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Analyzing Child Custody Reports

By Jeffrey P. Wittmann, David A. Martindale and Timothy M. Tippins

This is the fourth installment of a four-part series offering a model for attorneys to use when faced with the task of making sense out of a custody assessment. Trial preparation requires that a thorough analysis of the forensic work product be done to determine how to counsel the litigant about the next step in his or her case. A small body of literature has developed that suggests some of the areas most important to consider when analyzing a child custody report, including articles by Austin, Kirkpatrick, & Flens, (2011, Family Court Review , and by Gould, Kirkpatrick, Austin, & Martindale (2004, J Child Custody). More recently, the Custody Assessment Analysis System, or CAAS provided a comprehensive system for the pre-trial analysis of child custody evaluations (CCEs) by attorneys (Wittmann, 2013, MatLaw Corp.).

The inspection of an evaluator's report, focusing on the factors outlined below, produces a “red-flag” analysis; that is, a catalog of threats to reliability that compromise the usefulness of a particular evaluation. The ways in which an assessment may be sturdy and unlikely to yield under attack can also be determined through attention to the assets or strengths of a particular CCE. The CAAS model suggests four broad lenses for such an analysis, lenses that give structure to our four installments: Management of Professional Relationships, Data Adequacy, Technique Adequacy, and Reasoning Adequacy. The fourth of these dimensions (reasoning adequacy) is the focus of the installment herein.

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