Preparing for a custody hearing

[bloom6372]

I'm curious--what do YOU do to prepare for a custody hearing? How do you organize records? What do you document? Do you make copies for your attorney? What about witness statements--do you have them typed and notarize or do you record their statements for your records? Do you have letters of recommendation? etc etc etc. Anything and everything would be good to hear

[MixedBag]

I tried to keep everything by category and then date.

Witness statements -- and letters of recommendation -- in many senses, "not relevant" to get STATEMENTS in writing.

Just like a police report -- you can (well, your attorney can) submit it as evidence, BUT then the police officer has to appear and testify that the police officer WROTE that report.

So any witness or letter of recommendation must be supported by THAT person appearing in court.

In my stuff with EX#2......the judge frowned upon his notion that he had 10 witnesses that needed to appear.....and when my number was smaller, that was better.

In the end, it was all threats that never materialized, meant to scare me off.

If you have any document to submit, the person who WROTE the document has to testify that they wrote what is on it and then you go from there.

I once submitted a letter from DHR here, because Dad opened a complaint against me about something that happened.  Now mind you, Dad is in WV, me in AL.....incident happened in AL.....so the first question was "WHO has jurisdiction to investigate?"  In the end, AL took the lead -- but even then, they didn't talk to dad.  Dad talked to someone in WV, who sent the complaint to AL.  AL wrote a letter saying "Nothing found" -- and I could NOT submit that as evidence that his complaint was not valide because someone from DHR did not travel to the WV court.   In the end, the judge believed me because dad's testimony was second hand coming from our son and I was the ONLY one present when the incident happened.   The judge knew the letter existed because I could testify that it existed, but he handed it back to me quickly in court and said that he couldn't accept the letter because no one was there to swear they wrote it.

I hope that makes sense....

[Mom1Step2]

I have a question for you Mixed:

What if you have school records and such that you are presenting as evidence? What if you cant find the teachers that wrote those letters and notes home?

Same with old police reports. What if the officer doesnt work for the department anymore?

Lord you just got me worried

[ocean]

We used certified police reports. You can go to the station and order them.
Subpena anyone that you want info too, the school district, old teacher, boss, whoever. Letters really are not used. We had them and never brought them into evidence. Much better having a person testify to it all.

Binder was color coded and marked. As long as it is organized in a way that you can pull it when needed. I made two binders, one for lawyer, one for me.

[bloom6372]

Medical and school records, would you need to subpeona the doctors and teachers? Or would the records be enough? One thing we do plan to use, among others, is medical and educational records...

Right now, we have binders, divided into sections, and each section has a subsection. I was thinking of scanning everything and putting it on a thumb drive for an attorney, so that they have all the information without all the papers, because we have a LOT.

[Mom1Step2]

So really, you dont think report cards and school records will be enough? We will have to have school officials there to back them up?

[ocean]

How will you get it into evidence? IF ex takes stand you can ask her questions like "look at exhibit #1, can you tell me how many days xx was absent from school under your care? or "can you read the grades XX received while in your care last semester?". But what if she does not take stand? Are you taking stand? You can be asked this questions to get them in.

You can not just hand them into the judge, they need to be entered somehow...and used. Otherwise they will just sit in a folder somewhere.

[Mom1Step2]

Is it possible to take the stand if you are representing yourself?

She is trying to get the kids to testify... so I guess we could ask them. I really have no idea. At least we have awhile to go yet. Still learning.

[ocean]

The judge probably will squash the kids testifying. Ours did, and at the end he said IF he allowed them in, it would be just him and lawyers. If you are representing yourself, you are allowed another person in there to help you (as long as they are not a witness or have them take the stand first) then they can ask your questions and help you with getting things out of the binder when things come up.

Do you qualify for legal aid? If not, you can see if you have a law school near you and get a senior student to "help" you. They are not lawyers but can help set up questions and they know most of the laws. You can also go sit in the waiting area of family court and observe. Look for lawyers, ask questions of other people around about other lawyers, judges. See how yours works.

[Spaceman1982]

In nevada for pro se, you go up and make a statement of sorts. Then opposing party can cross exam you on stand. After their exm, you may make another statement to reiterate or counter.

[Mom1Step2]

We are in Florida - so any words on how things work here would be great. I was thinking of posting an ad somewhere to see if anyone could let us know what they went through in local courts.

As for the kids.. they are 14 & 11. 14yo wrote a letter to the court stating she wanted to make the move back with BM. It seems she may have changed her mind now that she has been back with DH for a month. But we are not asking so as not to preasure her.

This hearing is for DH vs BM. Could I be the one who helps & asks him questions? It would really be great if he could do the statement thing & I could stay uninvolved. It really aggitates BM when I say or do anything (of course that might be a good thing to if it caused her to show her butt in court).

PS. Sorry bloom for highjacking your thread!

[bloom6372]

Okay, so we can file them as exhibits and then use that information for testimony/questioning. That's fine...It's what we thought we'd have to do. I was just worried we'd have to have the school and/or doctors involved, because we try not to put them in the middle...

[ocean]

You can file them but who are you going to ask the questions too? Our ex did not take the stand, so no questions. For example: we subpenaed the phone company and then we questioned that guy on the stand about how many times ex's phone number called our house on a certain day. Then he looked at the exhibit (phone records we had certified copy of) and he was able to answer.
For the school records, you can get on the stand and read from the report cards, attendance records, then ex's lawyer can ask you questions about it.

[nila fordyce]

I'm curious--what do YOU do to prepare for a custody hearing? How do you organize records? What do you document? Do you make copies for your attorney? What about witness statements--do you have them typed and notarize or do you record their statements for your records? Do you have letters of recommendation? etc etc etc. Anything and everything would be good to hear

First of all if you're a father good luck-you'll need it! Second of all, it is imperative that you get an exceptional attorney that knows what he is doing in your particuliar case or you also are in big trouble. Unfortunately, there are alot of bad ones out there. If it is a custody situation, try everything you can to keep an evaluator out of it--they're big time trouble...Good Luck

[MixedBag]

Okay, so we can file them as exhibits and then use that information for testimony/questioning. That's fine...It's what we thought we'd have to do. I was just worried we'd have to have the school and/or doctors involved, because we try not to put them in the middle...

Bloom -- you still might have to get a doctor to testify WHAT they wrote -- and the schools and stuff.

Your CP is not going to let custody go easily....SO expect to hear that the other side objects to the entry of evidence without the authenticating person being available to testify and be cross examined.

[bloom6372]

Okay, so we can file them as exhibits and then use that information for testimony/questioning. That's fine...It's what we thought we'd have to do. I was just worried we'd have to have the school and/or doctors involved, because we try not to put them in the middle...

Bloom -- you still might have to get a doctor to testify WHAT they wrote -- and the schools and stuff.

Your CP is not going to let custody go easily....SO expect to hear that the other side objects to the entry of evidence without the authenticating person being available to testify and be cross examined.

Shucks. We were hoping to keep everyone out of it as much as possible. Oh well, though. If that's what it takes!