This is not my typical blog post. I try to provide an education on how to succeed. However, there is a growing trend among judges and family law magistrates to think in terms of punishing parents who do not act to the standards that the judge or magistrate sets for them.
We all know that is completely unfair. We know it is not all magistrates and judges. What we do know is that you need to know your judge, know your magistrate before walking into that courtroom. You need to tailor your case to whomever you are arguing before.
It is not supposed to matter, right? Justice is blind, right? Judges and magistrates take an oath, right? True, true and true. But judicial officials are human. They have good days and bad days. Increasingly, experienced family law attorneys are confronted by judicial officials on their bad days.
The result is that judges and magistrates take it out on your client. Instead of slowly and carefully applying all of the required custody factors, judges tend to be looking for that one fact, that one reason to hang their hat on in making their ruling.
Is this anyone’s fault? Sure. But no clue whose fault it is. It is the reality your highly experienced divorce attorney lives with in representing you.
So, how can you lose custody of your children? Here are a few ways:
1. Consistently, willfully disobey important orders from the Court.
2. Place your child in harm’s way.
3. Place yourself in harm’s way.
4. Actively minimize the importance and parenting role of the other parent.
5. Wind up in jail for missteps in your own life.
6. Have a mental health issue and not get treatment.
7. Fail to understand that the other parent, who has a borderline personality, knows how to play the game of litigation, while you do not.
8. Some instances of relocating and then refusing to allow the other parent any parenting time. That is not to say that relocating is always bad. It is just the single most challenging set of facts to deal with.
Okay, that is more than a “few” ways, but by no means is it an exhaustive list.
Highly experienced family law attorneys know how to prepare you and represent you when you are faced with a poor perception of you.
Remember, a free consultation with a highly experienced family law attorney at Milstein Siegel is only an email or phone call away. I would far rather you interview five attorneys before taking your first action that could lead you down the path of being accused a bad parent to such a point that you lose custody of your children.
Rarely are facts as simple as they first appear. Your highly experienced family law attorney is charged with educating you, informing you of your options and risks, and then representing you zealously and competently. Sometimes that includes telling you no, when you do not want to hear it. Attorneys who “yes” their clients tend not to end up with the best of results.
At Milstein Siegel, we sometimes don’t tell you what you want to hear. We tell you what you need to hear.
