Rate and Review Debra S. Bray

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- A dangerous ego - - - 8/16/2019 - flag as inappropriate - comment
Honesty and integrity. These concepts seem foreign to Mrs. Debora Bray. I can speak only to the observed performance of Mrs. Bray while she served as guardian ad litem for my stepdaughter after a motion by her biological father to modify custody/visitation. For whatever reason, Mrs. Bray seemed to take an immediate disliking to my wife (a work from home entrepreneur) and I (an active duty Army Officer). Following our first two engagements with her, my wife and I felt that we were being so mischaracterized we elected to tape-record future exchanges. Thank god we did. Upon receiving Mrs. Bray’s official report, our counsel was able to file a motion to dismiss given what we believed was a clear bias contained throughout. Unfortunately, the motion was not approved, but our efforts did highlight our concerns to the court with respect to the ‘demonstrably false representations’ (language taken from the motion) of my wife and I by Mrs. Bray. One such instance follows. In the motion filed by our representation, we highlighted Mrs. Bray’s account of an arrangement for a follow-up meeting with my wife where Mrs. Bray stated: “When I asked Mother two months later if I could return to her home because I had further questions and concerns, she refused to allow me to visit the home. When I asked her why, her tone was hostile and she said, “Because I don’t want to. Instead we met at Starbucks for our final meeting.” Mrs. Bray’s description of my wife above alleged her to be hostile, and obstructionist. In reality, and omitted from the description of the coordination to set up the meeting, Mrs. Bray left the following voicemail for my wife where she stated the following: “Hi Ms. XXXXX, this is [Mrs. Bray] calling. I haven’t talked to you in a while. I would like to touch base with you again and see if there’s any loose ends that we need to wrap up, see if there’s any information that you want to give me. I would also just like to chat with you, I have a couple more questions. I’d be happy to meet you. If you want to meet at a Starbuck’s that’s fine, if you want me to drop by your place one time maybe when [Stepdaughter] is in school, I think she’s in school two days a week, is what you said – but if you could just let me know that would be great, and you can call on my cell phone or the office. You have the cell, the office is [office number]. Thanks a lot, bye-bye." This single instance is representative of multiple others that were caught on tape. In the end, the judge opted NOT to take the GAL’s recommendations, and my wife was able to retain sole legal, and physical custody. I expect this was due in no small part to Mrs. Bray’s outright dismissal of my wife’s allegations of abuse by her ex-husband. This is a woman who I believe came to an initial judgement, and stuck with it to the bitter end, casting aside any evidence unsupportive of her preliminary conclusion. Everyone makes mistakes, but she appeared unwilling to even entertain the possibility that she had miscalculated from the start. My wife (I was a witness and could not be present during the hearing) characterized Mrs. Bray’s behavior during the proceeding as someone much more concerned with defending her report to the court than of a GAL looking out for the best interests of her child. I cannot fathom how Mrs. Bray has been able to remain in the legal profession for so long given my experience with her. Upon looking into her further, I found a case involving a Mrs. Natalia Dalton in 2018 (worth the read), in which Mrs. Dalton seem to have experienced many of the same issues noted above. I do hope upon reading this review Debra will consider retirement. For anyone that finds themselves in a position where they are forced to work with Mrs. Bray, I highly recommend recording, and keeping a record of all interactions for your own protection.