Four Categories of Judges (Family Court Professionals)
I’ve been working in family court advocacy for the past eleven years - advocating for my own children and for those who follow in my footsteps.
Over the years, I’ve found that there are four basic categories of family court professionals whether we are talking about judges, magistrates, commissioners, GALs, minor’s counsel, child custody evaluators, parenting coordinators or co-parenting therapists, which is a huge part of the problem because as we know, cases can go one way or another depending on who is tasked with making the decisions on the child’s fate.
The four categories of family court professionals:
Category One: Those Who Get It: These are our allies, even if they can’t publicly take that stance. They prioritize children, they use the Ace Study as their courtroom manual. These are the ones who give me hope. They are out there, I promise. I hear family court success stories and I cherish each one that crosses my desk. While they are few and far between, I do hear about family court professionals who prioritize child safety above parental rights.
Category Two: Uneducated or Undereducated: These are the ones who don’t know better - they lack the education on domestic violence and post separation abuse. These are the ones who need to hear our message during Family Court Awareness Month. These are the ones who aren’t bad, they just haven’t had the training that they need to err on the side of caution and prioritize children over parental rights. The reality is, most states do not require any judicial training on domestic violence so, we want to reach these professionals and help them to understand the Ace Study, domestic violence, trauma, and post-separation abuse.
Category Three: Narcissism and Corruption:
Judges: These are the ones who are so narcissistic, abusive or corrupt that we have no hope but to vote them out of their elected positions. This is why it is so important to connect with others at a state level and get involved in your local elections. We are voting these people into office and we can vote them out of office. There is power in numbers and the more of us that come together and demand change, the faster change will happen.
Family Court Professionals: When it comes to the remaining professionals, those who are narcissistic, abusive or corrupt in paid positions (not elected officials), there is still power in numbers. Connect with others who have the same biased or corrupt evaluator or GAL and begin comparing notes. I have personally witnessed groups of parents come together with enough evidence to have these bad seeds removed from their cases or, from their positions of power.
Category Four: Compassion Fatigue: Those who have been doing this so long that they are calloused to the issues that they see day in and day out. They begin to make mental comparisons about the various “levels” of abuse in the cases before them. In their mind, your case (or mine) may not rise to the level of concern that warrants action or safety precautions when compared to the blatant, extreme abuse cases that they become desensitized to over time. These are individual lives (children) yet they are reduced to case numbers and placed on a distorted, inhumane scale. These are the professionals who need to take a break or a step down because these children are our future. Those who continue on this path for too long teeter dangerously close to falling into category three.
Are you a judge or a family court professional? I ask you: which category are you in?
