Guardian ad litem's

[gemini3]

I don't have a question or an issue... just still processing the circus that was my husbands custody case last August.  We were assigned a GAL, and I believe that his testimony was a big part of the judges decision.  The GAL happened to be a criminal defense attorney.  I don't feel that he took our case seriously at all, and that he didn't look into any of the issues that we brought to him.

I would imagine that someone who acted as a GAL would have experience as a family court attorney.

I also looked into what the GAL is supposed to do in our state.

http://www.courts.state.va.us/gal/gal_standards_children_080403.html

In this document, several things are listed that the GAL 'should' do, that our GAL did not, and that I think would have had an impact on the outcome of our case.  

I know there's nothing that can be done about these things, but to me it represents just one more breakdown in the system.

In my experience with custody proceedings, it seems that the courts treat a fathers request for custody the same way they would treat a case where they were terminating a person's parental rights - as if they were terminating the mother's parental rights by changing custody to the father.  I think this is a flawed way to look at things, because no one's parental rights are being terminated.  It's supposed to be the 'best interests of the child' - and it's clearly not about that - at least not in our experience.  In order for there to be a change in custody there has to be something severe - not just 'the best interests of the child'.

And what about this child's wishes?  They clearly expressed to the GAL what they wanted - which was an equal amount of time in both homes.  No one even mentioned that during our custody case.

I guess we're still grieving - processing, etc.