By Ken Randall, former Midland County Friend of the Court Director
They were the perfect gift functionally (for the 30+ vanity books I have published), symbolically (for my legal career), and in the rockhound sense (because my wife and I have collected rocks and minerals from nearly every state). Receiving these bookends made me reflect upon the years and how things were so different in the 1980s, at the beginning of my 35 year public service career, as compared to the 2020s at the end of my career.
In 1987, when
I first started as a law clerk in Shiawassee County (before quickly becoming an
assistant prosecutor), there was no internet, and we didn’t even have
computers. Instead we used typewriters.
A sentimental side of me still misses the sound of the bell that dinged
when it was time for the typist to slap back the carriage -- a sound now lost
to history. Also much different back then was the use of tobacco. Employees could (and did) smoke cigarettes in
their offices or cubicles whenever they wanted.
A few years earlier, people could smoke in the courtroom. One famous
Owosso attorney used this to his advantage by never ashing his cigar during
closing arguments, hoping the jury would eventually focus on his long cigar
ash, wondering when the ash would finally fall, rather than opposing counsel’s
closing argument. As most legal offices did back then, our PA office relied on
telephone books and a Rolodex for contacts. Files and papers were stacked high,
sometimes in dusty corners. Cell phones didn’t exist, so all business and
personal calls were conducted by landlines. All news came from newspapers,
radio, TV news from one of the big three networks, or simply by word of mouth.
In other words, it was a slower, less connected time.
Perhaps
because of this, each county’s IV-D system operated in an independent way.
Counties had their own computer systems, not a centralized system in Lansing
that we have now with MiCSES. Checks were not distributed by MiSDU out of
Lansing, but by each individual FOC office. In the 1980s into the 1990s,
Michigan was the #1 child support collecting state in the United States. We
out-collected everyone, even California, a state with three times our population.
In short, collectively (so to speak), we were very good at our jobs, though we
were provincial in our methods. Our system, which included FOCs/PAs/DSS, would
be known as operating in our own “silos.”
There are
several legal and social differences worth noting between the 1980s and today.
In the 1980s, prosecutors tended to be more focused on establishing paternity
and child support than entering thoughtful parenting time orders. Because cases
were referred to us by the DDS (later FIA, and still later OCS and DHHS-OCS),
most presumed that mothers should automatically have physical
custody.(Fortunately, that is no longer the case, and hasn’t been for more than
a generation, but many father’s rights groups still remember those times.) Today we try to make the process of paternity
establishment as non-confrontational as possible, but, in the 1980s, the
procedure still showed its vestiges in criminal law.
I recall an
older visiting judge who came to Shiawassee County, and, after a young
paternity defendant was brought up in front of the bench, the judge looked down
on him and asked, with a deep gravelly voice, “As to the issue of paternity how
do you plead, guilty or not guilty?” Yikes! That wasn’t the way we handled
paternity cases, but it showed how this judge handled such cases in his own
jurisdiction and presumably how other judges of his generation did as well. In
the 1980s, a paternity defendant could not request court appointed counsel.
Nor, at the time, could an indigent defendant ask for court appointed counsel
in a contempt proceeding for failure to pay child support even if it resulted
in a jail sentence. That changed with Mead
v Batchlor, 435 Mich 480 (1990). In the 1980s, probability of paternity was
determined by blood tests, not today’s more reliable DNA testing (initially
available to the state through Dr. Henry Gershowitz at National Legal
Laboratories, who, in 1993, won the Michigan Family Support Council’s
Outstanding Achievement Award). Many blood test scores were low, and, though
not common, there were paternity jury trials. The lowest probability of
paternity I ever saw on a blood test happened to be my worst factual case. The
plaintiff mother, a huge Green Bay Packers fan, had sexual access to multiple
(she wasn’t sure how many) players during the period of conception. So, to mix
sports metaphors, establishing paternity was not a slam dunk. Having served in
our IV-D system in parts of five decades, I can say that DNA testing was one of
the better changes to come to our IV-D program.
