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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

The Valley’s Longest Practicing Attorney

The Valley’s Longest Practicing Attorney By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter The year Aaron P. Moss was admitted to the State Bar, the minimum wage was just over 40 cents an hour, 50 percent of American households still did not have indoor plumbing, the average life expectancy for a woman was 68.2 years, for a man 60.8. Moss turned 85 in January. So much for numbers. Moss, the longest practicing attorney in the San Fernando Valley, passed the bar exam in 1940 and still practices family law out of his Van Nuys office every weekday and most Saturdays, juggling as many as 100 active files at a time. “You have to have a sense of humor, that’s been very important to me,” quipped Moss, who was at one point in his life, he claims, nearly 6 feet 11 inches tall. He still carries himself like a linebacker, albeit a few inches shorter than in his football days, thanks to Father Time. Moss is legally blind and uses a magnifying glass to read legal briefs and prepare documents. Files have names scrawled in black letters six inches high; stand more than a foot away and you’re probably a blur to him. He shows few signs of wrapping up the six-decade career he’s devoted to helping couples traverse the thorny road to divorce or bickering family members divide up estates. It is a career in which there has been plenty of time for public service, particularly in the Valley, where he first set up his practice in 1959. He served as a judge pro tem of the Los Angeles Superior Court, a volunteer mediator in Juvenile Court and a state bar examiner. Moss created a missing child hotline in Orange County and, in the 1970s, helped get a state law passed that stiffened penalties for parents charged with abducting their children during custody disputes. When he saw that the Valley was in need of a family law section specializing in divorce, custody and arbitration support services, he made sure the San Fernando Valley Bar Association got one and that he was its first chairman. “I was president of the San Fernando Valley bar in 1970,” said Bruce Gleason, who ran his own family law practice from 1949 to 2000. “Aaron came to me and said, ‘Bruce, we need a family law section.'” According to Gleason, anyone involved with family or probate law could take a few pointers from a guy like Moss and walk away richer for having done so. “I couldn’t say enough about him,” said Gleason. “He was the best family lawyer I ever knew. He was tenacious, friendly to everyone. He’s one of the most polite people I’ve ever known and he writes the best briefs I’ve ever seen.” To say the rules pertaining to family law, specifically divorce, have changed since the 1940s would be an understatement. Judges in paternity cases once simply put the father and mother together and made a ruling on who the child looked most like. Today, they rely on advanced DNA testing to make those determinations. Women, to obtain divorces, once had to prove unusual cruelty, desertion or alcoholism. But California was the first state to adopt the no-fault divorce laws in the early 1970s, clearing the way for any couple to dissolve their marriage by mutual consent. Community property laws have also changed, making it easier for the courts to split up a couple’s assets. One Valley family law attorney new to the field says she’s sought guidance from Moss repeatedly since establishing her Van Nuys practice two years ago. “Aaron is so bright and has such a strong grasp of the law,” said Marcia Anderson, whose office happens to be next door to his. “I go over and ask him for help. I talk to him about my cases and I can see that he really takes them to heart. He helps me think about things differently and that helps me practice better law.” Some of the biggest changes for Moss have been mechanical. For instance, when he started practicing in the Valley, there were no municipal court branches. Lawyers had to be lucky enough to get a case out of the city of San Fernando or Burbank to avoid trekking into downtown Los Angeles for court appearances. “Decentralization of the courts has been a big part of the changes I’ve witnessed,” said Moss. “If you were an attorney in Los Angeles or the Valley back when I first got started, you could count on seeing your colleagues all in one courthouse most of the time. The Valley didn’t have a branch location. The Van Nuys courthouse was a two-story municipal building. That’s all we had.” Moss’s first assistants transcribed documents onto wax discs. Later they used Dictaphones and took shorthand. Then came the wire tape recorder, the electric typewriter and eventually the personal computer. “Think about the work involved for law clerks and secretaries,” said Moss. “Things used to take much longer.” Family law judges today have court-appointed mediators and child custody evaluators to assist them in setting the terms of a divorce, including alimony, child support and the division of community property. In fact, said Moss, the Valley was one of the first areas to implement paid mediation programs and conciliation courts, clearing the way not only for a new line of employment in the field of family law, but also making life simpler for family lawyers and judges. “These programs used to be all voluntary,” said Moss. “But we put together a system that has really worked to save a lot of time. Our courts used to be extremely overcrowded, so they also helped to unclog the system to some degree.” But some things haven’t changed. Some haven’t improved either like the divorce rate. While the post-World War II baby boom eventually put a shiny face on the institution of marriage, women went to work while their husbands fought overseas and, for many, it was the first real taste of freedom from household drudgery. Divorce rates began to climb, albeit slowly, just as Moss dug into the second decade of his career, then gained momentum as the 1960s drew to a close and what was then called the women’s movement began to take shape. Today, it’s estimated that 50 percent of all marriages will end in divorce, although there has been a slight decline in some states over the last decade, partially due to the fact that couples are waiting until they are older to tie the knot. “One thing that hasn’t changed is human nature,” said Moss. “The battle between the sexes has kept me and my colleagues busy. But there are also battles between people that will never end either. In probate court, believe me, you get all kinds.”

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