When parties cannot agree upon a custody schedule one parent will initiate a custody lawsuit.  Once such a suit is initiated the court orders a custody conciliation conference, usually held within 3 or 4 weeks, before a conference officer who is a lawyer.  These conferences last about an hour, are generally pretty informal, and are not recorded; however, the custody conciliator does keep notes of what happened.  If an agreement is reached at the conference then an order is entered by the court setting forth the terms of that agreement.

If an agreement is not reached the conciliator usually enters an interim order and sets a date for a hearing before a judge and may make other interim directives such as the requirement that the parties and the children participate in a custody evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist.  Such evaluations are quite common and are relied upon by the courts in reaching decisions involving the best interests of the children.

Generally speaking, custody litigation is the area of family law that is most disliked by family lawyers and by family court judges.  It is frequently contentious, bitter and outrageously expensive.  Moreover, the emotional trauma, to say nothing of the monetary expense, can be devastating to the parents and the children.  Custody litigation should generally be avoided if at all possible.  There are a variety of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms available which should at least be considered before resorting to actual litigation.

Sometimes however litigation is unavoidable when the parents’ views concerning what is in the children’s best interests are so far apart from each other that they are simply unable to reach agreement.  In these situations a judge, the person who knows the family less well than the parents themselves, than the lawyers, or than the psychological experts, will ultimately decide how and when the parents see their children.