Author: Kristine Kirschke

Taylor Fuller attends AAML’s 2023 Institute for Family Law Associates

Herring Law Group’s attorney, Taylor Fuller, recently attended the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ (AAML) Annual Institute for Family Law Associates in Chicago. The Institute is lauded as “one of the best things that the AAML does for its Fellows” and is “widely believed to be the premier program that the AAML produces.”

The Institute’s programs were taught by a nationally renowned faculty of Fellows with decades of experience in mentoring associate lawyers toward achieving higher levels of excellence.

Each attorney was assigned a faculty member/mentor who personally guided the through all aspects of the program. The mentors were kept busy, answering questions, providing encouragement, and sharpening the attendees’ skills.

Taylor participated in the advanced associates’ section, designed for lawyers with five or more years of family law experience. Course topics included:

  • Advanced focus on financial issues — including a full day of business valuation training.
  • Analyzing and interpreting business balance sheets and profit and loss statements.
  • Corporate taxation.
  • Cutting edge trial technology and presentation tips.
  • Executive compensation issues in support cases.
  • Direct and cross-examination of experts.
  • Understanding personality disorders — especially in custody cases.
  • Child custody practice — from intake to resolution.
  • Deposition techniques.
  • Introduction to and use of interstate and international laws in complex custody disputes.

The Institute presented Taylor with a unique opportunity to meet peers and Fellows from throughout the country. After five days of hands-on training, dinners with her mentor, and Chicago site-seeing, Taylor returns to Santa Barbara with new expertise supporting HLG.

Greg Herring was made an AAML Fellow in 2005 and has continually served as a prominent leader of its Southern California Chapter. We thank Taylor for her enthusiastic participation!

Herring Law Group Welcomes New Attorney, Victoria Diffenderfer

HLG enthusiastically welcomes Victoria Diffenderfer — our fifth attorney. She will practice from both our Santa Barbara (Montecito) and Ventura County offices.

Victoria is a Southern California native, having spent her formative years in Huntington Beach. In 2019, she relocated to Santa Barbara with her husband and children.

She began her journey in law in 2008. Victoria began as a legal assistant and gradually ascended to the role of office manager at a top law firm in Irvine, California. Over the course of 15 years, she devoted herself to providing exceptional support to various law firms — honing her skills as a diligent legal assistant and efficient office manager. This set the stage for her transition toward becoming a lawyer.

Victoria attended Santa Barbara College of Law. While there, she enriched her knowledge and practical experience through an internship under Judge Brian Hill of the Santa Barbara County Superior Court. She earned her Juris Doctorate degree and passed the California Bar Examination in 2022. She gained her law license earlier this year.

Before and after her acceptance to the Bar, Victoria worked for and was mentored by Santa Barbara family law lion, Rick Montgomery. HLG has the highest respect for Rick, who practiced at the highest heights and with the greatest integrity since 1971. This valuable experience solidified Victoria’s passion for family law. It empowered her to embark on her own family law career.

HLG proudly supports our legal communities in “the 805” and beyond. We appreciate Victoria’s already-demonstrated commitments to Santa Barbara Women Lawyers (where she joins HLG attorney, Taylor Fuller), the Santa Barbara County Bar Association (where she joins all our attorneys), and Santa Barbara Barristers (where many started as litigators – I enjoyed my early years in the Ventura County group). We will support her – as we do all our professionals — as she continues to learn and grow. HLG welcomes Victoria’s energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to our profession — which we, in turn, provide our clients and their families!

HLG Attends AFCC’s 60th Anniversary Conference

Herring Law Group attorney, Taylor Fuller, recently attended the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts’ (AFCC) annual conference 60 Years of Asking the Difficult Questions in Los Angeles. 

HLG is a member of the AFCC, which is the “interdisciplinary, international association of professionals dedicated to improving the lives of children and families through the resolution of family conflict.”  It focuses on “serving the needs of children among those who work in and with family law systems, encouraging education, research and innovation and identifying best practices.”  While the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (aaml.org) and the International Academy of Family Lawyers (iafl.com), in which HLG is also involved, focus on all manner of family law concerns, the AFCC narrowly focuses on children, custody and parenting.

The Conference’s presenters included many of the nationally prominent mental health and parenting/custody professionals with whom HLG regularly works.

Through Taylor, we dove deeper into a variety of developing issues and concepts, particularly on the last 60 years of evolving in the complex process of resolving parenting time disputes, navigating high conflict custody issues in the presence of domestic violence, the consequences of Kayden’s Law on parent-child reunification, and the new AFCC and APA Guidelines on Parenting Plan/Child Custody Evaluations.

At the Conference, Taylor’s other areas of focus included:

  • Asking difficult questions in addressing parent-child contact problems.
  • The pros and cons of the various popular post-separation parenting apps
  • Demystifying Hague Convention.
  • Navigating cases with “too much conflict, not enough trust and respect.”
  • Identifying and dealing with personality disorders.

Taylor learned strategies for fostering resilience in clients who navigate co-parenting in the face of mental health issues and/or personality disorders. HLG possesses a nuanced understanding of non-adversarial and hybrid dispute resolution processes, domestic violence, shared parenting plans, developmental needs of children, parent-child contact problems, and substance misuse in parenting disputes.

HLG remains a strong supporter of the AFCC.  We thank Taylor for her enthusiastic participation!

Herring Law Group Supports the AAML Foundation

This is the 61st anniversary of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. One of its top achievements was the creation of the AAML Foundation in 1990. As past-president Cary Mogerman puts it, the Foundation provides our Fellows with a means — in addition to the application of our own professional skills — of directly assisting families and, in particular, children who have been adversely affected by the dysfunction within their family and its resulting breakup. I am proud to belong to a professional organization that includes providing charitable support for the families and communities we serve as one of its key objectives.

Mogerman emphasizes that family dysfunction is an undeniable part of the human condition. It is not aberrant in its existence, and the people affected by it are not outliers. Our Fellows know that a civil society needs predictable, reliable methods of ending the untenable, through the application of equitable laws and procedures. But the work does not stop at the end of any case — as the families we serve will be dealing with the wounds of their dysfunction and restructuring for years.

The Foundation’s goal is to support community resources for those post-breakup families.

Since its inception, it has provided a total of 441 grants totaling more than $2.1 million to grantees throughout the U.S. The most recent was a special one to UNICEF, to assist its work for the children in Ukraine.

Closer to home, Herring Law Group previously lobbied for and gained the Foundation’s funding for a mediation center in Ventura County, the Conejo Free Clinic in Thousand Oaks, and Casa Serena in Santa Barbara. I am a Lifetime Member and HLG is an annual contributor. The Foundation is proof that when people come together and work together, they can do great things toward positively impacting many families across our country.