Book Review: Ford, C. B. (2005). The Women of CourtWatch: Reforming a Corrupt Family Court System. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 254

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808314551
• Date: 01 March 2008
• Author: Michelle Bemiller
• Published date: 01 March 2008
• Subject Matter: Articles

Ford, C. B. (2005). The Women of CourtWatch:

Reforming a Corrupt Family Court System.

Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 254.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016808314551

In The Women of CourtWatch, Carole Bell Ford tells the story of a grassroots movement

to create a political action committee (PAC) that reformed the corrupt family courts in

Houston, Texas. This PAC, known as CourtWatch, consisted of prominent attorneys, politi-

cians, judges, and housewives from the Houston area. The impetus for the creation of

CourtWatch was the overwhelming abuse of judicial discretionary powers in child custody

cases involving allegations of child abuse. In particular, the Harris County family courts

garnered the media spotlight because of their refusal to believe in the existence of child

physical and sexual abuse in several notorious cases.

Bell Ford, professor emerita of education and women’s studies at State University of

New York, Empire State College, became interested in writing about the women of

CourtWatch while she was researching upwardly mobile Jewish women who grew up in

Brownsville, New York. Florence Kusnitz, the premier founder of CourtWatch, was one of

the Jewish women interviewed for this prior publication. Through this interview, Bell Ford

learned about Kusnitz’s role in the creation of an activist organization called CourtWatch.

Subsequently, Bell Ford interviewed numerous other individuals who contributed their time

and efforts to this grassroots organization. Bell Ford provides first-person accounts of the

abuse of political power and influence, favoritism, cronyism, discrimination, fraud, and

bribery that ran rampant in the Harris County family courts prior to 1994. Because of the

diligence of the women of CourtWatch, a dramatic reformation of the Harris County family

courts occurred upon election of new family court judges in 1994.

Part 1 of this book examines the structure of the Harris County Family Courts prior to the

advent of CourtWatch and the gender discrimination experienced by one of its founding

mothers, Kusnitz. Chapter 1 provides accounts from the women of CourtWatch regarding

examples of the flawed family court system. It is here that we are introduced to the political

corruption inherent within the system—corruption that started with family court judges and

continued through attorneys and guardians ad litem. Child custody was repeatedly given to

fathers who were sexually and physically abusing their children. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on

the gender bias experienced by Kusnitz during her legal education and professional career.

Part 2 of The Women of CourtWatch delves more deeply into the creation and mainte-

nance of CourtWatch and provides an in-depth examination of how the Houston family

courts changed after CourtWatch’s success. These chapters introduce two other women

who were instrumental to the creation of this PAC, Diana Compton and Melanie Harrell. In

addition to discussing these women’s role in the creation of CourtWatch, the reader is given

a play-by-play account of how this PAC recruited new judges to run in the 1994 election

against previously unopposed corrupt judges. The last chapter of Part 2 discusses the

changes wrought by CourtWatch. This chapter states that although CourtWatch dismantled

many corrupt judges and encouraged policy changes, much work still needs to be done. In

an engaging epilogue, Bell Ford revisits the women of CourtWatch, discussing where they

are in their lives today.

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