry—he’s been kept from his children and there are these lies being promulgated about him. It’s so thick with gender stereotypes, you can cut it with a knife.”

Wait a minute though:  by July 2020, Joan Meier was under the new George Washington University (Law School)-based “National Family Violence Law Center.”  Her specialty study was announced in 2019, a year prior to this article published on TheMarshallProject.org. Why not mention that here?

Anyhow, it’s a nonspecific (no date, no context:  personal conversation with the author maybe?)  the “gender stereotypes” perspective right alongside the “lacks understanding of the dynamics of domestic violence” or how to interpret some responding to trauma…

The the author (article) cuts back to another quote from Margaret Bassett of University of Texas, and back on to the story line of an individual mother:

What it adds up to, said UT’s Bassett, is a fateful choice: “If I’m going to court and alleging that my partner is abusive, I’m probably going to lose custody of the children. Do I go to court and risk that, or do I play the game the way it’s set up?”

Well, a woman can end up in family court for reporting abuse to save her life, or her children’s.  Perhaps THAT should be the story line…  Perhaps experts like UT’s Bassett should be paying better attention to what’s happening around them, and start reporting on it as possible causation…

The two met in 1997, when Cunningham, a lawyer working as a sports agent, spoke to Coronado’s law school class. Cunningham, with his shock of side-swept brown hair and open smile, seemed larger than life. He was almost 6’8 and around 275 pounds, befitting his brief stint in the NFL and before that his status as an All America player for Austin’s storied UT Longhorns. He was in the middle of his first divorce, and their initial romance swept Coronado off her feet.

So, she got involved in a rebound romance, was already pregnant, apparently by (or right after) a first major violent incident, witnessed by others, and resulting in police reports.  So ,she moves in with him and then has more children with him…

But within months, she said, the relationship turned violent. When she went with friends to a party at his house and saw him with another woman, their resulting argument culminated in a loud fight in his bathroom where, Coronado told police, Cunningham threw her against the sink and choked her. Upon seeing her bruises, her brother Sam, who lived with her at the time, called the police, and convinced his sister to speak with them. Her friend Sharon Rutman (then Rubin), who’d been outside the bathroom door, gave a police statement as well, describing seeing Cunningham walk out, leaving Coronado splayed on the floor, legs braced against the wall and gasping for air.

While she debated pressing charges, Coronado learned she was pregnant. She reconciled with Cunningham and moved into his stone two-story home in Bee Cave, high in the Hill Country surrounding Austin. When she was six months pregnant, they married, and she settled into home life, having three more children within six years. Cunningham shifted from sports law to other business ventures, and they moved in influential circles. In 2001, Cunningham launched a short-lived campaign for U.S. Senate. Coronado became an intensely involved stay-at-home mother, shepherding their children between sporting events at expensive private schools, coaching some of their teams.

Right away, this is not a “typical” case.  It’s upper-class. Kids in expensive private schools, spouse made a run for the Senate… Here comes another set of unidentified interviews (the author knows, but isn’t saying who read them, or what she’s been reading to give this summary, and then yet another domestic violence expert (local, at the university) who helped on her case, is quoted:

In interviews with 10 of Coronado’s family members, friends or neighbors,** people recalled troubling dynamics about the relationship. Multiple friends described her having bruises that she excused as injuries from sports or yard work, or that she’d wear long-sleeve shirts and pants through the Texas summer. She called her brother so frequently in distress, Sam said, that he ultimately became frustrated with her refusal to leave.

**are these interviews public record as part of a criminal case? Did the author personally interview, or is it second-hand report from another source?

It baffled them. Coronado was smart, competitive, driven and, above all, tough. “Because she’s such a force of nature, it’s harder to believe that she would stay in a relationship that’s violent,” said Jeana Lungwitz, director of the University of Texas School of Law’s Domestic Violence Clinic, who helped on her case.

From UTexas Law School Domestic Violence Clinic. Fifteen clinics are listed under “Experiential Clinics.” The url doesn’t specify which UTexas campus, only “Law.Texas.edu”

Link to that Law Clinic, featuring “experiential learning but website doesn’t say much else.”