A notable
social difference between the 1980s and today was our relative lack of
knowledge about domestic violence. Due to our societal lack of understanding,
there was a corresponding paucity of women’s shelters across the state. A case
that haunts me from my days in the prosecutor’s office was a woman who came to
us begging us to charge her husband with domestic assault. After reviewing the
police report, we drafted the paperwork.
(Automatic arrests by police were not required in those days.) The next day, the same woman came back to our
office and begged us NOT to prosecute
her husband. Today we are all
sophisticated enough to know the woman was likely threatened or beaten in the
meantime. In the 80s, however, we were actually upset at the wife. No amount of
donations to our local shelter could ever atone for the guilt I continue to
feel over that poor woman. Legally, we had no witness, so there was nothing we
could do, but there should have been something we could have done to protect
her. Fortunately, in the 1990s, domestic violence became a main source of
emphasis at trainings, and women’s shelters sprang up across the state, so
there were finally places to send such battered women (and occasionally men). I
recall a domestic violence presentation by Oakland County Circuit Court Judge
Sosnick. He told the true story about a friend of his, call him “Mr. X,” who
murdered “Mrs. X.” What was chilling and (then) eye-opening is that Judge
Sosnick stated that normally Mr. X was a “nice guy.”
Now in the
2020s, at the back bookend of my career, our IV-D offices are virtually unrecognizable
from the 1980s. Today we enjoy smoke-free offices, and everyone has a computer,
sometimes with multiple large screens to more easily read the instant data that
is now available to us. We communicate electronically, and we attend Zoom
meetings through our computers where we can see everyone live. In Midland County, referee hearings are on
Zoom, something we quickly adapted to during the beginning of the pandemic. Since
2013, our office has been paperless, a bit of a misnomer yet all of our files
are now electronic – freeing up hard copy filing space and time spent locating
files. Additionally, we now all have cell phones, essentially mini computers
and communication devices with access to the internet. Information is instantly
obtained, and instantly shared. Data analytics and visualization are now
possible through multi-colored graphs that track each county with county and
state comparisons. The next generation of MiCSES will include artificial
intelligence, which should help in many ways including finding missing parents
for enforcement of child support. In short, the invention of the internet
revolutionized office procedures.
The internet
revolution that catapulted us to where we are today originated around 1995. Alan
Zoltowski, then a family evaluator with the Midland County Friend of the Court,
created Michigan’s first IV-D web site, and one of the first government web
sites in the United States. Zoltowski received several statewide awards for his
newly-created Midland County FOC website, back in a day when the internet was
so new that awards were actually given to the few good sites that were out
there. Several newspapers, including the Detroit
Free Press, reported on Zoltowski’s accomplishment. Having the first web
site was kind of like owning the first telephone. You understood the
possibilities, but had to wait a few years for things to really take off. Today,
of course, web sites are ubiquitous.
Both our
office and IV-D culture have changed over the years as well. We now strive to
be “PC” which includes more mediation, less confrontation, and utilizing a
“holistic” approach. (You can credit FOCB Director, Steve Capps, for putting
that term into our IV-D lexicon.) One thing that Michigan has always done
better than any other state is parenting time establishment and enforcement. (Most
states only establish/enforce child support.)
If the federal government eventually funds IV-D parenting time
enforcement, Michigan will once again be a national leader. In the meantime, it
is simply the right thing to do. It also helps our collections since,
statistically, non-custodial parents who have greater access to their children
are more likely to pay child support.
Greek
philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 500 BCE), espoused the phrase “life is
flux” meaning nothing in life is permanent because the essence of life is
change. This has been later translated to the more common, almost cliché: “The
only constant in life is change.” To Americanize the sentiment, Benjamin
Franklin is quoted as saying: “When you are finished changing, you are
finished.” The world is simply different
now than in the 1980s in all things, including Michigan’s IV-D system.
