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Children's Best Interests and Coached Custody Litigants

By David A. Martindale

Though empirical data are not available, many who work in the family law field have come to a disturbing conclusion: Mental health professionals (MHPs) are engaging in activities, the objective of which is to assist litigants in presenting themselves to evaluators in deceptive ways. Acting as consultants to attorneys, the MHPs are doing this with increasing frequency. Such activities include providing litigants with information that would facilitate efforts on their part to dissimulate either in response to test items or in response to interview questions.

In the words of subsection “b” of California Rule 5.220, “Courts order child custody evaluations, investigations, and assessments to assist them in determining the health, safety, welfare, and best interest of children with regard to disputed custody and visitation issues.” Mental health professionals subvert the justice system when they assist litigants in presenting themselves to evaluators ' and, subsequently, to judges ' as being that which they are not.

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