By WILLIAM SHERMAN AND BOB PORT

Saturday, May 29th, 2004

For an elite group of court-appointed attorneys and psychiatrists, the city's divorce courts are a multimillion-dollar feeding trough, enriching them with little scrutiny or oversight.

They are assigned by judges to represent the interests of children, the prize in brutal custody battles.

Their opinions on who is the better parent and who should get the kids carry tremendous weight with those judges.

Among those who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their services are Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff, John McEnroe and Tatum O'Neal, Woody Allen, actress Lori Singer, Judith Regan and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The not so rich and famous, including warring middle-class couples, get the big bills as well.

All have to pay in full with little or no choice under court regulations.

Duff, whose divorce from Revlon magnate Perelman became a spectacle, is still getting bills from Jo Ann Douglas, former law guardian for her daughter - even though appeals in Duff's case ended in 2001.

Douglas already has been paid more than $600,000 in that case. Recently, she billed another $28,000 for mediating disputes over the child's phone calls to her mother, according to Duff, who paid a third of the tab while Perelman paid the rest.

"There are no rules," said Duff.

"It's all a game and the name of the game is money," said Regan, the best seller publisher.

Her divorce lurched through the courts from 1992 through 2001.

Regan had to pay a small fortune for her daughter's law guardian in addition to several psychiatrists.

"They want to keep running the meter," Regan said. "I got a call from a psychiatrist. He said, 'Be here on Tuesday and bring a check for $20,000 with you.' That was up-front.

"They suck the life out of you, they suck the money out of you," she said. "And this is not sour grapes - I won!"

Defenders of the court appointments say parents battling over custody have willingly entered the system and have to pay the price.

Parents charge each other with abuse, emotional instability and aberrant behavior. Because children are often pawns in their parents' war, psychiatrists and psychologists have to test and examine family members, say experts in the field. Law guardians have to be appointed to represent children's interests.

"It's a valuable tool [for judges] to get to the truth of the matter when both sides are involved in a heated emotional dispute," said Judge Anne Pfau, the state's first deputy administrative judge.

But Pfau and the state's Office of Court Administration acknowledged problems in the system. A special panel chaired by Judge Sondra Miller has been assigned to examine matrimonial law practice, including fees for court appointees and the appointment process.

Last year, the court system set new rules designed to curb favoritism in appointments and fees. However, the Daily News found that the same lawyers still get most of the appointments, particularly in Manhattan.

Three of the 69 lawyers eligible received 13 of the 25 law-guardian jobs doled out through early April after the new rules went into effect last June.

The three are lawyers who have won such appointments for years.

In Queens, 13 of 78 lawyers eligible got 45 appointments. Five of those lawyers are active in the Democratic Party, which controls judgeships.

The new rules also say that law guardians in state Supreme Court cases have to publicly disclose their appointments and fees.

But none of the appointees in Manhattan and only one in Queens had filed the compensation forms - even though several parents interviewed said they are getting bills as large as $20,000.

In Brooklyn, however, the judges and law guardians appear to be following the rules. That began only after a crackdown and continuing investigation into corruption by District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Pfau was put in charge of the Brooklyn Supreme Court judges and she said she instituted new measures to make the system "bulletproof" against judicial corruption.

The court-appointed psychiatrists are another matter. For them, the cash register is open with no regulation, no disclosure and no salary caps. Several psychiatrists charge $5,000 a day for their testimony.

Breaking up wasn't always this hard - or quite this expensive.

In 1990, a New York court ruling opened the door to judges anointing a "law guardian" to represent the best interests of children.

Judges make mothers and fathers pay this third lawyer's fee, sometimes splitting the bill 50-50, other times 65-35, or paid in full by one parent, depending on who has the most resources.

"The law guardians become adjunct judges," said Barry Berkman, a matrimonial lawyer here for more than 25 years.

"Working in an adversarial atmosphere, they often force the kids to take sides," Berkman said. "The kids end up feeling guilty and angry, and what's meant to be 'in their best interests' ends up hurting them."

The rules now require training to become a law guardian, but that training and certification consists of one day in a classroom.

"It's a sham. It's wrong. It's really wrong," said Patricia Grant, a divorce lawyer here for 18 years.

The News also found highly questionable billing practices, with no apparent screening by judges.

Appointees bill at an hourly rate and are supposed to keep records of how they spent their time. But sometimes parents can't decipher them or don't get them.

Gennady Gorelik, who lost a lengthy Brooklyn Supreme Court custody battle for his two sons, noticed one inconsistency involving two appointees.

"The law guardian, Cheryl Solomon, billed for 59 conversations with psychologist Marie Weinstein, but Weinstein only billed for 24 conversations with Solomon," said Gorelik.

Gorelik's lawyer, Frederick Schneider, questioned Weinstein during the trial.

"Weinstein said: 'I didn't bill for all the time I spent speaking to Solomon, and Ms. Solomon's account is more accurate,'" Schneider recalled. "That was it."

Weinstein declined to return phone calls on the incident. Solomon declined comment.

Those who refuse to pay bills in protest can be threatened with contempt by judges or lawsuits by the appointees. While New York provides consumers with an arbitration system for disputing lawyer fees, court-appointed lawyers are exempt.

In some cases, law guardians have obtained judge-approved property liens against those who don't pay bills.

"There is no mechanism to appeal or oppose a psychiatrist's bills in these cases," said Raoul Felder, the city's premier divorce lawyer.

In fact, virtually every divorce attorney contacted by The News said that law guardians and forensic mental health experts are cures that are often worse than the disease.

"The whole thing is a train wreck waiting to happen," said Felder, who represented Giuliani in his divorce.

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