Family Law's Rhythm Queen

By Jacob A. Appelsmith

Jill Barr, the 2004 Chair of the Family Law Section's Executive Committee of the Sacramento County Bar Association, has devoted so much of her professional and personal life to the practice of family law in Sacramento and to community service as a whole that many will be surprised to learn that she finds the time to play the drums in a rock band. Indeed, Ms. Barr has not one, but two full kits of drums she hits with quickness and strength.

Barr has practiced family law in Sacramento since the 1980s, and she is a Certified Family Law Specialist. Despite her prowess in an area of law known for its acrimony, and her choice of a musical instrument often typified by an aggressive style of play, Barr has become a champion of reasonableness and compassion in Sacramento's family law community.

Barr grew up in Gilroy and went to Santa Clara University, from which she graduated with a degree in history in 1983. She came to Sacramento that year to go to McGeorge, from where she graduated in 1986. Although she had no lawyers in her family, she began thinking about law as a career while still in high school. "My ideal," Barr says, "was to help people, maybe as a public defender or a legal aid attorney." Barr's career has been exclusively in private practice, but she has nevertheless served that ideal.

For many years, Barr has served as a court appointed minor's counsel. For little or no pay, she typically has ten or more active cases in which she represents children whose parents are involved in highly contested custody disputes. In these cases there are often allegations of molestation or other abuse, and a judge, or the mental health professional who has evaluated the case, determines that the children need their own lawyer to ensure their interests are recognized and served.

Penny Hancock, a therapist who serves as a mediator in custody disputes, has worked on several cases where Barr served as minor's counsel. Hancock says that Barr does tremendous amounts of work in relating to her clients, in seeking to understand what is best for them. "Jill's care for children," Hancock says, "and her dedication to their interests is incredible." Hancock, who has also worked on cases where Barr has represented one of the parents, says that "Not all attorneys truly work toward the best interest of the children, but Jill does that while still representing her client with dedicated advocacy."

Barr says that "Helping children get through the difficult issues of families in conflict is the aspect of family law that gives me the greatest satisfaction Children are invariably the most vulnerable parties in any divorce or custody litigation, and they deserve special attention."

Barr is committed not only to helping children, but also to promoting the interests of all parties in family law disputes from a nonlegal, as well as a legal, perspective. On initial consultation, she emphasizes to her clients the importance of considering individual and family therapy, and she usually recommends it given the charged emotional setting of dissolution and custody issues. She says that "If there is a recent or pending separation, and there are no pressing financial or safety issues, I encourage them to let some time elapse before they go to court, because litigation is bound to reduce the prospects for reconciliations and other peaceful resolutions."

She also encourages new clients to consider legal options short of full-blown litigation. "I want them to understand that litigation is seldom the most emotionally healthy, financially prudent, or expedient manner of approaching their issues." She encourages them to consider traditional mediation or the emerging collaborative law model. She emphasizes to them that the litigation model is the worst, because it is emotionally and financially draining, and it has the propensity to take the control of their own destinies away. "I want them to understand that this is especially true for their children," she says.

One non-litigation approach Barr is particularly excited about is collaborative law, and she is a member of the Collaborative Law Group, an association of local attorneys and mediators working to promote and develop the concept. Collaborative law is a type of mediation, but unlike traditional family-law mediation where the parties are not represented by counsel, the parties are represented. The parties and their attorneys, however, sign an agreement pledging to stay out of court and to resolve their case in a collaborative manner. To reinforce their commitment to the process, the attorneys stipulate they will not serve as counsel in litigation should the process not achieve a resolution.

"Traditional mediation can be limited," Barr says, "because often one party has an intellectual or emotional advantage over the other and the process is unbalanced as a result. Collaborative mediations tend to bring those factors into balance, and the series of meetings that occur enforce the spirit of cooperation given that the parties have agreed to avoid litigation if at all possible, the lawyers have no interest in future fees from litigation, and there is no atmosphere of going through the motions that often is present in other mediations and settlement conferences."

Even though Barr is committed to non-litigation solutions to family- law disputes, that is not always possible, and she takes two to three family law cases to trial each year. "Unfortunately," she says, "not all family law lawyers or their clients are interested in avoiding fullblown litigation, and for cooperation to exist both sides have to contribute." Her former law partner, Scott Buchanan, says that when Barr litigates she is "tenacious, hard working, and client committed."

Nevertheless, even in litigation she retains her perspective that it is a lawyer's responsibility to promote reasonableness in the process. Bob O'Hair, a certified family law specialist who has been practicing family law for 25 years, says that Barr "is reasonable, which is particularly important in family law. She represents her clients very well, as an advocate and a person." In the half dozen cases he has had with her, he has not had to go to trial and cannot even recall a contested hearing. Claire Buckey, another certified family law specialist, who served on the Family Law Section's Executive Committee with Barr, praises Barr for her "calm demeanor, which helps in many situations in family law."

As Penny Hancock says, Barr seems to be "everywhere" in the family law community. Not only has she been active with the Executive Committee, the minor's counsel panel, and the Collaborative Law Group, she has been a judge pro tem for nearly ten years and until recently served on the Sacramento Superior Court's contempt panel. As the Chair of the Executive Committee she generally oversees all aspects of family law, including the various subcommittees and panels, running the court's settlement conference program, generating and reviewing local rules related to family law , and sponsoring seminars and training. This is a collaborative mission in which she and the committee work with judges, other family law lawyers, court administrators, and mental health care professionals on improving the workings of all aspects of family law.

Second to the satisfaction she garners from helping her clients, Barr enjoys the collegiality of the family law bar. She says that the "lawyers, judges, mental health, and forensic professionals who work in this area are a good group of people who for the most part are working toward the goal of having as peaceful a process as possible."

And as for her drumming, Barr can be heard regularly on Thursday nights at the Beatnook in Sacramento. She uses DW drums, Sabian cymbals, and Zidjian and Pro-Mark sticks.

March / April 2005