Barbara Johnson was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1934. She grew up in Newton, a suburb of Boston known at the time for its fine public schools.

After attending Bennington College in Vermont for two years, she attended Middlebury College Russian Summer School (1954). Immediately thereafter, for her junior year (1954-1955), when the male:female ratio was 50:1, she enrolled in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Center of International Relations (secretly run by the CIA).

The following year, which would have been her senior year at Bennington, her father, going through a severe financial crisis, suggested that the family could live cheaper in Paris, France, than in Newton. So she and her family spent a few months living delightfully in Paris and the remainder of the year traveling throughout the rest of Europe – averaging a dollar a head a night.

Upon returning from Europe and facing her family’s devastating financial condition, she married, unfortunately, a beau who had graduated from Williams College and was completing a tour in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant, JG. Within a week of being wed, her husband was severed from the Navy as a married man and entered Harvard Business School.

They moved to Scarsdale, an affluent town in which the Congregational Church regularly announced on its roadside sign the sermon on “Private Vice and Public Virtue,” a town in which the lead actress in the Scarsdale Players’ production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible ran off with the Episcopalian church organist.

Ten years later, life found her divorced with two sons and living in Greece on an island in the Argo-Saronic Gulf. Life had become magical for four years. Circumstances brought her and her sons to Israel for the next year. Her fascination with that journey will have to wait for her Memoirs.

In 1971, Barbara continued in and around Boston her editorial work, which she had honed in New York prior to divorcing.

Bored and restless, she tried a few other professions and finally settled on finishing up her senior year at Bennington to get her B.A. and entering New England School of Law in 1983 at the age of 49. In 1987, she received her J.D. She had received an award for her paper selected and submitted by the then-Dean of NESL to the ASCAP Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition: “Patent or Copyright Protection for Computer Programs: A Traditional Legal Comparative Analysis Overlayed with a Linguistic Theory.”

Called to the stage during her NESL graduation ceremony, she received the West Publishing Company Corpus Juris Secundum Series Award, 1987, for the highest annual scholastic average.

Thus began her two decades as a sole-practitioner in civil and criminal litigation in State and Federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels. As amicus curiae, she submitted a brief in Dalis v. Buyer Advertising, Inc. (right to jury trial for sex discrimination plaintiff).

As a member of the Children’s Rights Council panel, she addressed a joint state-congressional committee on a shared-parenting bill. As an activist-attorney, she received a Woman of the Year award from the Fatherhood Coalition. (The Fatherhood has recently done extraordinary work challenging the appointment of inept judges. You can get the links to all the videos here.

Her activism had grown out of her early outside interests: As a film consultant, she advised the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Bicentennial Committee. She conceived, produced, and moderated “Think Tank,” a cable-TV series (Continental Cablevision in Newton) on local government and business. She contributed to the Boston Phoenix and was a feature writer whose articles appeared in the Newton Times and Micro Economics. Her other works in the world of words are a scenario, a movie script, and a travel book… as well as an unpublished faction novel: Cry Rape.

In 2002, she ran a quixotic campaign for governor, campaigning in an antique fire truck and promising to use creativity, compassion and a willingness to listen to the people to mend an ailing government. (The old campaign website is here.)

On August 9, 2006, Justice Francis X. Spina signed an order of disbarment against Barbara C. Johnson and she was forbidden from practicing law effective September 8, 2006.

At her hearing Ms. Johnson, a fiery and unconventional then 75 year old, was quoted as saying, “No – damn it, no. Unless you’re willing to agree that you have a kangaroo court here, you cannot say that to me… that’s a wagon of detritus, cow chips, horse manure… the disbarment by this kangaroo court is an effort to silence my criticism of the courts.”

Johnson has long been a fierce advocate for fathers’ rights in family courts. She is an outspoken critic of the Massachusetts court system, which she says is rife with corruption.

Her aggressive nature and quest for court reform brings her book, Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice, to the market.

According to some legal reviews, many agree with her position about the legal system.




“The book addresses a serious problem – the need for court reform and the abolishment of judicial immunity. The book is filled with the courts’ tricks and traps for the unwary and tries to alert readers both why their law cases fail and what must be done to effect court reform. Each chapter presents a series of illustrations intended to teach the readers by example how to avoid those court tricks and traps that people are likely to encounter in their existing or potential court cases,” says one reviewer.




A newspaper once wrote, “While we don’t fully agree with either her politics or her methods, Johnson is a character in a humdrum world sorely in need of more characters. She’s the thorn in the side, the thumbtack on the chair . . . Johnson speaks her mind, and loudly.”




Another review states that “if we do nothing, the country will continue to drift slowly from bad to worse. Only continuing civil disobedience, demonstrations, including the recent much-laughed-at Tea Parties must first take place. . . . When the voting public finally becomes active and educated as to what kind of person they should elect to governmental office, only then can the evolutionary process begin.” — Anonymous.







As to why Johnson came to Costa Rica: She had been evicted from her residence by a court seeking further retaliation for her outspokenness. It’s a long, complicated story. Let it suffice to say that having been deprived of her livelihood, she had to live on her monthly social security check. If she had stayed in Massachusetts, she would have been living in her car.




So a special friend suggested that she move to Costa Rica. Another adventure, she thought. So she sent the final draft of her book to the publisher, looked at the advertisements, sent a month’s rent and a security deposit for the house in which she is now living, booked a flight, gave her car to another friend, left Massachusetts from Logan airport, spent an hour or two in Houston airport, reboarded, and shortly thereafter arrived in Atenas, Costa Rica. She didn’t have a clue as to what she would find here.

A few weeks later, on 5 August 2009, the court suspended the eviction. Asombroso! Another laborious story which shall remain untold until some time in the near future, when she might upload it to her FalseAllegations.com website, The case is on appeal in the Massachusetts Appeals Court, docket number 2010-P-0471.




Then, two weeks later, on 20 August 2009, her book was published on Amazon.com. She can only speculate what would have happened had she been in Massachusetts when the book became public. Would she have been on a no-fly list? Maybe. Would she have been sent to a FEMA camp as an internal terrorist? She doubts it.







And over a short time, she learned how wonderful the local people are in Costa Rica. Her stress alleviated, she lost considerable weight, cut her smoking in half, her psoriasis disappeared, found “Kay’s Postres” with its walls made of a free lending library of books (near the Cruz Roja) and José’s “La Trilla” with its spectacular corvina al ajillo (fish in a garlicky butter sauce).




Bienvenidos everyone to Atenas. It is time to enjoy the majestic colors of Costa Rica’s flora.

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If you know of an interesting Costa Rica story, I’d love to hear it… Please contact me – Scott Oliver – here.

The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) ranks Atenas as one of “The Best Places to Retire Abroad.” For more information about homes and land for sale in the area please telephone our Recommended Realtors in Atenas Dennis Easters and Gerardo Gonzalez-Porras on (506) 8854-7721 or contact him using the simple form below:

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.