Lawyers With Causes : Part Rebel, Part Perry Mason, Taking Cases Others Don’t Want to Touch, They’re.. . .

They embody everything you always looked for in a lawyer, but somehow never found: fairness, compassion and a sense that your cause is worth more to them than the 14th-story Encino suite you suspect your fee has financed.

They sometimes work on a contingency basis, taking cases others refuse because of the sorry monetary risk involved.

They’ve held tight to their ideals, and they’re not about to let go of your case without a fight--even if it means revamping the legal system in the process.

They are lawyers with causes--that rare breed of part activist, part rebel, part Perry Mason.

Most lawyers assume the law specialty offered by their first or second job. The following attorneys carved out specialties after traumatic events in their personal lives spurred them to try to reform the system.

Turning every legal screw possible, they’ve taken their rage and helplessness and used it to champion the people’s rights.

Roberta Bennett

Being “Chief of the Lesbians” is a position that Roberta Bennett fills with a certain wry pride.

It was her daughter Allison who pinned the label on her during a first-grade show-and-tell session at Encino Elementary School. After a classmate teased Allison, a teacher at the school explained to the students that “everyone has to respect each other’s differences.”

Bennett rolls her eyes at the memory. She knows that respecting her difference is not always backed by law--that some judges need education when ruling on gay and lesbian custody and adoption cases, her specialty.

“It’s been a matter of educating the system through seminars, printed material and expert witnesses at the time of trial,” said Bennett, 49, who lives in Tarzana with her companion of 18 years, Diane Abbitt--also her law partner in the Los Angeles firm of Abbitt & Bennett.

“We’ve now gotten to the point where most judges don’t care if a parent is lesbian or gay--unless you can prove a direct negative impact on the child,” said Bennett, a family law specialist. “But the farther away you get from a big city, you’re going to have some problems.”

About 10% of Bennett’s practice is devoted to gay and lesbian custody and adoption cases; the bulk of her business comes from heterosexual family law cases. The number of gay cases would be larger, she said, “but you have to remember we’re only 10% of the population.” Abbitt practices real estate and business law.

The couple have raised their four children (Bennett’s two girls and Abbitt’s two boys, all from heterosexual marriages) together for 18 years in a sort of alternative Brady Bunch scenario. The pair are now raising a 4-year-old grandson.

Bennett decided on her legal specialty after helping Abbitt battle for custody of her two small children. “I decided that it was absolutely ridiculous to think that a mother who is a lesbian could lose custody of her children for that reason alone--not to mention the emotional upheaval it caused all of us at the time,” she said. “I decided I would do something about it.”

Since 1967, California law has held that a parent cannot be denied custody of a child solely because of homosexuality.

Bennett said her post-college three-year stint as probation officer at MacLaren Hall, a home for neglected and abused children, also influenced her choice of practice. “After working with neglected and abused children, it really hit home that children are oftentimes the forgotten parties of a divorce,” said Bennett. Bennett, Abbitt and their children were the first lesbian-headed family to join Tarzana’s Temple Judea 12 years ago.

Unmarried couples, gay or straight, with children currently have little legal recourse when settling disputes, Bennett said, since courts will not legally recognize the partner of a legal or biological parent.

“Under the Family Law Act, courts have no jurisdiction to award custody to a non-parent, without finding the legal parent unfit,” Bennett said. “So the biological or legal parent can tell the other parent, who has no legal recourse, to take a hike.”

California courts, however, have begun granting adoptions to same-sex couples (called co-parents) during the past year. Bennett has handled about half of the dozen or so Los Angeles County cases that have been decided or are in progress.

“Divorce laws include all kinds of rules to keep children from being damaged in a breakup,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard E. Denner said. “When a gay relationship breaks apart, you don’t have those rules.”

Bennett and Denner said that when breakups occur between couples who have adopted under the new co-parent arrangement, the rules followed with heterosexual divorces will probably hold.

The child ultimately wins, Bennett said. “Both parents are still on the hook financially to raise the child, and the child has the right to continue a relationship with both parents--just like after dissolution of a heterosexual union.”

“As the gay community achieves a higher and higher profile, prejudice in the courts breaks down,” he added.

“People routinely look to Roberta to handle these kind of cases--she’s very visible and articulate. There aren’t many lawyers who are willing to stand up and say they’re gay and take on this cause.”

Bennett, who receives about 30 inquiries a month about her specialty, said the number of gay adoption and custody cases she accepts is growing. Gay families--couples who adopt, win custody of offspring from a dissolution of a heterosexual union or have children by alternative means of conception--are increasing. Some activists call it the “gayby” boom.

The legal conflicts that such gay family life presents are best detailed, Bennett said, in cases of alternative conception. If a woman is artificially inseminated in a doctor’s office, the father, or sperm donor, has no legal rights. If the same procedure is done at home by the woman or a friend, under California law the donor is legally the child’s father, whether or not he wanted the attendant responsibility.

