By Susan Bassi, Fred Johnson and Faith Strader
The timing was too precise to be coincidence.
In mid-December 2025, the Vanguard published an article on lawyers appointed by family court judges to represent children in divorce cases and custody disputes. The story cited a specific case: a 14-year dissolution proceeding involving a boy with autism we are calling Jack.
Jack’s second court appointed attorney, Daniel “Dan” Beck, did not respond to repeated requests for comment prior to the article’s publication.
Within one week of publication, Beck filed a notice of unavailability.
Two weeks later, Beck filed a motion to seal the entire case. Not one document, not one sensitive exhibit, but the complete record of 14 years of public-record litigation, including his own court filings.
On New Years Eve, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Robert La Forge signed the sealing order. No hearing. No findings. No notice to the parties. The order did not appear on the public docket for another seven days.
Then a media request was formally denied by Judge LaForge. Again: no hearing, no findings, no notice.
Jack’s mom, representing herself, asked the court of appeal to keep the court records public. California’s First Appellate District in San Francisco, granted her request, issuing an order to the Sonoma County Superior Court to vacate the sealing orders right away, or explain why they would not.
Sonoma County Superior Court reassigned the case to a civil court judge, Lawrence Ornell — who, in a single hearing, cleaned up the legal mess created by Beck’s legal effort to seal a public divorce case file.
Now, taxpayers will pay for the legal fiasco Beck created in the name of representing the “best interests” of his child client.
In California, divorce case files are considered public records. Sealing them — locking them away from public view — is supposed to be rare. To understand why that matters in Jack’s case, it helps to understand what minors’ counsel is, and what it is not.
A Judge’s Call, No Proof Required
Under California Family Code Section 3150, a family court judge can appoint a private attorney to represent a child in a custody or divorce case whenever the judge believes it serves the “child’s best interest”. That standard sounds reasonable. In practice, it sets an extremely low bar. No evidence of danger is required. No finding that either parent is failing. No proof that the child needs separate legal representation at all. It is entirely up to the judge.
Once appointed, these attorneys — called minors’ counsel in California — are paid either by the child’s parents at the attorney’s private hourly rate, or at $100 per hour by taxpayers. The appointing judge decides who pays.
Criminal defendants have a Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. Children caught in the middle of a divorce or custody fight do not. These appointments exist because a California state law allows them — and because some family court judges use them routinely, particularly in cases where parents have money or assets that can be tapped to pay the appointed attorney’s fees. When parents cannot pay, taxpayers foot the bill for minors’ counsel, through the local court’s budget.
There is no defined job description for minor’s counsel. No measurable outcome. No reporting requirement. No performance review. The attorney bills, the court orders payment, and the public never sees the result.
Enormous Power, Almost No Oversight
Minors’ counsel attorneys come from a small pool of local lawyers. But the power they wield over children’s lives is significant. They can recommend to a judge who a child lives with, which school a child attends, and what activities a child is allowed to pursue.
There is no formal job description for minors’ counsel. No measurable goals. No agency they report to. No performance review. No audit to determine whether the child benefited from their involvement, or whether the legal fees served any purpose beyond generating income for the attorney. The attorney cannot be fired by parents, or taxpayers, ordered to pay them. A minors counsel remains in a case until they formally withdraw or are fired by a judge.
The attorney submits a bill. The court orders it to be paid. The public rarely learns what happened — especially when the court file is sealed.
California’s Judicial Council, which oversees the state court system, does not collect statewide data on how many minors’ counsel appointments are made each year, how much public money is spent on them, or what outcomes those cases produce.
Sonoma County: Even Less Transparency
In Sonoma County, the paper trail is even thinner. When the Vanguard submitted a public records request for payment records for both attorneys appointed to represent Jack — Julie Levy and Daniel Beck — and for records of the county’s minors’ counsel panel, the court’s response was blunt: no such records exist.
Other California counties, including Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange and Merced, have produced some records in response to public records requests. Sonoma County’s denial raises an uncomfortable question: either the county never built the administrative systems to track this information, or the denial was false.
Adding to those concerns is a structural conflict that plays out quietly in courthouses across the state. Minors’ counsel attorneys frequently participate in their local bar association’s family law section — the same professional circles where they socialize and network with the judges who appoint them.
Two Attorneys, One Child- No Measurable Result
Jack’s parents’ dissolution case was filed in 2011. His mother — a credentialed special education teacher — had spent her professional career helping children with disabilities navigate public school systems.
In 2016 Jack was formally diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by North Bay Regional Center and classified as autistic by the Rincon Valley Union School District.
The following year, the trial court issued a final custody order granting his mother sole legal authority over his medical and educational decisions, finding his ASD diagnosis was legitimate and that his father had previously denied him access to necessary services.
