Troubleshooter

New Judge Kim R. Hubbard says her elder law background prepared her well for the emotionally wrenching issues in family law court. But she's finding a steep learning curve on property questions.

By Don J. DeBenedictis

Daily Journal

1/13/09

SANTA ANA - Most judges new to family law and with no practice in the field struggle with some of the arcane, "sui generis," property and financial issues. That's true of Orange County Superior Court Judge Kim R. Hubbard.

Many family law judges, even the old hands, also struggle with the emotionally wrenching custody and domestic-violence issues. Yet, even after only seven months on the bench, and just five in family law, Hubbard has found those decisions relatively easy.

"It's strange that I do not seem to have as much of a problem coming to determinations on custody and visitation and DV," Hubbard said. "Those issues present to me as fairly clear cut."

She has a theory about why. "Now, maybe it's from having dealt with families in emotional turmoil and all this sort of thing," the judge speculated.

That is exactly the same theory that would come to mind to the many lawyers in Southern California and elsewhere who know her. Hubbard has years of experience working with families in trouble and teaching other lawyers how to do the same.

The difference is that rather than dealing with parents fighting over or mistreating children, she dealt with children mistreating parents. Hubbard was one of the early elder-law attorneys in the state, and by the time she went on the bench, she was considered an expert nationally.

Hubbard said that even though decisions about custody and visitation might be easier for her than for other new judges, she does not make snap decisions and pays careful attention to the people and facts. Still, "it usually boils down to what's in the best interests of the children," she said.

But she has had to do much more research on property issues, the judge said. "I could certainly tell if somebody was being financially abused. But when ... you start talking about credits and reimbursements and quadros [Qualified Domestic Relations Orders] and all those sorts of things, I'm running for the cases like a rabbit and ... talking to my colleagues about it."

After all, she said, marital property issues only look cut and dried. "Is it community? Is it separate? Did somebody contribute? Was there an agreement? Yada yada yada. Oh my dear God. I read the cases."

Experienced family law attorneys who've appeared before her say she does do that and, so far, appears to be making good decisions.

"She does read the law. I think she listens well," said Richard P. Sullivan of Tustin.

Lonnie K. Seide of Newport Beach said Hubbard is learning quickly. In the matter he had before her, Seide recalled that Hubbard asked her own questions of a forensic accounting expert, and they were good questions.

"It was clear that she got it," he said. The issues were like a bowl of spaghetti, he said, "and she was able to reach into the bowl and pull out that strand" that mattered.

But what most impressed him about the judge was that she made a point of telling him and opposing counsel what she knew and didn't know and asked for briefing on those issues she didn't.

"For a judicial officer not to have an ego problem ... [and] to say 'educate me'" is great, Seide said.

Hubbard doesn't mind needing to ask for help and education, though she finds it odd after 15 years as an elder-law specialist.

"It's very strange to come from an area where you're an expert and all of a sudden you don't know anything. Very humbling," she said with a laugh. "I probably needed it."

Hubbard truly is an expert on elder law, particularly on financial abuse of elders. She has taught and testified statewide and nationally on the subject.

In fact, for the last four years of her practice, she worked almost entirely not as a lawyer but as a consultant and head of a nonprofit organization set up to battle financial elder abuse.

In 2003, Hubbard became the director and coordinator of Orange County's Financial Abuse Specialist Team, or FAST, under the countywide Council on Aging. In 2007, she took over as head of the original financial abuse team in Los Angeles as well.

The teams are groups of experts who help private and county agencies and attorneys cope with elder financial-abuse problems. They also provide education to the public and others and give advice on legislation, according to the Orange County group's Web site.

"We had bankers, real estate agents, brokers, the FBI, Social Security, a lot of the financial people; we had the Department of Insurance," Hubbard said.

Besides education and general advice, the team takes on individual cases. For instance, one time a banker called Hubbard about a conservator who seemed to be taking thousands of dollars from an elderly woman's accounts daily.

Hubbard asked to see documents, which showed the conservator was writing herself checks every day worth from $3,000 to $30,000. "I called my FAST consultant at the public guardian's office, I called my FAST consultant at the county counsel's office, I said, 'Gentlemen, we need to get together.'"

When they looked carefully at the account, they discovered the woman had been writing herself checks for months. They took the matter to the probate judge, who immediately suspended the conservator's powers.

It turned out the experienced conservator had gone through a bad divorce and developed a gambling problem. When she finally turned in an accounting of the estate, she reported $796,000 unaccounted for.

She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years. "That's what I call a success," Hubbard said.

One final twist: "And as it subsequently turned out, the conservatee had been dead for two years," Hubbard said. The elderly woman's family, in New York and London, had no idea that money was being taken.

But elder financial problems frequently are hard not merely for their financial aspects. Seeking a conservatorship of an elderly parent is a wrenching decision emotionally, she said.

Hubbard told about getting a call from a young woman whose mother, a retired bank manager, had started buying items from the Home Shopping Network and also sending off thousands of dollars to the "Canadian Lottery."

When the mother drove to another town, where people in the bank didn't know her, to withdraw $5,000 to send to China, the daughter wondered what to do. Hubbard said she could seek a court-ordered evaluation of her mother's mental capacity.

"But if she passes, there's no conservatorship, and she never talks to you again. And if she doesn't pass it, you get a conservatorship, but she never talks to you again. And if you don't do anything, there's a chance that Mom might give away everything she owns."

A few weeks later, the mother sent off $30,000 in response to a "Nigerian" e-mail. The daughter obtained the conservatorship.

"But it's an extremely difficult decision to make, and even though she did what she needed to do to protect her mom, Mom wasn't going to be real happy with her. And it destroyed that family relationship," Hubbard said.

