Giving the Pawns a Voice: A Call for Mandatory Representation of Children in High-Conflict Custody Battles

Abstract

The two-party adversarial structure of child custody cases forces out adequate representation of the individuals affected the most by the court's decisions -- the children. This paper presents a working definition for "high-conflict" in this context, which currently does not exist. Then, the paper argues that in high-conflict cases, the parents' (or parties') polarization precludes them from representing the children's best interests, undermining a fundamental presumption of the system. Thus, as the paper presents, children should be independently represented from the time a case is determined to be high-conflict.

Keywords: family law, child custody, best interests