That order was never appealed. It was never overturned.
Four years later, Jack’s mother alleged her son was coming home from time with his father with “fingerprint” bruises that he could not explain. She went to the county’s free legal aid for help and as she did, Jack’s father, filed for a change of custody, claiming mom was overmedicating Jack, and engaging in “parental alienation” – a family law created phenomena often followed by drawn out litigation that judges use to justify appointment of minors counsel.
Father’s request sent the litigation into a new phase.
Judge Lozada was assigned to the case and appointed Julie Levy as minors counsel for Jack. Both parents — including a mother, on public assistance — were ordered to pay Levy’s fees privately. There is no documented ability-to-pay finding in the court record. Jack’s mom objected to the appointment claiming it would unnecessarily increase litigation costs.
Levy, aligned immediately with father and his new attorney, Michael Fish, and made recommendations that were quickly adopted by the court.
At the recommendation of Levy, Judge Lozada reversed the course of litigation without making new evidentiary findings — adopting the father’s framing that the mother was ‘over-medicalizing’ Jack and engaging in alienating behavior. Based on father’s allegations, she was placed on supervised visitation with her autistic son. Despite no criminal charge and no finding of abuse, she had to pay a third party to oversee her time with her son that was reduced to a few hours a week.
After months of Levy seemingly favoring father and his attorney and not acting in Jack’s best interest, Jack’s mom hired an attorney and sought to disqualify, or remove, Levy as Jack’s attorney.
Judge Lozada declined to remove Levy, but she removed herself from the case months later. After she did, the court ordered her fees paid from Jack’s special needs trust — a federally protected fund designed to preserve a disabled person’s eligibility for Medicaid and Social Security Income (SSI), not to pay for attorneys in a disputed custody proceeding.
Julie Levy’s fees were ordered paid from Jack’s special needs trust — a fund designed to protect a disabled person’s eligibility for Medicaid and SSI, not to finance attorneys in a disputed custody case.
After Levy withdrew from the case, the court appointed Daniel Beck to represent Jack, without it being clear what Beck’s legal services would provide the boy. Beck’s publicly funded rate — what the county pays — is capped at $100 per hour. In Jack’s case, county taxpayers are now paying Beck’s fees. The total amount paid to Beck are among the records Sonoma County claims do not exist.
Neither Levy nor Beck is a mental health professional, a child development specialist, or a disability expert. Their qualifications for assessing the needs of an autistic child, or for evaluating whether his mother’s advocacy was in his best interest, are those of general family law practitioners. What distinguished them was their relationship with the local bench. They were the attorneys the judge appointed.
Child’s Attorney on Autism and Disability
At a 2024 custody review hearing before Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Lozada, Beck admitted on the record that he had contacted the mother’s therapist without a signed HIPAA authorization — a potential federal privacy violation. He also stated, on the record, that he wanted Jack to be ‘normal’ and that pursuing autism-related services was what ‘made him disabled.’
Those statements, made by a publicly funded court officer in a case involving an autistic child, directly contradict the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and established medical consensus on autism spectrum disorder. They also contradict the court’s own 2017 findings, which had never been reversed.
In his capacity as Jack’s attorney, Beck recommended the court strip Jack’s mom of custody time and bar her from claiming her son was autistic.
Judge Lozada adopted Beck’s recommendations fully. He then sealed the transcript of that hearing — without notice, without findings, without any motion from either party.
With the transcript sealed, the record of Beck’s statements became inaccessible. It could not be viewed by the press or public. Nor shared with the school district’s IEP team for Jack, where it would have been directly relevant. It could not be referenced in complaints to oversight agencies.
Beck warned the mother in a September 2024 email that her continued pursuit of disability services for Jack — and her pending legal motions — could result in ‘custody consequences.’ Within weeks, they did.
In September 2024, Beck sent the mother a direct email warning that her continued pursuit of disability-related services for Jack — and her pending legal motions — could result in ‘custody’ consequences. Within weeks of that warning, custody orders shifted against her.
Then the case was assigned to Judge LaForge, with Judge Lozada’s orders remaining in place. Orders that kept a mother not only from shared custody of her son, but from assisting with his educational needs as she does professionally for other children.
An Article. The Motion. A Court Order Secrets Public Court Records
Vanguard’s December 2025 article specifically raised questions about transparency and accountability in Sonoma County — including the conduct of Daniel Beck.
The recorded timeline indicates that family court judges and minors’ counsel tend to resist public supervision:
Dec. 16, 2025: Davis Vanguard article published.
Dec. 19: Beck files notice of unavailability.
