CourtCall and Judge Heather Welch

The past year has been brutal on almost every company in every industry.

Only a handful of companies have thrived during the pandemic, benefitting even more than before. Netflix, while we all sat at home with nothing to do. The RV industry in my hometown giving people the means to safe freedom. PPE manufacturers. And obviously Zoom. But also the Zoom equivalent for courts, CourtCall. 

Trust me, this post will be much more interesting than you might think. Because very few active parties from Indiana's highest courts can find a plausible argument for ignorance. They all know.

CourtCall, LLC is a service that allows more formal court procedures than Zoom offered prior to last year, and similar to how a judge might oversee an in person hearing. It allows for documented evidence, control over which parties speak when, and allows the court to maintain most of the other traditional pageantry. CourtCall has said that the service has experienced a dramatic volume of calls as courts have adopted rules to increase the use of remote hearings.

Bob Alvarado, a California attorney is CEO, and owns CourtCall along with his law partner, Mark Wapnick. Mark came up with the idea when stuck in an LA traffic jam following a one minute court appearance. 

It is important to realize that there are two key sales staff. Matt Wapnick (I assume related to Mark), and JC Welch, the husband of Judge Heather Welch.

Because neither Marion County nor the State of Indiana pay for CourtCall, it would be easy to assume that any appearance of a conflict by Judge Welch is likely all smoke, but no fire. However, it actually might be worse. And there's actually hints that the parties here realize the issues, and even go so far at to hide details about it.

Who pays for CourtCall if the courts don't? Well, it's the lawyers that represent parties appearing in the case. In fact, if a court chooses the revenue sharing option, the court can actually make money from appearance fees. 

And why does that matter? Because if Judge Welch schedules a CourtCall hearing in her court, and one side is represented and the other is not (as happened with me), her husband very likely gets a kickback from the attorney representing the other side, making her financially compromised. Sure, the conflict might be less significant than ruling on a matter where your family's business is being sued. But the actual amount of conflict should probably not be a consideration. 

Judge Welch just finished up a number of years as Presiding Judge over the Executive Committee of the Marion Superior Court. It is this committee that decides on budget expenditures, resource allocation, and use of technology, including whether CourtCall is used by litigation attorneys and the fee arrangement. She was in charge of directly deciding if technology would be used that attorneys would pay for, that very likely impacts her husband's compensation!      

Now, as is usually the case when someone that has served as a faithful soldier to the powerful elite (as I addressed in this post on Welch and the Simon Group), there's plenty ways for her peers and superiors to rationalize how exactly their head ended up in the sand. 

• 'I mean, it's not actually Judge Welch making the income, it's her husband.'
• 'I didn't know for certain that Welch's husband may have a portion of his compensation directly related to CourtCall fees from Marion County courts.'  
• 'Welch had a responsibility to disclose if her husband's income may be directly affected by the number of CourtCall hearings taking place. And if she had disclosed as required, I certainly would have questioned the ethics of it. But since she didn't, I figured that his income must not be affected by the number of people using CourtCall services. Either way, I'm not at fault.'

But here's the crazy part. EVERYBODY that matters knows about it. It's undeniable.

Indiana Supreme Court Associate Justice Steven David? Yep, he knows.

Indiana Chief Justice Rush? Without a doubt. Below Rush is presenting with Welch on a panel at the ISBA Litigation Symposium, sponsored by Court Call and JC Welch of course. 

And Rush, like all judges, knows how CourtCall earns revenue. Rush cannot deny knowing that JC Welch is one of the key members of the CourtCall sales team. And I believe I have reviewed a ruling or two where the Indiana high court discussed sales roles typically having a portion of compensation tied to sales. 

Decent chance that most of the federal judges in N.D. Ind. and the 7th Circuit know. Some attended a reception sponsored by CourtCall.

Shoot, even Governor Holcomb had a Homeland Security meeting where JC Welch presented CourtCall.

CourtCall (through JC Welch) sponsors a large amount of bar association events around Indiana. So most attorneys around Indianapolis have to know that Judge Welch's husband works for the company that they are paying when appearing in any court using CourtCall, including Judge Welch's. Whether it's Women Lawyer's Association events, or Indiana State Bar Young Lawyers dinners at Ruth's Chris with judges from the Supreme, Appellate and trial courts, or Indy Bar Foundation events, JC Welch and CourtCall are constantly sponsoring associations, social events, and conferences for lawyers and judges.

So yeah, everybody knows. My guess is that they appreciate and are thankful for the generous support.

Judicial Conduct Rule 3.11

Financial, Business, or Remunerative Activities

(A)    A judge shall not engage in any business, financial, or other remunerative activity if engaging in the activity would:

(1)  interfere with the proper performance of judicial duties;

(2)  lead to frequent disqualification of the judge;

(3)  involve the judge in frequent transactions or continuing business relationships with lawyers or other persons likely to come before the court on which the judge serves; or

(4)  result in violations of other provisions of this Code.

So if an attorney appearing before Judge Welch has to pay CourtCall to do so, and she directly or indirectly benefits...

Or if Judge Welch financially benefits the more often CourtCall hearings take place in her court as opposed to not having a hearing or a case settling...

Or if an attorney that regularly appears before Judge Welch can indirectly put a little extra financial reward in her pocket by actively using CourtCall or convincing others to do so...

Or if, when Judge Welch as Presiding Judge of Marion Superior Court is making decisions regarding use of technology by litigants who must pay to use that technology, which may be tied to her husband's compensation (see below)...

HOW IS NONE OF THAT CLEAR VIOLATIONS OF RULE 3.11 THAT EVERYONE CAN SEE!! 