A comforting
thought is that while change is constant, so is leadership. Over the decades
there have been many rock star leaders in our IV-D system, those who were not
just content to run a good office but who went further to make our state
program better. Many who were older in the 1980s and 1990s are no longer with
us, though they were no less real and dedicated as you reading this article
today. We all stand on tall shoulders. (My original draft of this article included
over 50 names.) Two contemporaries who fit this rock star designation include
Oakland County FOC, Suzanne Hollyer, and FOCB Director, Steve Capps. Suzanne
has been a four-time FOCA president, and she has served on committees
(legislative, PLG, etc.) where she is on the forefront of policy and change. She
is an excellent communicator, and has lectured and presented at countless
conferences and gatherings. She also is accessible and will answer anyone's
questions. Steve is continuing in Dan Wright’s (his predecessor) footsteps as a
bridge-builder. Like Suzanne, he is an excellent communicator, and he has a
strong foundational base of understanding our IV-D system. Steve has helped
FOCA in many ways, most notably ensuring that all FOCs in the state receive
their share of Medicaid reimbursement money which had been withheld by the
state. That one act helped restore/establish a multi-million dollar revenue
stream to FOC offices. I often equate our IV-D system to a whitewater rafting
trip. The river is always changing, and we know there will be rapids ahead as
we advance. Both Steve and Suzanne are exceptional leaders, and, like
experienced raft guides, they help us more smoothly navigate our IV-D
river. I’d like to express my thanks to both.
Of course my
deepest gratitude goes to my work family, both past and present, with whom
we’ve all laughed, cried, and grown up together while maintaining a high level
of IV-D work performance. In 2020, we
survived not only the pandemic together, but also a devastating 500 year flood,
the worst in Midland County’s history. That year we quickly adapted and pivoted
as circumstances changed. Shortly before the first COVID-19 case struck Midland
County, we received permission from OCS for everyone on staff to receive a
token to be able to work from home. We quickly obtained laptops, and, by the
end of March, we had established a work from home policy. The State later, out
of necessity, allowed remote access to all, and we relinquished our tokens. As
devastating as the flood was, our preparing to work from home for COVID-19
helped us to continue operations during the flood. We were closed literally for
only one day, May 20, 2020, the day after both the Edenville and Sanford dams
failed following a biblical amount of rain.
The severity
of the flood cannot be overstated. Everyone in our office was either directly
or indirectly affected. I live by the Chippewa River, a few miles away from the
Chippewa’s confluence with the Tittabawassee River. I was home with my family,
and we were just sitting down to eat our first take-out meal in months (due to
the pandemic shutdown) when our phones and TV sounded their alarms. I stood up
and said to my family, “You have five minutes. Pack three days of clothes, grab
the one thing that is most valuable to you, and get out of the house.” As they did that, I placed valuables high on
dressers and tables, and hooked up our generators. My wife, Anne, and son,
Cameron, ended up on one side of the Tittabawassee River with in-laws, and I
was on the other. I also packed three days of clothes, grabbed my office
computer, then brought what was most valuable to me, our 1840s Randall family
bible, and also a stuffed animal that Cameron thought of as a friend since he
was two. I knew it would bring him some comfort if the worst happened. As I was
driving to Mt. Pleasant, where I hoped to get a hotel room, it occurred to me
that with the shutdown I didn’t even know if hotels were open. Fortunately, the
Holiday Inn was taking guests, and I was able to get a room and communicate
with my staff. The next morning one of my employees, Sanford resident Katie
Gensel, somehow managed to drive to our office building. She called me and
asked if she could go home because there was no electricity. That dedication,
especially considering she lived close to ground zero for the flood, would put
a lump in the throat of any manager. It is also demonstrative of the wonderful,
dedicated folks who work in our Midland County Friend of the Court Office. Notwithstanding
2020’s pandemic and 500-year flood, we managed to surpass all of our federal
performance numbers for the year, a clear sign of synergy in an office that
works well together whether remotely or in person.
When you
retire, you’ll find that saying goodbye to staff who feel more like family than
coworkers is hard.
During his public service career, Ken Randall served as president of several organizations, most notably the Michigan Family Support Council and Referees Association of Michigan. He also served on many boards of directors and committees, presented at conferences and as a faculty member for the Michigan Judicial Institute. He served on the State’s Child Support Formula Review Committee for four quadrennial sessions. Ken is an award winning landscape and wildlife photographer. He occasionally used his photography skills in his legal career with photo publications in the Michigan Bar Journal, Family Law Journal, Lawyers Weekly, and Referees Quarterly.
