About Richard Min Richard Min is a partner at Green Kaminer Min & Rockmore LLP in New York City whose practice focuses exclusively on family law, with a particular emphasis on international family law, child abduction and crossborder custody issues pursuant to the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. He has extensive trial experience in Hague Abduction cases having been involved in approximately 100 cross border child abduction or custody cases in more than a dozen states and having acted as lead trial counsel in over 35 Hague abduction cases. About Green Kaminer Min & Rockmore LLP Green Kaminer Min & Rockmore LLP is a Manhattan-based family law firm that serves clients throughout New York and internationally. Their team assists in a wide range of family law matters including international child custody and child abduction disputes, as well as disputes concerning the division of foreign assets in international divorces. Richard Min Partner Green Kaminer Min & Rockmore LLP 420 Lexington Ave. Ste. 2821, New York, NY 10170 Tel: +1 212-681-6400 +1 212.257.1944 Fax: +1 212-681-6999 E: rmin@gkmrlaw.com www.gkmrlaw.com depending on the issues being raised and the workload of the particular court or judge, cases may take longer to resolve. What is the process for recovering an abducted child from abroad? How does this process vary between different countries? The US Department of State issues a yearly report on international child abduction cases, including those in which an American child was abducted abroad. Included in that report is an analysis of other countries’ compliance record to see how well the treaty is working between different countries. That being said, the process can look very different depending on where a child is taken to. Some countries have civil legal systems while other have common law systems like ours. Some countries have public prosecutors that can bring these cases on behalf of parents while in others you have to find and pay for your own attorney, again as would typically be the case here in the United States. A major difference, of course, is whether the child is taken to a “Hague” country or a “non-Hague” country, meaning whether or not said country adheres to the treaty. If they are a “Hague” country, then the process – albeit perhaps a bit different from other treaty member countries – will generally be the same in that you will have the same law to rely upon. If the child is taken to a “non-Hague” country, the process will vary greatly depending on the country and their own domestic laws and the particular facts of the family. Some countries may simply enforce any US custody orders, while others may not be so willing. It is always wise to immediately seek the advice of local counsel in those situations, which your US attorney or the State Department might be able to help with. You can always visit the International Academy of Family Lawyers website, which is a great resource for lawyers across the world. What are some of the most challenging cases you have ever worked on? Cases can be challenging for many reasons. There are procedurally challenging cases, such as cases with multiple actions going on simultaneously in federal court, state courts and even foreign courts. The case of Golan v. Saada, which I just argued in the US Supreme Court, was very challenging because it has been ongoing for almost four years, including a nine-day trial and numerous appeals. The most challenging cases are those that involve horrific acts of child abuse. A recent case of mine involved two girls who had been terribly abused by their father and were terrified of being returned home. I felt tremendous pressure to make sure that they could be protected and, luckily, we were successful in keeping them here in the US. I also had a case where the child had been secretly abducted and withheld from the mother for two years without any contact. Usually, even in abduction cases, the parent has some idea of where the child has been taken, but in this case, it took two years to locate the whereabouts of this particular child. We were able to have the US Marshal service pick up the child from school without the father’s knowledge and brought to the judge’s chambers for a tearful reunion with her mother. We also were successful in then having the child returned home. Sometimes the most challenging cases can also be the most rewarding and that is certainly one example of that. 53 JUL 2022 | WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM EXPERT INSIGHT
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