Why Good Parents Lose Custody in California: 3 Mistakes That Can Cost You Your Child

Why do good parents lose custody cases? One thing would be that they have a bad lawyer. If you don't have a good lawyer — that tells you exactly what you need to hear and not what you want to hear, that tells you that your proposal makes no sense, that tells you that there's no way in hell you're going to get what you're asking for — you're not going to win. That's a big mistake: propagating a narrative that makes no sense to a family law bench officer. Good luck with that. The next one would be the way that they comport themselves. They may win, they may get the orders that they want — but then what do they do with that? So now you have an order that says you have this amount of timeshare, or this kind of custody. Do you follow through? Do you spend time with your kids? Do you dole your kids off to the grandparents or somebody else? So even if you win, are you really winning, if your children are not accepting that and your children are not happy? I think the other reason is because, quite frankly, there is so much discretion under the California Family Code as it relates to custody, that one bench officer has the determination — a lot of power there — to decide what's in the best interest of the minor child or children. And if that's true, a lot of it depends on that person. Now again, I think they do a hell of a job. I think they try hard, and I think they're objective as much as they can be. But even with a black robe on, they're human beings. And if they don't like what you're doing, and they don't like the things that you have planned to do for your children, you're not going to get the results that you want. You're not going to get that win in family court.