A couple who opt for home insemination could adopt the child as co-parents, but the existence of a legal father would complicate the situation.

“The difference between home or office is an artificial distinction that has no real basis,” said Bennett, who also lectures widely about changes she believes are needed in family law. “It obviously doesn’t matter where the woman is inseminated.”

Such legal entanglements would not automatically be solved if gay marriages were legally sanctioned. “My first question would be if gay marriages would fall under the Family Law Act,” said Bennett. “Some in the community would consider that great. Others would think it horrible, since it follows a heterosexual model.

“I hope I’m not offending anyone when I say that gay males tend to be more transient than lesbians. I say that because I’m not sure how many guys would like to be slapped with spousal and child support after a two-year relationship. Legal gay marriages might create more questions than answers, but that’s what new laws tend to do.

“Before laws are enacted, we’re always going to be dealing with societal attitudes. Until that changes, I think there will be few legal changes.”

Marc Hankin

Unlike most resumes, volumes can be discerned from Marc Hankin’s four-page summary of accomplishments--beginning with the year 1968:

“Graduated from Fairfax High (D+ average); did not even know how to multiply.”

Hankin spent the next decade in and out of Israeli kibbutzim (“worked as a cattle and a pig rancher”), racked up several degrees worth of college credit and lived within earshot of the Yom Kippur War.

Hankin’s restlessness began to crystallize in 1980: “Dad diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I spent all my free time in the L.A. County Law library and on the phone with lawyers unsuccessfully trying to figure out the Medi-Cal system.”

Now an attorney with the Encino firm of Grayson, Givner, Booke, Silver & Wolfe, Hankin, 41, received his law degree that same year (“got no awards, did nothing special, got divorced--my wife met someone else”).

Those who know Hankin would argue that he went on to do something very special: a legal overhaul of the laws that determine how California treats its elderly citizens.

Hankin’s cause began when his father, Milt Hankin, needed long-term nursing home care. Milt’s wife, Sylvia, applied to Medi-Cal but was told that her husband would not qualify until she “spent down” her life savings to $2,300. The only way she could keep anything for herself was to divorce her dying husband and take ownership of half of their estate.

In 1981 the couple divorced, making Milt Hankin eligible for long-term care.

“I’ll never forget my father saying to my mother, ‘When do I have to move out?’ ” said Hankin, adding that the California Department of Social Services was wary of “show” divorces, so his father, who has since died, had to assume a false address to remain at home. “It was really perverse. One of the lowest experiences of my life.”

Nearly two years later, Hankin discovered that his parents need not have divorced. His mother could have filed for a conservatorship, becoming her husband’s guardian and controller of his assets. It was Medi-Cal procedure to withhold discussion of that option when briefing clients.

The discovery sparked Hankin’s drive to draft the California Spousal Protection Against High Cost of Long-Term Care bill, asserting the rights of Medi-Cal applicants to qualify for benefits by separating their property without divorcing. The bill, which was adopted by three-fourths of U.S. states by 1988, was also used as a model for a similar federal law, which took effect in 1990.

Hankin has since testified at hearings before the California Assembly and Senate on various aspects of elder abuse legislation and has drafted a dozen resolutions and amendments. Most have been enacted.

“Marc’s dedication is unrelenting--one might even say he’s the consummate Boy Scout when it comes to the concerns of older adults in the state of California,” said Wayne Friedlander, program director at the USC Gerontology Center.

“Lots of attorneys call themselves estate planners or say they specialize in conservatorships, but it’s rare to find someone like Marc with broad knowledge of elder abuse who understands the family dynamic in abuse cases. He uses his creativity to prevent and resolve the elderly’s mental, emotional, physical and financial problems.”

Hankin’s latest legislative effort cuts through legal tangles faced by the elderly who suffer at the hands of con artists, nursing home workers and their own children.

The Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act, which went into effect Jan. 1 in California, allows an award for pain and suffering of up to $250,000, even if a verdict of abuse is handed down after the abused elder has died. (The money is awarded to relatives.) Among other improvements, the law also authorizes courts to award the victim attorney’s fees and costs.

The law, authored by Hankin and sponsored by state Sens. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) and Henry J. Mello (D-Watsonville), also covers dependent adults who have physical or mental limitations.

“Until Jan. 1, it was real tough to get a lawyer to handle these kind of cases because there was no monetary incentive at all,” said Hankin, who remembers his own father developing skin blisters after being left out in the sun by nursing home workers.

“The abuser’s lawyers would drag these kind of cases out, knowing nothing would be awarded if the victim died. Now there’s an incentive. That’s important because there’s a growing cottage industry of people who prey on the elderly.”

Hankin recalls flagrant cases of nursing home abuse that were ignored by lawyers who realized the odds against recouping costs. “That gives you an idea of what your grandmother’s rights are in a nursing home,” said Hankin, pacing the floor of his small, cluttered office. “If no one will champion that right--then what rights does she really have?”

