Questions about court vs. mediation

[topnotchdad]

Dear Soc,

We have a court date for this Thursday to tell the judge if we are willing to go back to mediation to try to settle our issues, or if we want him to decide what the custody/CS should be.  We are willing to keep our original mediation agreement intact (mediation was voluntary, not court ordered), but we want the judge to designate father as "weekday" parent (mediation agreement only divides the time and says that we will decide at a later date who will be weekday vs weekend parent).   Case is in KY.

Questions:

1.  If you mediate something, does that mean you have to mediate everything.  We will never get mom to agree to be weekend parent.....so if judge doesn't designate this, then mediation is pointless.  Can we ask him to make the decision for us?

2.  We found out mom's been lying about taking child to the dentist, and child now needs root canal.  Should we bring this up in court as evidence that mother is negligent and/or untrustworthy?

3.  BM stated in a taped phone conversation that she and her husband are old friends with the judge.  Shouldn't he recuse himself?  There's only one family court judge in our county (and we've been told this guy is good to fathers, which is why we had so much hope).  Should we bring this issue up?

Thanks for your advice.

[socrateaser]

>Questions:
>
>1.  If you mediate something, does that mean you have to
>mediate everything.  We will never get mom to agree to be
>weekend parent.....so if judge doesn't designate this, then
>mediation is pointless.  Can we ask him to make the decision
>for us?

Mediation is non binding, so if you have a good faith belief that the other parent will not cooperate, or that you are too estranged to make mediation productive, then you can ask the court to waive it and try the case instead.

>
>2.  We found out mom's been lying about taking child to the
>dentist, and child now needs root canal.  Should we bring this
>up in court as evidence that mother is negligent and/or
>untrustworthy?

I don't know precisely what are the issues in your case, so I can't tell you if this is relevant to proving any of those issues. If it's not, then you don't bring it up. If it is, then you do.

>3.  BM stated in a taped phone conversation that she and her
>husband are old friends with the judge.  Shouldn't he recuse
>himself?  There's only one family court judge in our county
>(and we've been told this guy is good to fathers, which is why
>we had so much hope).  Should we bring this issue up?

If you have a lawfully recorded phone conversation stating that the other parent claims to be close friends with the judge, then you need to file a motion to recuse the judge on grounds of a conflict of interest, and your affidavit to the court in support of your motion will state that you were told by the other parent that they are close friends with the judge. Then it will be in writing in the court record, and the judge will almost certainly have to disqualify himself from hearing the case.

I wouldn't offer the tape, except to impeach the other parent, if she denies the allegation in court. Then I'd spring it on her, to "refresh her recollection."

To be fair, though, it's not a certainty that you will get a bad deal from the judge, just because he's friends with the other party. But, I wouldn't want to use him anyway.