Custody Evaluations are expensive - Why should I pay for that?

I had been working in family law as an attorney for almost 5 years when I heard about an upcoming training in custody evaluations. I had not used a custody evaluator in the past, but had used Guardian ad Litems for limited purposes (because their budgets and caseloads were not good at the time) to investigate what was really going on - because, believe it or not, sometimes the attorneys do not have the full story and cannot always get the other side to admit they did anything wrong or what is really going on in their home (shocking, right?!). I first got into this work to make an actual impact in people's lives and so I was instantly interested when I heard of an opportunity to really delve into a family's situation and make recommendations as to what is in the kids' best interests after reviewing everything possible to know about a family and their history as well as getting to know the human beings behind the case. So, in May of 2017 I set out to conduct the training needed to start working in this portion of the field.

Often, the question that arises is - that is expensive, and I'm supposed to pay that on top of my attorney fees - why should I?

And to be honest, that is a great question. Most people have never heard of a custody evaluator and do not know what our role is and why they should be paying us to do what we do.

So, with that in mind, here is my basic explanation: because we are worth it for your kids sake. A good custody evaluator is going to know a lot about how your family works, what needs need to be filled, what the problem areas are, what the positives are for your family, and they are going to help highlight the good, and provide a way to move past the bad. Now, that is not to say that a custody evaluator can or will solve all of your problems, but they will have far better and more consistent information than even the judge ever will. They will know you better and your kids better than your lawyers or the judge will. And they can help you move on and parent your children in whatever fashion that will look like based on their recommendations. In short, a good custody evaluation will move your case to settlement more times than not, and provide actual solutions to real problems to enable your family to move forward. It will be worth the money to get real answers and solutions and to highlight what is really going on in your situation. If you have further questions on what this process may look like to you, please call my office so we can chat. 320-290-0381.