Notice the image caption, what types of issues the law students help people with.  A recent article, towards the end, references Jeana Lungwitz in helping achieve an innocent verdict of a woman charged with murder — after responding to her friend’s calling about her boyfriend beating her.   Cars were involved…

The other “experiential clinics” listed there are:

Clinic students provide legal services directly or work closely with faculty members on complex cases. They represent clients during the preparation, trial, and appeal of cases in litigation or in law-related transactions and projects. Each clinic consists of a classroom component and a casework component. Student work is closely supervised by the clinical faculty. All clinics are graded on a pass/fail basis, and there is no final paper or examination.

All clinics require an application.

For more information on internships, visit Internships. For questions, contact Sonja Hartley, Senior Program Coordinator, at ClinicalEd@law.utexas.edu or Eden Harrington, Associate Dean of Experiential Education, at eharrington@law.utexas.edu.

• Actual Innocence Clinic
• Capital Punishment Clinic
• Children’s Rights Clinic
• Civil Rights Clinic
• Criminal Defense Clinic
• Disability Rights Clinic
• Domestic Violence Clinic
• Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic
• Environmental Clinic
• Housing Clinic
• Human Rights Clinic
• Immigration Clinic
• Juvenile Justice Clinic
• Law and Religion Clinic
• Supreme Court Clinic
• Transnational Worker Rights Clinic

The most recent “highlight” for the Domestic  Violence Clinic is from two years ago last fall:  nov. 2019:

Highlights

• Murder case dismissed against woman accused of killing friend’s ex-boyfriend
  Source: Austin American Statesman | Date Posted: November 6, 2019
• Proclamation on human rights and preventing domestic violence, adopted through the work of our Human Rights Clinic and Domestic Violence Clinic

Regarding the featured case (Nov. 6, 2019, above), the young (25-year-old) woman charged was Cynthia Powell.  The case against her was dismissed:

..Had the case proceeded to trial, Powell’s defense lawyers were prepared to ask the judge to allow them to present evidence about three times that Aranda had been arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman. At the time of his death, he was out on bond on a pending felony charge for aggravated assault involving the mother of his children.

Powell, according to her attorney, was aware of Aranda’s violent past when she fired the gun.

“This was an exceptionally complicated case,” said Powell’s attorney David Gonzalez. …

In this contexts, talk about murdered kids, disaster custody rulings, and get the media mentions. , seek to nationalize the state-jurisdiction family courts (and rule that turf’s domestic violence awareness training, although many players are already in the arena), argue “parental alienation” but NEVER discuss which organizations have been promoting it for decades, and how — because the same tactics are to be in use (and some are, up to the point of authority obtained) for the “con” argumentation…

The subtitle also, provides an assertion (I inserted the word “allegedly” to qualify) that this is “How” it happens when women report domestic violence, without directly saying that reporting is the why. It just implies that it’s the “why.”  No proof is offered or expected for the readers to demand from this format of article.

This article is a classic case of why the problems these individual authors, platforms, and producers are NOT helping the situations that are helping promote the platforms, authors, or producers.

Essentially, this one is “commuter eye-candy entertainment” using a few politically correct terms to grab readers’ attention, but not to demand too much deep thought from the same busy people.

The attention-getting (showing somewhat alienated, isolated perspective) big graphics also help build the artist’s portfolio.

The people these types of articles are reporting on, telling our stories, our cases — I call them “us” because I’ve been one and had this happen too — had better organize AND report differently.

Also note:  the domestic violence advocacy groups THRIVE on such reports, which indicate continued demand for their services.  Look at the campaigns being put form — they feature disaster family court cases and a whole lot of storytelling — not systems analysis.

So we’d better report and organization differently and at this point, also apart from, the domestic violence advocacy groups too if we want substantial changed based on reality too inconvenient (and character-revealing, position-compromising) for these advocacy groups to acknowledge, feature, or report.

[INSERT TOP GRAPHIC & TITLE FOR THIS ARTICLE]

Someone tweeted this article in 2022, recently.  In fact, it was most Tweeted by (1) The Marshall Project website and (2) its author, Kathryn A. Joyce.  Easily recognizable from the graphics of an isolated individual in front of a huge maze (artwork by Owen Gent).

Search string “The Marshall Project” and [article url] showed who’s been promoting it — not that many people really.  Just a few people or organizations, repeatedly, over the past two years.

IF VIEWABLE< INSERT PDF

Having only seen it a few years later, I made a note on (yet another) boilerplate story from a source (The Marshall Project) not even focused on the family courts, and, like most, only touching lightly with a sprinkling of quotes, and naming (that’s a bit unusual) not only the victim but also the judge and consulting court-appointed therapist, both of whom I looked up, of course.  It seems to be in Travis County, Texas.

