Transcript

Christy Bradshaw Schmidt: Clients need to understand this is not a custody evaluation. You’re not going in to tell your whole life story to this individual. It is limited in scope. You need to listen to what that evaluator is asking you. Keep your focus on what that evaluator is asking you, so that it can be the efficient and cost effective process that we want it to be. So that these families can resolve their issues and move forward.

Voiceover: You’re listening to the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast, your source for the latest news and trends in family law in the state of Texas. Now here’s your host, Attorney Holly Draper.

Holly Draper: Today, we’re excited to welcome Christy Bradshaw Schmidt back to the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast. Christy has been a long time friend of our firm, and a long time friend of the pod, and if you didn’t see it, she did an earlier episode with us, way back when we first started this podcast about child custody evaluations.

So if you’re a new listener, you’ll definitely want to go back and check that out. But today we’re going to dive into a little bit of a connected but different topic than custody evaluations. But for those who don’t know you yet, why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

Christy: Sure. My name is Christy Bradshaw Schmidt. I’m a licensed professional counselor, and my practice is solely within the field of family law as a mental health professional. I conduct adoption evaluations, I conduct child custody evaluations. I do brief focused assessments, which is what we’re talking about today. And I also do a lot of expert work.

So I provide expert testimony related to some of the peer reviewed research that is ever changing on the issues that impact families going through a divorce or separation who have children involved. I also do work product reviews of other child custody evaluator’s work as well as other mental health professional’s work within this field.

And then I also do expert consulting on a confidential basis with attorneys providing strategic legal support to them related issues of mental health within their cases, but also providing some confidential work guiding clients through that in relation to the changes in their parenting, and ultimately, their co-parenting relationship.

Holly: Yeah, our firm has used you over the years in a number of those capacities. I think when we first worked together as, probably, I don’t know, 2015, 2016 and we had retained you to help attack in a custody evaluation that did not come out in our client’s favor, and worked out very well for our client. And we’ve been working together ever since in some capacity or another.

So anyone who has gone to advanced family law this year in the past has probably heard you speak about these types of issues, but I went and heard you speak along with Kristal Thomson at the 2024 family law conference, about these brief focused assessments.

And I thought it was a really interesting topic that I wanted to get you on here to talk about and hopefully reach an even bigger audience, and get people some knowledge about these things.

So brief focused assessments, it seems like are stemming from there being some problems out there with doing child custody evaluations. And most family lawyers know they’re expensive. They take a long time. We can’t find someone. Go through some of the reasons that custody evaluations can be a challenge in family law.

Christy: Well, certainly just, I mean, every survey I’ve seen, both nationally as well as on a statewide basis, have clearly shown they take too long, they cost too much. That’s a concern of the bench, that’s a concern of the bar, and that’s consistent, and has been, gosh, since I’ve been involved, at least over the last four years, in a number of surveys that we’ve conducted or that have been conducted by other organizations.

So that’s certainly a problem. Also, on a national level, the pool of evaluators is dwindling. It’s aging out. We have a lot of people who are halting doing this just because they’ve reached retirement age. We don’t have a lot of newer evaluators coming up. And this work becomes ever more litigious as it goes along.

Having done this for 25 years, I can certainly speak to that increase. So there’s an increased opportunity for board complaints, increased possibility of litigation, and there’s some people that just don’t want to do that. We also had a change in the law in 2023 that requires audio visual recording of child interviews and child custody evaluations.

And there’s a lot of concern from those who do evaluations about adding that as a component. I’ve seen it waived in a number of cases. I know a number of evaluators that do record, but I know an extensive number who have concerns that that is something we’re now required to do, and they’re debating on getting out of the field.

So that’s one of the problems that we’re seeing with custody evaluations. And the fact that they take so long, it delays everything for families, and it increases conflict when that delay occurs.

Holly: So some people may not be familiar with the 2023 change because it’s relatively recent. What exactly does a custody evaluator have to do when it comes to recording? Who gets to see that recording? Do the parties? Do the attorneys? Does the court? Tell us a little bit more about that.

Christy: Sure. We’re required to audio visual record. It’s in 107.112 of the family code, and it’s confidential unless good cause is shown for that to be produced for the attorneys or the parties to see. So it’s not a recording that’s going to automatically be produced with the report. If you ask for our file after the report has been completed, you’re going to have to get an order kind of like the child protective services records or the law enforcement records.

We are prohibited from disclosing that. There’s a little bit of a contradiction in the language that from my opinion, we need to fix legislatively, because of where it is in the family code, and the fact that it says we have to produce our entire file, except for CPS and law enforcement.

