Custodial Evaluation: Fill & Download for Free

Why?Because 10 year old kids’ security depends in part on being really clear about important relationships, and they often tend to reinforce that clarity by announcing it. Sounds normal and healthy to me, as a former child custody evaluator. Or am I missing something?

As a child custody evaluator, my job was to advise the Court on the relative parenting capacity of the respective parents, the needs of these specific children at this specific juncture in their lives, and the resulting fit. Based on those findings, developed from multiple in-person observations of parenting, collateral sources, intensive interviews with everyone involved, I’d propose a highly detailed parenting plan the Court could order, or modify, or replace with something else. They usually ordered it if the rationale was clear and well documented.I never used diagnoses, ever. They are worse than useless in those situations. I just gave highly detailed descriptions of parenting capacity, etc. Capacity to nurture, teaching, and to co-parent, especially.Being “on the spectrum” in absolutely no way relates to parental “fitness.” Let’s say Dad tended to be blunt at times, or a little awkward socially, I’d mention it if it had relevance to parenting capacity, and explain why. Otherwise it wouldn’t even come up, and I’d never speculate about the “Spectrum.”

I did, in a full week trial. It was a child custody case, and we had done a custody evaluation that had gone on for a full year, and had gone strongly against me. It was clear to me that the lawyer for my ex and the custody evaluator (a psychologist) had a cozy relationship….she kept sending business his way, and he would just ignore evidence and pick her client as the “winner.”At this point I was out of money and just decided I was going to tell my story to the judge, even though I couldn’t afford a lawyer, much less afford an expert to try to discredit the custody evaluation. I was told by everyone that the other side would eat me alive. I cross-examined the custody evaluator (who revealed himself to be a blithering idiot), and as the week went on, I started to get a feeling for how to try a case.I won with an extremely strong decision.Eventually I put up web pages about the opposing attorney and the custody evaluator, which got somewhat popular (more highly ranked on google for a search on their names, than their own web sites). The evaluator closed shop under pressure (partly from me, partly from others who complained about him to the state board of psychology). The attorney, unhappy about the web page, tried to file a restraining order against me, in order to get the page taken down, claiming she was afraid I was going to do violence on her (which made no sense, I had already beaten her in court). This time she hired own lawyer, and got her sister, another lawyer, to come in and testify against me. Now it was basically a First Amendment trial. Did some more cross examining, caught them red handed at lies, etc. Little ol’ self-represented me won again.So yeah, it can be done. It wasn’t a criminal case, but it was pretty high stakes (my amazing relationship with my daughter was on the line :), there were all kinds of allegations against me and, as mentioned, a court appointed “expert” going against me. Still, the evidence was on my side, and the opposing counsel was dumber than a box of rocks. (note: I’m not usually this mean. But she is also evil.)Here is my page about the opposing lawyer: Furniss Family Law Group, Laura Furniss, Attorney, which tells much of the story (although in an admittedly rambly over-the-top style). And I have always offered to share transcripts and the final decision to people who ask for them, but don’t make those public for obvious reasons.