Family Judges Research Articles

Child support order: how do judges decide without guidelines? Evidence from France

The paper presents a model of family judges’ child support orders when no guidelines are available. Based on the French case, it argues that judges weigh up their wish to comply with their institutional environment against their discretion and their willingness to find a compromise, by basing their decision on the parties’ average offer. Using experimental data consisting of child support awards set by approximately 80 French judges, the findings of the paper suggest that family judges promote parents’ child support offer when there is an agreement between them, particularly when their offer is lower than the amount deemed necessary to preserve the child’s interest. There is also some evidence that female judges are likely to be more generous than male judges, although in small amounts and under certain circumstances.

Therapeutic Change in Colombian Families Dealing With Violence: Therapists, Clients, and Referring Systems in Conversation

There is a gap in the Marriage and Family Therapy literature regarding clients', therapists', and family judges' theories of change in relational therapy for family violence. We conducted in-depth interviews with eleven court-referred families, their therapists, and two family judges in Bogota, Colombia. Interviews focused on their expectations of therapy outcomes, their understanding of change, and their evaluation of individual and relational therapy outcomes. We followed a grounded theory approach to data analysis. Analyses showed that therapists, family judges, and clients hold different expectations and theories regarding therapeutic change. Findings are discussed based on existing research on clients' and therapists' ideas about change. Implications for future research and practice are presented.

Judicial settlement‐seeking in parenting disputes: Consensus and controversy

AbstractThe judicial role in child custody and visitation disputes has traditionally been understood as one of authoritative decision‐making. However this new empirical research suggests that many family court judges prioritize the pursuit of voluntary settlement in pre‐trial conferences, using evaluative and facilitative mediation techniques. Drawing on qualitative interviews with judges and other family law professionals in Toronto and New York City, this article identifies points of consensus and controversy among settlement‐seeking family judges. Despite the general support for settlement‐seeking, there are substantial differences of opinion regarding coercion, due process, and the meaning of the best interests of the child standard.

Failure to Launch: How the Delinquent Politics and Policies of the Texas Legislature Have Failed to Remedy Texas’s Antiquated Judicial System and How Voters Have Accepted the Status Quo for Far Too Long

Several scholars, most notably judges, have called for judicial reform in the selection process of appellate and supreme court justices in Texas. However, not much attention has been placed on the selection process of Texas trial court judges. This Article focuses on the genealogy of district courts in Texas, with an emphasis on Texas's family court system, an area of the law that decides the fate of thousands of children who, for the most part, are unable to speak for themselves and that comprises a majority of civil cases within the state of Texas. As the majority of family court cases are decided by the trial court, judicial review by an appellate or higher court is virtually non-existent. It is therefore necessary to have associate and district court family judges who are educated and adequately staffed to handle the multifarious complex issues involving children and families. It is also vital that citizens better educate themselves about our judicial candidates and the judiciary in general until such time as the Texas legislature gets serious and enacts fundamental change pertaining to the selection of state judges at all levels.

Child Custody Evaluations are Essential

ABSTRACT Child custody evaluators provide an essential court-related service on which family judges depend. Psychologists assist judges understand the needs of a particular family in a dissolution case by providing a thorough assessment of the family. In addition to the benefits a child custody evaluation provides to the court, families obtain information, clarification, and education regarding the best interest of their children. These benefits increase the potential of settling family disputes by allaying anxieties and fears. This commentary argues that competent child custody evaluations are necessary for families in dispute regarding their children's best interests.

Family judges in the city of Buenos Aires: a view from within

This paper summarises the main findings of a study of gender differences in the values and attitudes of family judges carried out in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The study explored how men and women judges understood their profession and its requirements, their representation of the ideal family judge, their motivation to become family judges, the way they experienced the power they wield, and their opinion on the supposed contributions women judges might bring to the family judiciary. The study's findings were analysed in terms of Gilligan's ethic of justice/ethic of care approach. Two key results emerged. Firstly, there were no clear-cut differences between men and women in terms of their adherence to an ethic of justice or of care respectively. Secondly, distinct gender differences were apparent in the way women judges approached decision-making.

Sachverständiger Umgang mit Sorgekriterien und Erwartungen von lösungsorientierter Begutachtung aus der Perspektive österreichischer Familienrichter

There has been increasing discussion of a paradigm shift in expert evaluations of family psychology during custodial proceedings for a long time, suggesting that status-diagnostic evaluation should give way to working together with the parents with a "solution-oriented" process approach. An Austrian-wide evaluation of the quality of current evaluation practice indicated that a majority of the experts, and especially the judges in family courts, endorsed this "solution-oriented" approach for expert evaluators; the judges primarily in the expectation that this will lead both to a greater acceptance and sustainability of their decisions on custodial and visiting rights and that it could also, over the long-term, serve to increase the efficiency of the legal process. However, if the evaluation modalities are altered accordingly, proven custodial criteria should still remain in the foreground. In addition to the child's attachment, family judges and experts, working in unison, assign continuity and the parents' own parenting abilities the next greatest importance within the framework of individual custodial criteria. Psychometric diagnostic procedures should still be used when establishing a solution-oriented expert evaluation procedure in order to comprehensively map out the needs of the child as well as individual aspects of the parents' own personality in particular, where a joint solution cannot be achieved.

Judges Endorse Principles On Foster-Care MH Services

Judges Endorse Principles On Foster-Care MH Services

Court-ordered caesareans: an unnecessary development

Some recent ‘forced caesarean’ cases heard in secret in the Family Division show that family judges are willing to extend the categories of case in which non-consensual surgery can be imposed. Personally, I am dismayed by this adversarial trend of taking pregnant women to court to authorise the use of force on them if necessary, when sometimes the women do not even have lawyers to represent them.