In California, the better practice is to wait until the psychological/custody evaluation is competed and distributed to the respective attorneys and the court and then, if you believe the evaluator’s methodology is problematic, challenge it by either impeaching the evaluator or by hiring another evaluator to perform a “unilateral” evaluation and to critique the first evaluator’s work. (Some states like California allow parties obtain “unilateral” evaluations without a court order; other states require permission from the court.) A “unilateral” evaluator is an evaluator hired by

The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act ("UCCJEA") is the controlling law. This statute has been adopted, with some minor modifications, in every state. We have litigated a number of "move-away" cases with great success.

One recent case involved a Nigerian couple residing in New Jersey. (Foreign nationals living in the U.S. are subject to the UCCJEA. Custody disputes in which one parent resides in the United States and the other parent resides in foreign country may be covered by the Hague Convention.) They had one young child and Mother decided she wanted to move to California. Father had to stay in New Jersey. Mother moved without Father's consent and Father retained us.

At the hearing on jurisdiction, the New Jersey court and the California court conferred with each other telephonically, which is what the law requires courts to do when determining which state has jurisdiction. We were present in Pasadena and were able to satisfy the court that New Jersey had jurisdiction. Producing this result "tipped" the case in Father's favor and within a month, Father was able to secure substantial custody rights in New Jersey.

Second, because I am a Los Angeles divorce attorney, some callers ask me to talk with their local attorney because she or he "just doesn't understand what is going on." I am happy to accede to these requests and I have never refused an invitation to coach local counsel on what Borderline Personality Disorder is, the typical shenanigans Borderlines engage in, and how a Borderline Personality Disorder case differs from all other family law cases.

Third, some callers want me to associate into their case and appear locally with their local

In a word, courts do not care if a parent is afflicted with an otherwise debilitating physical, mental, emotional or psychological condition as long as the condition does not adversely affect that parent's ability to parent. For example, some alcoholics do not drink when they are around their children. In my experience, this self-control is exitsts in many psychological and emotional conditions. Unfortunately, this is not true of most Borderlines for reasons too involved to get into here.

Keeping in mind I see only divorcing couples, in my experience moderately-severe to servere Borderline parents are, essentially, "anti-parents". Their parenting destroys the children they love. Borderlines are ofterntimes models of poor parenting and the results manifest in their children. (Note: I do not mean to include in this damning statement Borderline parents to are actively and successfully seeking professional help to overcome negative parenting patterns and who, therefore, are most likely not divorcing.) Research shows that Borderlines beget Borderline children or children with Attention Deficit Disorder. The reasons for this are debatable, but the statistics bear witness to the reality of the effect.