The far more troubling cases are those in which other people, usually children or grandchildren, take an elder's money. Those cases are becoming more common and will only increase with the current economic downturn, Hubbard believes.

"If someone is financially abused as an elder, they can't re-earn that money, and they generally don't get it back, and the options that they have are foreclosed to them," Hubbard noted. "The option maybe to travel, the option maybe to be able to go visit the grandkids every couple of months, the option to go out to dinner, to go to the movies. Those things ... have been taken."

But those kinds of situations lead to the same shattering of family relationships. As a result, as in domestic violence cases, the victims often don't want to testify against their abusers.

"You don't get the money back, and that relationship is destroyed, and some of that family that you'd hoped to have around you when you got older is gone, so it's a double whammy," Hubbard said.

Hubbard, 55, can talk for hours about these issues. "I've always rather liked my elders," she said.

She traces that fondness to her earliest days. Her mother and father were relatively older, 38 and 45, when she was born in 1953 in Albuquerque, N.M., where they owned a chain of eight department stores called Hubbard's.

As she grew, "I suppose I was a fairly precocious kid, and I would hang out a lot with them and their friends."

Also, she was raised from the age of 6 months by her nanny, "Ommie," who was 63 when she began taking care of Hubbard. "Ommie" stayed with the family until Hubbard was 12, including coming along when the family moved from New Mexico to Orange County in 1960.

"I just referred to her as my grandmother," Hubbard said.

Ommie, actually Alice Mason, died at age 99 at a rest home in Anaheim. "I always said for the first 12 years, she took care of me, for the next 12 years we took care of each other, and the last 12 years I took care of her," Hubbard said. "An amazing person."

Hubbard attended UC Irvine and then went immediately to law school at the separate and unaccredited University of Irvine School of Law. She had a sole practice for a while, then became an in-house attorney at Westworld Community Healthcare Inc., a south Orange County company that operated hospitals in rural areas around the country.

From there, she moved to Traveler's Insurance Co. and its HMO program in 1988, but when that office moved to Houston, Hubbard in 1990 joined a small Santa Ana law firm called Pothier & Hinrichs. She primarily worked on probate matters.

With the companies, she had handled employment, coverage and other matters. At the firm, she said, she "actually found my passion, which was elders."

The law firm broke up in 1992. Hubbard continued to work for one former partner for about a year, then opened her own office in 1993.

The Orange County FAST formed the following year, and Hubbard joined it. She took it over in 2003, and she stopped practicing law to concentrate on the nonprofit work in 2004.

That same year, she applied for the Superior Court bench, but she never heard anything. Until last year.

"It was the shock of my life when I got the call that night. Absolutely stunned," she said.

For her first couple of months as a brand new judge, Hubbard handled traffic matters - "to get my feet wet," she said - and a few misdemeanor jury trials.

As a probate lawyer, she had never had a jury trial, but she found them relatively easy because "the jury does all the heavy lifting."

In family law, there also are no juries. But lawyers say she is doing well with trials and other matters. "She's friendly, she's pleasant, she's very good on evidence," Sullivan said.

She also has a good sense of humor, he said, even in long, emotionally charged cases.

Hubbard said she is having some trouble with the formality required in court "because I have never been a formal animal."

"At this point in time, because I am such a new commodity, I do not expect counsel to have personal respect for me. I expect them to have respect for the bench, under any circumstances," she said.

Off the bench, Hubbard said she likes to read, lately especially books about serial killers. "Probably shouldn't analyze that too far," she says. And she is trying to get back to exercising after having a hip replaced last year.

Once she gets the hang of her new job, Hubbard plans on jumping back into community and civic matters, including speaking about elder abuse and another favorite topic, hoarding. She also will resume her mentoring of students from Chapman University School of Law.

In the meantime, the judge said, she is enjoying learning about a new area of law.

"I learn something new every day, and as I learned in my career in elder law, the more you learn, the more active you keep your brain, the more you ward off dementia and Alzheimer's," she said. "So it sounds like a good idea."

Biographical Information

Career Highlights: Appointed by Gov. Arnold Scwharzenegger, August 2008; coordinator, Orange County Financial Abuse Specialists Team, 2003-08, and Los Angeles County FAST, 2007-08; sole practitioner, 1993-2003; associate, Law Offices of Laura Hinrichs, 1992-93; associate, 1990-92; in-house counsel, Traveler’s Insurance Co., 1988-90; in-house counsel, Westworld Community Healthcare Inc., 1985-87; sole practitioner, 1979-83

Law School: Irvine University School of Law, 1979

Age: 55

Here are some of Judge Hubbard's recent cases and the lawyers involved:

In re Marriage of Villafuerte, 02D000076 Dissolution, with children -

For the Petitioner: Juana Trejo, Santa Ana

For the Respondent: Richard J. Politiski, Santa Ana

People v Duran, 08CM00940 Domestic Violence

For the defense: Deputy Public Defender Dittu Faisal, Santa Ana

For the prosecution: Deputy District Attorney Hasan Noorul, Santa Ana

People v Maile, 08CM03571 Driving Under the Influence -

For the defense: Deputy Public Defender Dittu Faisal, Santa Ana

For the prosecution: Deputy District Attorney Jess Rodriguez, Santa Ana

People v Roman, 08CM00773 Possession of Drug Paraphernalia -

For the prosecution: Deputy District Attorney Bradley Schoenleben, Santa Ana

For the defense: Deputy Public Defender Brian Reznick, Santa Ana.

Dia S. Poole
Bench-Bar Coalition Liaison

Office of Governmental Affairs
Judicial Council of California - Administrative Office of the Courts
916-323-3121, Fax: 916-323-4347, dia.poole@jud.ca.gov