Recent thoughts about family law
I’ve been prompted recently to express my thoughts and opinions about the judiciary generally in the family law context. Here are a few thoughts I feel are worth sharing:
– Too often litigants and attorneys are afraid to present certain arguments and evidence and proposals for fear that merely raising fair-game topics, much less trying to advance them within the bounds of the law and procedure, will anger and/or offend the court to their detriment.
– Judges and commissioners deciding family law cases must be far more about the law and the facts dictating their decisions and much less about subjectively picking winners and losers.
– Judges and commissioners deciding family law cases must be far more about the law and the facts dictating their decisions and much less about indulging personal biases and subjectively picking winners and losers.
– Judges and commissioners rely on/pass the buck to GALs and custody evaluators far, far too much instead of interviewing children themselves and/or permitting children to testify. Just because this can be said of every district court* (as opposed to juvenile court) in Utah does not make universal failure/refusal right.
*If there is a judge or commissioner in Utah who will/does interview children in child custody cases to avoid the obscene expense, delays, and lack of record suffered by imposing a GAL or custody evaluator on the parties and children, I do not know of any such judge or commissioner. I get told frequently by many judges and commissioners who refuse to interview children something along the lines of, “I am not afraid/unwilling to interview children, I just [insert pretextual/lame excuse here],” and there are many judges and commissioners who tell me that it is their personal policy not to interview children under virtually any and all circumstances.
There are judges and commissioners everywhere, not just Utah, who act a law unto themselves. Always? No. But any time is too often, and there are times when I’ve witnessed this more times than can be written off to mere honest mistakes. Whether a judge or commissioner knowingly acts this way, ignorantly acts this way, or both, it is inexcusable.