Hankin devoted five years of research and lobbying to the new elder abuse law, about a one-year span of full-time work, he estimates. He said he receives an average of 25 calls a day on the subject of elder abuse.

“Back in 1984, I basically stopped trying to make a living,” he said, referring to time spent drafting legislation. During that period Hankin worked off a card-table desk in a Century City office and moved in with his mother to cut expenses. He now lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Jodi Cohn, a Ph.D. who is researching elderly issues, and his two children.

With the nation’s elderly population growing at a steady clip, Hankin’s voice becomes animated at the prospect of further legal changes. Among those he plans are “custodial care tax credits” for those, primarily family members, who opt to care for the elderly in their homes or who contribute to nursing home care costs.

Although Hankin now sees himself as part of the Establishment, he said his early activist days (he was once an organizer for a Zionist-Socialist group) have come full circle.

“I no longer think I have a solution to all the world’s problems, but I think a little patch-up work on the system here and there really helps,” said Hankin, who also envisions a day-care support industry for the elderly. “My dad still comes to mind on every issue I go after. He was a real good-hearted guy. If my father could see what I’ve achieved, it would be something he’d live on. It would be the center of his life.”

Valerie Vanaman

Valerie Vanaman remembers a childhood in which she literally became her younger sister’s eyes. “I got her through classes by reading to her every night,” said Vanaman, an attorney with Newman, Aaronson, Vanaman in Sherman Oaks. “I watched her suffer with learning disabilities at a time before there were laws that would guarantee her the kind of education she needed.”

That experience, coupled with what she terms her family’s “long history of learning disabilities,” prompted Vanaman to specialize in special education law--fighting for the rights of disadvantaged children who need schooling tailored to their abilities.

“Valerie is able to understand the frustrations parents encounter when they try to get their children educated the way they want them educated,” said Belle Frieman, an administrative coordinator for Landmark West, a private Encino school that serves dyslexic students. “She’s able to cut through the bureaucracy that parents run up against.”

Vanaman, 48, said she accepts cases realizing that “each child’s needs are incredibly different.” In one scenario, parents request that school districts provide special education outside of the public school system. Other parents ask that child in a special education classroom be placed in a regular public school classroom to increase her social skills.

“Specializing in this area requires my full-time attention,” said Vanaman, who lives with her husband and two children in Los Feliz. “You have to know obscure, triple-letter subparts of the law because it may be that subpart that makes the difference in a case.”

Much of Vanaman’s work falls under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which mandates appropriate education for all children, regardless of background or disability.

Vanaman handles as many as 40 calls a week on a consultant basis. “Most parents just need a bit of education, like how to request an evaluation consultation from their local school district,” she said, adding that she sees “more and more parents who are unhappy with the kind of special education services their children receive.”

In the case of Maria Austin, obtaining what the district calls an individual educational plan was the first step in what would eventually lead to a civil suit against the Glendale Unified School District.

Vanaman filed suit in 1989 on behalf of Austin’s deaf and learning-disabled daughter, Ryann, now 8, after a request for the child’s funded placement in a private school was denied.

“The tuition at the school costs $19,000 per year,” said Austin, who lives with her daughter and husband, Brian, in Glendale. “After a two-hour assessment, the district said she needed to be in a total communication classroom (one that combines techniques to acquire language). We disagreed, based on evaluations from two different neuro-psychologists who examined her.”

Ryann now attends Oralingua School for the Hearing Impaired in Whittier, which emphasizes speaking and use of residual hearing. The case was resolved “to the satisfaction of all parties,” said Vanaman, adding that a gag order prohibits further discussion.

“Valerie accepted the case on a contingency basis and really championed our cause. Most lawyers want upfront money,” Austin said. “It’s a very costly, time-consuming job.”

Vanaman began her career in 1968 as what she calls a “welfare lawyer,” one who battles for client benefits that are delinquent or nonexistent.

During the next decade she worked as a public interest lawyer for such groups as the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., and the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Vanaman joined her present firm in 1980, and has since been courted by parents with children in local special education schools to champion their causes.

Although the bulk of her practice is devoted to special education, Vanaman said she accepts an increasing amount (nearly 40% of her caseload) of government and medical benefits cases.

“The demand for that has increased exponentially over the last two or three years,” said Vanaman, who also gives talks about her specialty to companies and organizations for the disabled.

Vanaman said she “won’t get wealthy” handling such causes, which few lawyers specialize in “because they simply wouldn’t survive.

“I think that any society is judged on how well it cares for those who can’t care for themselves, to use an old Hubert Humphrey quote. It’s eventually going to hit us all that we have a whole lot of people who are not being educated the way they’re truly capable of being educated.

“A learning disability, to name just one, is a very insidious, hidden impairment. Before they were readily identified, you just made it or you didn’t make it in school. Now we recognize disabilities and provide special education--but that doesn’t solve everything. Someone, like a parent, has to put the system to task to see if it works. If it doesn’t, that’s where I step in.”