Choose the Evidence You Use at Your Child Custody Trial Wisely

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When selecting the evidence to show at your custody trial be sure that it actually shows what you want it to show and not something else.

I've said it more than once in some of my past videos that if there's any evidence that you think that you might possibly want to use at trial, that you disclose it in advance and in accordance with the laws of your jurisdiction. That way if you decide you want to use certain pieces of it as evidence you actually have the option to use it.

You don't have to use all of the evidence that you disclose. But when you're getting ready for trial and you're deciding what evidence that you're going to actually try to admit, I want to encourage you to be really careful about the evidence that you pick. Be careful that the evidence actually shows what you want it to show.

I want to give you an example from a trial that I just had last week. In this particular case I was representing the Father. Mother took him back to court because she was wanting to reduce his parenting time from almost equal to every other weekend. Mother submitted a whole bunch of calendars which she said evidenced the fact that Father wasn't exercising the time that he had. In response to that, my client and his mother put together their own calendars and their own documentation showing that he had exercised time with the child and this documentation actually included text messages between the mother of the child and my client and between the mother of the child and my client’s mother.

Now the little girl had spent a lot of time with my client’s mother, the paternal Grandmother, because after the divorce both Dad and Mom were trying to get on their feet. But Mother was not admitting this so we disclosed his evidence and I was planning to admit it at trial. But because Mother was the petitioning party, the judge put her case on first and much to my surprise she actually admitted the evidence that we had disclosed. The evidence that showed my client’s documentation contradicting hers and which showed text is between the Mother and my client as well as the Mother and the paternal grandmother. I wasn't really sure why Mother and her attorney chose to admit this evidence but I was kind of happy because I didn't have to lay the foundation and use my time admitting it.

So the judge came back with a really quick ruling on this particular case and he pretty much hammered Mother. He told Mother you're not getting what you want and the evidence shows that basically you know there's been a real lack of parenting in this case by both parents. The little girl had spent a lot of time with the paternal Grandmother and this was evidence by the exhibit that Mother admitted which was actually the exhibit that or the evidence that we disclosed in advance. The exhibit consisted of all of those text messages and calendars. The judge spent three to four pages quoting from various text message exchanges between Mother and paternal grandmother about the little girls first day of school and the fact that Mother wasn't present for that. He spoke about the little girl's fifth birthday party and the fact that the Mother wasn't present for that and lots of other things that Mother wasn't present for. So what it looked like to the judge was that Mother was really the tea pot calling the kettle black. Mother was the one who was saying that Dad’s time should be reduced because he was not spending time with their daughter. In fact the evidence admitted by Mother herself showed that she was guilty of exactly what she was accusing my client of doing. Her petition was denied and my client is thrilled that his time hasn't been reduced with his daughter. Mother's plan whatever it was backfired on her. So let that be a lesson to me and I hope
that you let it be a lesson to you that when selecting your evidence be sure that it actually shows what you want it to show and not something else so that's going do your case harm.

Wendy Hernandez is a family law attorney in Phoenix, AZ and founder of Command the Courtroom which teaches you how to handle yourself in court and achieve the best outcome when representing yourself in your divorce or child custody case.

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