NEVER SHOUT AT A JUDGE in ALL CAPS
GAL Shannon Moreau shows us all how NOT to write a declaration
Guardian ad litem Shannon Moreau is making legal precedent, it seems. In all my time of reading through legal filings (and it must be at least 10,000 by now) I’ve never come across one as unprofessional and hilarious as the one written by GAL Shannon Moreau asking Commissioner Tony DiTomasso to grant her exorbitant fees in Burkhart v. Adkins.
My description can’t do this thing justice. This is a document you have to read for yourself. In particular, pay close attention to the multiple times Moreau uses ALL CAPS for effect. I’m not sure why she felt it was a good idea to use an internet code for “yelling” in a legal declaration, but she went with it…in more than one place! Nothing says I’M AN UNPROFESSIONAL HACK quite like ALL CAPS in a legal document.
One wonders when Commissioner DiTomasso is going to tire of this juvenile behavior but so far he seems to enjoy it. Maybe he gets as big a laugh out of this stuff as I do. I mean…this is funny.
For the record, in all the times GAL Moreau has accused me of defamation she has not filed a defamation lawsuit where I would be able to defend such allegations. If GAL Moreau is ever run out of the legal arena she may have a career in comedy. I ran this declaration past a few lawyers I know and after they were able to breathe again after fits of choking laughter they agreed with me that they’d never seen anything quite like this.
GAL Moreau breathlessly laments (for seemingly no reason) how much she despises both me and reporter Michael Volpe. I don’t know why. It had nothing to do with her motion to be paid, but it’s entertaining anyway.
God forbid anyone “defame the court system as a whole.” If that’s the standard then I think she has a lot more people to blame than just me. She can start with the filmmakers of Divorce Corp., ABC News, investigative journalist Wayne Dolcifino, and author and movie star Greg Ellis if she wants to silence critics of the court system in America. Judge Judy should also be high on her list for calling family court a “dumping ground for morons and political hacks.” I’m not sure which country GAL Moreau thinks this is, but it’s not one where dissidents who speak out against their government are silenced and thrown into gulags.
As for GAL Moreau’s insistence that somehow it’s Mr. Burkhart’s fault that she has to Google herself every day to see what I’m saying about her and then bill him for it, well, that’s simply absurd. If Mr. Burkhart had come to me with a boring case where the GAL was behaving herself in a professional way, I wouldn’t have had anything to write about. But as it stands, GAL Moreau is one of the most entertaining family court unprofessionals known to me. She made the catastrophic mistake of reacting with sheer emotional vomit instead of just doing her job. That made her interesting to me. That’s actually her fault and not Mr. Burkhart’s. It is GAL Moreau’s actions in this case, and emails, that have made her newsworthy.
Failing to recognize that her own actions brought media scrutiny on her makes me wonder how she graduated from law school. She actually billed Mr. Burkhart for the time she spent Googling herself and reading press inquiries and watching my show and Commissioner DiTomasso allowed it.
I don’t know why the Commissioner allowed this. He told her in no uncertain terms that there was nothing he could do about the media in this case and that she should simply stop paying attention if she didn’t like the coverage. But then he allowed her to bill Mr. Burkhart for wasting her time on Google and downloading episodes of my show to give to the Commissioner who never reviewed them. Why did he allow this? It’s an absolute abuse of her billing to charge Mr. Burkhart for her personal obsession with media coverage of her.
The entire declaration is worth reading to understand the immature and unprofessional actions of GAL Moreau. Is this someone you would wish the court to appoint to decide the fate of your children?
On another note, Commissioner DiTomasso denied failed Apprentice Alex Thomason’s request to assign his legal fees to me for having to defend against my motion to intervene as press to keep the Commissioner from sealing GAL Moreau’s audio in the case. Thomason is appealing the decision.