This is the article.  It’s dated (faintly, top left corner) July 8, 2020.  My post title is taken from its subtitle; I did this to call attention to the “supposition” factor.  The title cites a common “condition” in short form,

“She Says Her Husband Hit Her: She Lost Custody of Their Kids“

but the subtitle begins with the word “HOW” — and that claims analysis or explanation that the reporting caused the lost custody.  It essentially says, “we’ll explain how this happened…”

‘How reporting domestic violence works against women in family court.’

Oh?  Says who? Is “family court” a single place?  No: it differs from country to country in critical ways that countries also differ in governance.

Three large graphics in similar color scheme (full-width) are labeled: “OWEN GENT FOR THE MARSHALL PROJECT AND LONGREADS” and the by-line is Kathryn Joyce, over a small notice: “This article was published in partnership with LongReads.” As often happens (see for yourself…) narrow-ish columns of print are interspersed with solicitations to subscribe to The Marshall Project newsletter and the large (and also tall) graphics / artwork.  Few links show in the article.

I hope in a BRIEF post (I’ll upload what I can, but from the article alone, anyone could find what I just did — quickly — if you know to look for it) to again emphasize — this kind of journalism, i.e., standard journalism, is as likely to lead people astray as to provide any sound reasoning or documentation of WHY situations reported are taking place, or reasonably might be taking place.

It helps to know who were producers / backers (beyond the author) are behind this one:  The Marshall Project (which is a nonprofit, including its EIN# in my post title also calls attention to that) and “LongReads” which was its own company until Auttomatic (which owns Twitter) bought it and became the parent company.

Understanding the focus of each:  The nonprofit “TheMarshallProject.org” and “LongReads” illuminates why this will NOT, in fact, explain “how” (or let alone even why) “reporting domestic violence works against women in family court.”

There goes that qualifier phrase again:   “…. in family court…”

So, with that qualifier, another legitimate question should be: “So, does reporting domestic violence work for women in other courts — like criminal courts?

If so, how?” which might, conceivably, lead to some productive discussion in the differences between criminal and family courts — and how in the hell did so much “domestic violence” get relegated to the latter …. whose idea was that?  Was it legitimate?

If it doesn’t work in family courts maybe it should be handled in other courts — why isn’t it being “handled” (i.e., prosecuted as a crime, by the state) in those other courts?

Not going to happen here, and not going to come from these sources.  Consider the focus…

This is narrative story-telling, with LongReads first acquiring existing stories and reader-subscriptions, it seems starting from a Twitter hashtag (i.e., being reader-driven) then moved into original work, similar, I gather to BuzzFeeds:

From an October 2014 article on LongReads now ℅ Auttomatic.  This piece found at “FastCompany.”

Longreads: Now Publishing Original Storytelling

Parent company Automattic/WordPress.com will now match reader contributions to help LongReads produce original journalism.

The perspective of this review, at media featuring “fast companies” I guess (and its url address says), is that “LongReads scores a big win in its grand push for original storytelling” to get Auttomatic to match its reader contributions:

BY CHRIS GAYOMALI3 MINUTE READ

In 2009, Mark Armstrong launched a simple Twitter hashtag called #longreads, which was designed to “collect stories (nonfiction & fiction) for commuters who use @instapaper.” Even though the concept of the longread wasn’t new (we used to call them features!), the idea of handpicking the best narrative-driven journalism with a minimum 1,500 word count resonated with media types and voracious readers alike…

Today [Note:  October, 2014, eight years ago], Longreads-the-platform is a lot more than a Twitter feed. (Follower count: 142,000.) The service currently has 2,500 members, who pay $3 a month or $30 a year to help the four-person team behind Longreads find and share “outstanding storytelling from publishers and writers around the world.” Usually, that means reading and selecting the best stories from the New Yorkers and Atlantics of the publishing universe.

But more recently, it also meant commissioning and assigning original stories like an old-fashioned newspaper or magazine.

On Monday, Longreads announced that its new parent company, Automattic (which owns WordPress.com), will begin matching subscriber contributions, giving the platform-turned-publisher a larger editorial budget to work with as it looks to move deeper into original storytelling

Automattic (July, 2020) interview with founder (he co-founded with a guy from the UK  Mike Little, it says) on it being a distributed company (no central office) from the start.  Matt Mullenweg was only born in 1984 (!)… (His Wiki is flagged “reads like an ad” so I looked for other write-ups).

