In divorce, money trumps care-giving

The Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday, Dec. 6, that there is no right to a state-funded attorney during divorce. Brenda King couldn't afford a lawyer, but her husband, Michael King, could. No surprise: He got custody of the couple's children, even though she had provided the majority of care up to that point. King's case is typical. "The person who can afford an attorney, and a good attorney, in a custody case is much more likely to win," says Ken Saukas, founder of Divorce Attorneys for Women. And having more money itself makes a parent more attractive to a judge. The result? Because of the wage gap between men and women – and the much wider wage gap between mothers and fathers – when a man asks for custody, the majority of the time he receives it. Ominously, as the Northwest Women's Law Center wrote in its amicus brief supporting King's case, studies have found that men who have committed domestic violence are particularly likely to contest custody – and therefore to receive it. King claimed that her husband was abusive. (He, in turn, claimed she was mentally unfit.) This made another strike against her: Ragen Rasnic, a partner at the Seattle law firm Skellenger Bender, who wrote the amicus brief, says that lawyers typically advise women not to allege abuse in their divorces, because it tends to bias judges against them. King may have lost not only her kids but her claim to Social Security. King had been married for 10 years. Unless it was at least 10 years, she gets no Social Security benefits based on her marriage, and if she was out of the workforce while caring for those children, she wasn't accruing any Social Security benefits in her own right. State Supreme Court: majority opinion, concurrence, dissenting opinion