When a child custody dispute becomes heated, it can threaten the time that you spend with your kid and the relationship that you have with them. And as a result, the impact of a child custody arrangement can have long-term implications for both you and your child. Therefore, when a disagreement over custody arises and you’re forced to litigate the matter in front of a judge, you have to be prepared to defend yourself, your position, and your child’s best interests.
But how do you do that? It can be a daunting task, for sure, especially given that the other parent will aggressively attack you, your character, and your parenting abilities. Although you might be stressed thinking about the arguments that you’ll have to confront, take comfort knowing that there are strategies that you can implement to effectively defend against a child custody request.
How to defend yourself in a child custody request or modification hearing
Given that the best interest standard applicable in a child custody case is so broad, it can be hard to target your legal strategy. However, as you prepare and head into your case, you should keep the following tactics in mind:
- Presenting contradictory evidence: The other parent might present evidence that draws your parenting abilities into question. But if you can contradict those assertions with other evidence, then you give the court the opportunity to give the appropriate amount of weight to the evidence that it deems most credible.
- Attacking credibility: All too often, custody hearings are weaponized to attack a parent. Many of these attacks are based on false or misleading assertions, too. Don’t let the other parent in your custody case get away with that. Instead, find ways to attack their credibility as well as the credibility of their witnesses, such as by showing motivation to testify in a certain way or demonstrating that the witness has made prior inconsistent statements.
- Shifting the focus: You might feel like you’re on the defensive throughout your custody case, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can turn the tables and present evidence demonstrating the other parent’s shortcomings, and you can refocus the court’s attention on the child’s best interests.
- Using discovery to your advantage: A lot of the stress in a custody hearing stem from the uncertainty of it all. But you can take the guesswork out of your case by engaging in thorough discovery. For example, you can depose the other parent and their witnesses so that you can lock them into their testimony well ahead of the final custody hearing. This will give insight into what arguments they intend to make and where they’re case is vulnerable to attack. By being thorough, you can learn a lot through the discovery process.
- Requesting a custody evaluation: If it seems like you and the other parent are just going to go back and forth without providing a lot of clarity to the court, then you might want to consider requesting a custody evaluation. Here, a neutral third-party assesses your family dynamics, conducts interviews, observes parenting time, and reviews relevant records to come to an opinion as to how custody should be ordered. This culminating report can carry a lot of weight with the judge.
Take control of your child custody case
Although navigating a child custody case can be stressful, you can alleviate some of your concerns by taking control. This requires knowledge of the law and gathering strong evidence to support your position, but that’s not something that you have to do on your own. So, if you’re ready to build your child custody case, then now is the time to get to work.