I wanted to know whether Automattic was public-traded or privately owned.  Two articles explain it’s still privately owned (Matt Mullenberg founded it in 2005) and its success was in part by “doing everything wrong).  (The Hustle & TechCrunch, both 2021 articles). A third article (“Biz on Biz”) from Protocol.com I included because I find it interesting… about how the founder retained voting control of shares, but lets employees buy and sell them internally every quarter.

Or insert images.

How doing everything wrong turned Automattic into a multibillion dollar media powerhouse

Automattic TC-1 Part 1: Origin story

Chris Morrison@chrismorrison / 10:04 AM CDT•October 19, 2021

Nothing has been automatic about the success of Automattic.

Today, to those who haven’t been paying attention, the company looks a bit like an overnight success story. WordPress, the open source software behind the company, is now estimated to power roughly 42% of all websites on the internet. Automattic’s e-commerce plugin, WooCommerce, which it purchased in 2015, is believed to run more than a quarter of all online storefronts.

The company has 1,700 employees in a distributed, asynchronous, global workforce, and has raised nearly $1 billion, according to Crunchbase, most recently at a $7.5 billion valuation.

The Hustle on AutoMattic:

But I thought this one most interesting: About how Matt Mullenweg controls the stocks (by proxy) but lets his employees keep their stocks “liquid” by a sort of internal marketplace for buying and selling.  From Protocol.com:

How Automattic Employees Buy and Sell Their Stock — without an IPO

Biz Carson  August 21, 2021

Presented by(Yes, Employment Development Board, Singapore… “go figure…” a Singapore Government agency:

“The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a government agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, is responsible for strategies that enhance Singapore’s position as a global centre for business, innovation, and talent.”

BIZ ON BIZ

Not your average funding announcement

Funding announcements in today’s crazy environment typically go like this: “Here’s a big number, the investors we want to list to impress you and our valuation if we’re finally a unicorn.”

Automattic’s fundingpalooza announcement this week was anything but ordinary. It had [**See below]] a $288 million primary round, another $250 million in buybacks, common stock with a voting proxy and oh, the equivalent of an internal stock market for employees to sell their shares quarterly. Equally confused and intrigued by the announcement, I hopped on the phone with Automattic’s founder Matt Mullenweg who graciously geeked out with me on the complicated mechanics, including Automattic’s plans to (of course) open source it and offer some advice to founders considering the same.

Mullenweg actually started accruing voting power 10 years ago. Since 2011, all shares sold by the company have involved a voting proxy where the owner assigns the shares to Mullenweg, giving shareholders all the economics but none of the influence. (Most founders typically do it with multiple share class structures.)

• “With Automattic, we’re trying to build a very long-term company. We talk about it as aspiring to be the Berkshire Hathaway of the internet. And to do that, credibly, I think that you have to be in control of your destiny from a governance point of view as well,” Mullenweg said.
• Automattic started 16 years ago as a commercial arm to the WordPress open-source project. It now looks more like a holding company like IAC.…

(etc.).

{{**”It had” link, sounds like the owner’s voice here}}:

In February of this year, Automattic closed a new primary funding round of $288M, bringing in some great new partners including BlackRock, Wellington, Schonfeld, and Alta Park. Existing investors ICONIQ and Aglaé (Bernard Arnault) also participated. This round was common stock, and like all funding since 2011, included a proxy assigning me the right to vote the shares.

That was a Wiki, to Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault, who (suggest:  read it):

“is a French business magnate, investor, and art collector.^[2][3] He is the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE, the world’s largest luxury goods company.^[4] In 2021, with a valuation of $329 billion, LVMH became the most valuable company in Europe.^[5] Arnault is, as of June 2022, the second-richest person in the world and the richest person from Europe, with an estimated net worth of US $152 billion according to Forbes.^[6]

Must be nice to have such a person investing in your company, if you’re Matt Mullenweg and seeking to make that company into the “Berkshire Hathaway of the Internet.”

~ ~ ~

To go back to the top of this post, click on its title link:

‘How reporting domestic violence [allegedly] works against women in family court.’ (per TheMarshallProject.org: EIN# 46435634, reporting focus CRIMINAL justice system + ‘LongReads’ ℅ Automattic: focus narrative storytelling) July 8, 2020. [My ShortPost, Begun May 30, 2022, but only Published, @15.7K words, July 25, 2023].  (short-link ends ‘eD2’).