“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” (Brandeis, Louis, D., “What Publicity Can Do,” Harper’s Weekly, Dec. 20, 1913). Brandeis was railing against abusive business practices, a popular object of ire of the Progressive Era. One hundred plus years later, the good justice’s prescription is desperately needed by the very profession within which he so brilliantly excelled: the legal profession.

For well more than a decade, this column has lamented the diminished respect, if not outright contempt, with which too many of our courts regard the Constitutional right to Due Process in domestic relations matters. (Tippins, T.M., “Forensic Custody Reports: Where’s the Due Process?,” NYLJ, May 6, 2010; Tippins, T.M., “Star Chamber Justice and the Desperate Need for Reform,” NYLJ, Sept. 5, 2013; Tippins, T.M., “Interim Exclusion Orders: Substantive Standards and Due Process,” NYLJ, Nov. 1, 2017). Sadly, the pace of constitutional degradation seems only to be increasing. Worse, it is now being hastened—and worse yet concealed from public view—by the bureaucratic behemoth known as the Office of Court Administration (OCA).