Lawyer Listings Add, Update, or Remove Listings

Guardian ad Litem and Custody Evaluator

The two neutrals a court most often appoints in a contested custody case - what a guardian ad litem does and does not do, how it differs from a child's attorney and from a custody evaluator, who pays, what they may see, and how their reports are used at trial.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

A guardian ad litem ("for the suit") is a person the court appoints to represent a child's interests in a case about that child - most often a contested custody or visitation dispute, a dependency or abuse case, or a termination or adoption proceeding. The appointment lasts for the case only. In most states the guardian ad litem is a lawyer, in others a trained volunteer or a court-appointed special advocate, and the role differs from that of a lawyer for the child: an attorney for the child advocates the child's expressed wishes; a guardian ad litem investigates and reports what they conclude the child's best interests require, which may not be what the child wants. Some states appoint both, and some let the court choose which role fits the child's age.

The guardian ad litem interviews the child, the parents and others who know the family, visits each home, reviews school, medical and court records, and may speak to counsellors and teachers; the order of appointment gives them access to records that would otherwise be confidential. They then report to the court, usually in writing, with findings and a recommendation on custody and parenting time. The report is evidence, not a decision: the judge is not bound by it, the parties may cross-examine the guardian ad litem at trial, and a parent who disagrees can call their own witnesses. Because the report often carries great weight in practice, how a parent deals with the guardian ad litem - candidly, promptly and without coaching the child - frequently matters more than any filing.

A custody evaluator is different again: a licensed psychologist or other mental-health professional appointed under a court rule to conduct a forensic evaluation, which may include psychological testing of the parents, structured observation of each parent with the child, and collateral interviews, ending in a written evaluation with recommendations. Evaluations are expensive and slow, are ordered mainly where there are allegations of abuse, mental illness, substance misuse or alienation, and are subject to the same cross-examination and rebuttal as any expert report. Fees for both roles are set by the court and allocated between the parents, with the county or the state paying in indigent and dependency cases. The child's statements to either neutral are generally not privileged, and a parent who wants the child heard directly may instead ask for a private interview of the child by the judge, which most states allow at the court's discretion.

Where this comes from

Guardians ad litem are creatures of state statute and court rule: the family, probate and juvenile codes of each state, and rules such as Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17(c) and its state counterparts for a minor party generally. In abuse and neglect cases the appointment is required as a condition of federal child-welfare funding by the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, 42 U.S.C. § 5106a(b)(2)(B)(xiii). Custody evaluations are governed by state court rules (California Rules of Court, rule 5.220, is a detailed model), and the professional standards most evaluators follow are the American Psychological Association's Guidelines for Child Custody Evaluations in Family Law Proceedings (2022) and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts' Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluation. The confidentiality of the child's statements, the availability of a judicial interview of the child, and the allocation of fees are each state's own.

When people hire a lawyer for this

A parent in a case where a guardian ad litem or evaluator has been appointed is at the stage where the outcome is being shaped outside the courtroom, and a lawyer's most useful work is often preparing the parent for the interviews and home visit, assembling the records the neutral will ask for, and deciding whether to seek a second opinion or a rebuttal expert when the report is adverse. A parent who cannot afford a lawyer should at least ask the court to appoint the neutral and allocate the fee, rather than agreeing to a private evaluator whose cost may be unrecoverable.

Find a lawyer for this in your state

Choose your state. Each link opens the directory page for the city in that state with the most currently published law firms in this practice area; a +n beside the city is how many other cities in the state also have one. The list is generated when this page loads, so a state whose listings have lapsed drops out rather than becoming a dead link.

« All glossary terms

Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.

Related free reference tools: statute of limitations for a personal-injury claim, by state, quoted from each state's official text - part of LawyerLand's legal reference tools.