Laurie Roberts' long-running jihad against the court gets vindicated today with a front-page investigation by Robert Anglen and Pat Kossan.

In a series of columns Roberts has contended that the court essentially colludes with private law firms assigned to oversee assets, and allows the firms to drain the funds with excessive legal fees.

She’s been doing individual cases. The report today is a massive overview, and worth reading.

Here’s the beginning of the main story](http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/09/24/20100924maricopa-county-probate-court-main-0926.html):

Outside of being imprisoned, no action in the American justice system deprives a person of so many rights as being declared incapacitated in Probate Court.

First, a judge rules that you can’t care for yourself. Then strangers can be given control of every aspect of your life. All that you’ve worked for and love – your savings, property, even your ability to contact your family – can be taken away and given to professionals to manage, at enormous expense to you.

Wills, trusts and powers of attorney may not matter.

Probate Court is meant to be a safe harbor for people in crisis because of advanced age or illness, a place where a judge helps protect their assets and well-being.

But an Arizona Republic investigation has found that Maricopa County Probate Court allows the assets of some vulnerable adults to become a cash machine for attorneys and for fiduciary companies, which manage their affairs.

The fees charged can drain the savings of even wealthy individuals in less than a year.

Full report here.

More about Laurie Roberts, on whom PHXated has a big ol' journalistic crush, here and here.


Of course, this being the Republic, the presentation online is seriously flawed. The layout in the paper makes visual and narrative sense; online, it simply lists a bunch of stories. When you get the the end of one, there’s no indication there’s another to be read in the series.

Sigh.