Dec. 23: Beck files motion to seal the entire 14-year case docket, with no legal justification attached.
Dec. 28: Mother files ADA accommodation request, notifying court she is copying the DOJ and California Civil Rights Department.
Dec. 30: Media request filed to observe the January 8 trial.
Dec. 31: Judge LaForge signs the blanket sealing order. No hearing. No findings.
No notice to the parties. No service.
Jan. 2, 2026: Judge LaForge denies media request. No hearing. No findings.
No notice.
Jan. 7: The sealing order, signed seven days earlier, first appears on the public
docket.
California Rules of Court, rule 2.550(d), requires that before any court record may be sealed, a judge must make express written findings identifying the compelling interest that justifies sealing, why less restrictive alternatives like redaction are inadequate, and why blanket sealing is narrowly tailored to that interest. The California Supreme Court, in NBC Subsidiary (KNBC-TV), Inc. v. Superior Court (1999), held that these requirements are not suggestions. They are constitutional mandates.
The December 31 order made none of those findings. It contained no reasoning at all. It was, legally speaking, a blank check — drawn on the public’s right of access to its courts.
Mother Goes to the Court of Appeal to Make Case File Public
Jack’s mother took the issue to the court of appeal. Her petition was filed in propria persona — meaning she drafted and submitted a 30-page constitutional writ, with exhibits and legal argument, without a lawyer. Beck did not respond, or file court pleadings in support of his request to seal 14 years of his client’s parents’ divorce records. However, Jack’s father’s attorney, Michael Fish, filed a 26- page court document, supporting Beck’s initial motion.
On March 6, 2026, the Court of Appeal issued its order signed under the authority of Presiding Justice Alison Tucher, commanding the Sonoma County Superior Court to either vacate the sealing orders and reconsider the motion in compliance with California Rules of Court, rule 2.550(d)–(e), or appear before the appellate court and show cause why a peremptory writ should not issue.
A self-represented mother on public assistance, fighting a court-appointed attorney and a represented opposing party, won a writ of mandate from the California Court of Appeal. A civil judge then cleaned up in one afternoon what a family court judge had built over years.
After the court of appeal sent the case back to the Sonoma County trial court, with a mandate to do better, Judge LaForge recused, removing himself from the case. The case was then assigned to Judge Lawrence Ornell.
Judge Ornell came to the matter without the accumulated history of prior rulings, prior relationships, and prior commitments. On April 2, 2026, he vacated the sealing orders, denied Beck’s request, and set the case for trial.
What Minors Counsel Don’t Want the Public to See
The minor’s counsel system runs on obscurity. Its economics depend on the absence of the scrutiny that governs virtually every other expenditure of public funds in California.
When a county contracts for road repair, the contract is public. When a school district pays a consultant, the payment record is a public document. When a court appoints an attorney and orders taxpayers to pay their legal fees, the billing records — according to Sonoma County — do not exist.
There is no statewide data on how many minor’s counsel appointments California courts make each year. No aggregate cost. No outcome tracking. No performance metric. The Judicial Council does not collect it. Local courts are not required to report it. And in Sonoma County, even the narrow records that should exist by operation of basic court administration are officially concealed.
What sealing in Jack’s case would have accomplished — had the Court of Appeal not intervened — is the permanent burial of 14 years of evidence about how that system functions in practice: a child’s autism diagnosis characterized by his own court-appointed lawyer as a condition caused by his mother’s advocacy; a special needs trust depleted to pay attorney fees; transcripts sealed, then relied upon in sealed orders a mother could not access to rebut.
The sealing motion was filed by the attorney whose conduct those records document. It was granted by the judge who presided over the proceedings those records reflect.
That is not child protection. That is institutional self-protection.
Family Court: Never Ends
Jack’s custody case is now headed to trial in Sonoma County’s Courtroom 22. Hearings are set before Judge Ornell through late June 2026.
A complaint to Presiding Judge Shelly Averell about Beck’s conduct — raising the appearance of ineffective assistance of counsel and retaliation for press coverage — has received no substantive response for over three months.
The Vanguard is reviewing all legal remedies available to obtain Beck’s public pay records the court says does not exist.
Jack is now 15. The case began when he was a year old and had defined and directed his entire childhood. In the last few years his court appointed attorneys have kept him from his mother who is professionally trained to deal with his autism and learning disabilities.
A self-represented mother on public assistance, with PTSD, fighting a court-appointed attorney and an opposing party with private counsel, won a writ of mandate from the California Court of Appeal. A civil judge, unencumbered by the years of prior commitments in the case, cleaned up in one afternoon what a family law judge had spent years building.
The sealing order is gone. The records are open. The trial proceeds.
This time, the public will be watching.
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