GALs and custody evaluators waste too much money and time, and can never provide the same accuracy as a judge’s direct interview of the child.
This post is the fifteenth in series of 15 posts on the subject of custody evaluations and the appointment of guardians ad litem (“GALs” for short) in Utah child custody cases when the judge could simply interview the children instead. You do not have to read all 16 posts to benefit from this series. Read as many or as few as you wish.
The purpose of this series is to make the case for the proposition that an interview by the judge is a faster, more accurate, more particular, more reliable, and less expensive form of evidence than what a GAL and/or custody evaluator provides.
Even if guardians ad litem and custody evaluators always tell the truth (and there’s no way for us to know that, especially when they are not required to back their claims with independently verifiable evidence), how would that have any impact on whether children tell the truth to guardians ad litem and/or to custody evaluators? And is there any proof that children would lie more or less to judges than to guardians ad litem and/or custody evaluators? If so, I’m not aware of any such proof. It would be a cheap shot to call my critiques of the use of guardians ad litem and custody evaluators as being “skeptical” of their use when there is no basis for presuming that the use of guardians ad litem and/or custody evaluators is an obvious good or obviously better than having the judge speak directly to the children. Guardians ad litem and custody evaluators are way too expensive, waste too much time, and can never provide the same degree of accuracy as a judge’s interview directly with the child. That’s indisputable. Those who try to claim otherwise usually do so by relying on fallacious ad hominem and appeals to authority arguments, as well as outright lies.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277