Ad Litem/Attorney

[ArkStepMom]

Dad petitioning court for custody from mom over general neglect, physically restraining child to keep  child from scratching at chronic bug bites requiring ER and heavy medications, general instabilty (home life, school), the list goes on and on.
Anyway long story short, after 3 years of waiting for hearing finally make it to court and never see the inside of it  AGAIN (thats the third time negotiations took place on a hallway bench!) and custody won't change
Dad requests GAL report from attorney,  attorney claims there isn't one, "that they don't do that anymore"
Dad suspects Judge may never have heard alligations, seen pict's, watched the DVD at all, but mearly jumped off of GAL's recommendation sight unseen, no explaination.
1) Is it common practice for the Judge not to know why GAL's make the recommendations they do?
2)Is it possible and/or legal in the state of Arkansas for there to be no paper record of the GAL's evaluation?

Thanks in advance
ArkStepMom

[socrateaser]

>1) Is it common practice for the Judge not to know why GAL's
>make the recommendations they do?

I don't know what's common in AR.

>2)Is it possible and/or legal in the state of Arkansas for
>there to be no paper record of the GAL's evaluation?

You are entitled to a trial on the merits, if you were able to demonstrate a substantial change in circumstances. It's not clear to me that you passed the first hurdle, so I don't know if you were entitled to a trial.

Regardless, if you "negotiated" a settlement (which is what your facts appear to state), then whatever you received is what you agreed to, so it doesn't matter what the judge may have read or missed in the court record, or that you never received a trial on the merits, because you settled for a different result.