But if there's no actual conflict or violation, then why hide? CourtCall's listing of participating courts as of March 2021 lists Judge Welch's court.

However, that wasn't always true. 

As of February 2020, Welch's court was not listed as participating. I know first-hand that her court used CourtCall no later than June 2018. Here's a Tweet from @IndyCouncil while Welch, then Presiding Judge of the Marion Superior Court presented the annual budget, and my snark response.

On January 26th I liked a number of old Tweets related to Judge Welch, or her husband, and CourtCall (some included here). But most importantly, I emailed ethics@indy.gov asking if Judge Welch has filed the Economic Statement of Interest with them as required for officials with personal economic interests in entities doing business with Indianapolis. 

I emailed Kimberly Nicholson, the staff contact listed for the Judicial Qualifications Commission on Tuesday and have not received any response yet. 

UPDATE 3/9/21

Last night I received disclosures from Alicia Vickers, Records Administrator at the Office of the Clerk of the Indiana Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, and Tax Court. From 2015 through 2020 (which I believe covers Judge Welch's entire service as Chief Judge of the Marion Superior Court), every year she disclosed her husband's employment by CourtCall. To my noob mind, the open disclosures may fully protect Judge Welch from any claim of conflict or impropriety, conveying it to those responsible to review the disclosures if they failed to properly consider conflict issues. 

Given the ubiquity and public knowledge of CourtCall use and revenue model, the person reviewing this form would also know of her role as Marion Superior Chief Judge in deciding on resource allocation. That person would also be hard pressed to argue that they didn't realize that attorneys appearing in front of Welch pay to use CourtCall. If that person signed off on Welch's disclosures each year and didn't investigate further, that seems to me to be a failure by the reviewer, not Welch. If that's true, those who reviewed should be questioned as to their competency, and disclosures of the prior few years may need to be reviewed for similar dereliction.

While it may have been unrelated, Judge Welch is now listed as participating. And the appearance fees have been reduced as well. Maybe Marion County courts have opted out of the revenue sharing program. Even so, it doesn't chance the glaringly apparent conflict that everyone is purposefully ignoring for some reason. But I am sure it is fine. Given that Judge Welch has Chaired the Ethics and Professionalism Committee of Indiana Courts for a number of years, certainly this has been addressed and we are just insignificant people incapable of understanding how justice actually functions. 

There's also plenty of other people that might be aware of Welch's ties to CourtCall, like former Senators Donnelly and Heitkamp. 

Because in 2017, Bob Alvarado along with his family made $31,000 in political donations to 3 candidates, all Senators from far off states. $18,500 went to Joe Donnelly from Indiana, who would have been involved in confirmations for federal judicial positions for any nominated jurist from Indiana, like Judge Welch, the wife of their sales executive. This is the entirety of donations I found from the Alvarado family that year. Notice nothing to any California candidates. 

 

The lady in white below appears to be Judge Welch at the Court Technology Conference 2019 in New Orleans standing in front of the CourtCall booth. Her husband JC may be the unidentifiable man behind the man wearing a dark blazer. 

If this is Judge Welch, no worries! It is highly unlikely that she is marketing CourtCall at a legal conference in her official capacity. Because she would need to have a working knowledge of it. And from my experience, she doesn't.

Welch offered CourtCall to save me from the long drive to Indy for any future hearings, which I originally thought was generous. Here's the order for a hearing including instructions: 

So when the time came for the hearing, I called the number listed. I'm hesitant to upload the audio of the entire experience, and not only because the audio quality isn't great. Between CourtCall and Welch's court staff, I was on hold for more than 30 minutes as the hearing proceeded. After supposedly being unable to forward me into the conference room as a regular call, the staff member took my phone number for the courtroom to call me back. After a few minutes I received a call. 

This is how Welch records the hearing in the CCS, including that I had failed to appear where she awarded substantial additional damages that I was to pay to cover Valeo's legal fees to Hull.  

Importantly, I filed an objection to the original Motion to Tax Costs that Hull filed with the appellate court. My objection to that motion was buried for three weeks while the appellate court granted the motion and remanded to back to Welch's trial court. I had contacted the Appellate Court a week prior, when this hearing was scheduled to ask when the appellate court would vacate and rehear the motion. That audio might be worth uploading. They wouldn't tell me or give me instruction on what to tell the trial court (being Welch).  

The actual problem was that my objection to the Appellate Court was pretty revealing, most importantly it had the first admission of the claim of crime I submitted with the Marion County Prosecutor's Office that was never followed up on, and nothing had happened at that point... yet. 

In October 2018 I filed a response in the federal lawsuit admitting not only to having filed a Claim of Crime against Hull with the Marion County Prosecutor in March 2018, but that I also went to the Chicago FBI in May with the same information. Less than a month after that filing Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry unexpectedly resigned. Another in a very long list. But that's for another post.

Here's JC Welch at the CourtCall display at the Judicial Independence Conference!

While it appears CourtCall leadership and owners of this private company have clearly partisan bias, courts are supposed to be impartial. But what happens when a service provider to courts across the country (even worldwide) has partisan preferences? CourtCall, depending on use, may have access to audio and video recordings (including confidential recordings, private chambers hearings, private settlement conferences), confidential court records including the calendar, confidential evidence and documents, possibly even a judge's private notes. How confident are courts that this information won't be accessed inappropriately for nefarious purposes?

As we have learned with social media, if you don't pay for the product, then you are the product. Courts don't pay for CourtCall. For Judge Welch, CourtCall pays her husband. And attorneys pay CourtCall. And for some reason for a number of years, that's never been an issue.