A judge has ordered a divorcing couple to immediately pay pending legal bills for the court-appointed attorney representing their two daughters, spurning a request from the husband that the attorney not get her money until after the conclusion of a trial on financial issues in a contentious case.
"This Court will not establish a standard whereby court-appointed attorneys for children must wait to collect counsel fees due and owing for legal services provided to children on consent of the parties until such time as a party chooses to pay. Attorneys for children, like all attorneys, have overhead expenses and bills that must be paid… Attorneys for children should not be placed in a position where they are, in effect, subsidizing the parties' litigation by providing interest-free 'loans' to the litigants in the form of an uncollected, interest-free balance due," Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Sunshine (See Profile) wrote in Mary E. v. Usher E.