But now we’ve got this recording issue that’s not really lining up within how that part of the statute is written, but certainly it is a confidential recording until it is requested in the court orders that it be produced.

Holly: So it sounds to me like we had a situation where custody evaluations weren’t necessarily reliable because people didn’t have all of the training or criteria, or they weren’t all following the same procedures.

So the legislature, I’m sure, with some help from mental health professionals and the Family Law Foundation, made stricter and stricter requirements for what has to go into custody evaluation. But now that has almost priced people out of it, or gone a little too far where now it makes it difficult for people to use them. Would you agree?

Christy: To a degree. I certainly think that we have people who aren’t following the family code, and I don’t know how much of that is a cost issue or just a lack of knowledge and understanding of what we’re required to do in the family code. The changes that were made to the family code in 2015 that took us on or around six years to pass, they track what we know to be best practice.

The AFCC guidelines for parenting plan evaluations, the APA guidelines. It’s consistent across the board with what we’re required to do in our statute, but with the aging population of evaluators, with the fact that we don’t have newer people coming into the field, those of us who are doing evaluations, they are taking longer, we’re having to turn down cases. There’s not availability.

And so it has, as we talked about at advanced family law, created a monster, because now we have this great statute that really makes sure we’re getting a valid and reliable evaluation for the court and for the parties in the hopes of resolving their dispute, but we can’t get people to do them.

Holly: That brings us to what may be a good solution for a lot of family law attorneys and litigants, and that is what we would call a brief focused evaluation, or a brief focused assessment. What is that?

Christy: Brief focused assessments are also something that AFCC has guidelines for, and they’ve been around since 2009 This is not a new concept. And Dr. Ken Perlmutter, out of California and I have spoken on this a number of times, and we both agree that those guidelines need to be updated.

But it is a brief or assessment, is what it’s called, that looks at one to three issues for that evaluator to examine, to assess, and to provide a report to the court in a more cost efficient and more timely fashion to help, hopefully, that family get to resolution of their dispute more quickly. As well as to address potential time sensitive issues that need to be looked at much more quickly than what’s going to be able to happen within a child custody evaluation.

Holly: I think I’ve seen this done in Dallas for a while, with instead of interviewing a child, oftentimes judges in Dallas would say, go to family court services, and they would just have them do an interview. And they would tell the court what was going on and maybe make some recommendations that they should or should not have been making. But is that the type of thing we are looking at doing here?

Christy: That’s one thing that can be done within a brief focused assessment. I worked at family court services. I did those, what we termed emergency child interviews, and the goal was strictly to the court would send some questions over, or the attorneys would meet with the office and identify a list of things that they were concerned about. And then that evaluator would meet with the child and produce a report to the court to help give the court some information to make some immediate decisions.

Usually within a temporary order hearing. And so certainly, child preference or a child’s voice, is one thing that can be used for a BFA, and something that’s been done forever in family court services in Dallas.

I think in my career, since I left family court services in ’06, I’ve been ordered to do one child interview. So that would have been one BFA, but that’s one thing that could be done. But there’s lots of other options for the use of a BFA with these families that we serve.

Holly: So who can conduct a BFA?

Christy: The consensus is that you need someone who is fully qualified under Chapter 107 subChapter D of the Texas Family Code. You need somebody who has the education, training, and experience in doing child custody evaluations.

You want someone who understands the methodology of a child custody evaluation, how to get the data that you need to have a reliable opinion to assist the trier of fact, and then, in turn, know how to dial that back, so to speak, and know how to answer a much more narrow scope in an evaluation.

And to just look at the data that is required to answer those questions, and to know when you have enough data to answer those questions and when you are limited in what your ability to opine upon. So we believe you’ve got to be qualified under the Family Code, and that any order for a BFA also needs to be listed under Chapter 107.

It allows us to get those CPS records. It allows us to get the law enforcement records. And it gives us some guidance on what we can and cannot do, and it ensures that everybody’s qualified, conflicts of interest are managed. So we all believe it needs to be under 107 and that that needs to be clearly delineated in an order.

Holly: So it’s not going to solve the problem of a lack of qualified people to conduct evaluations, but it’s going to shorten the process, and maybe that people who are qualified will have an opportunity to do more because they take less time.

Christy: Absolutely. They take significantly less time, potentially, depending upon the scope of the issues posed.

Holly: So how does a BFA differ from a traditional child custody evaluation?

Christy: It’s narrower in scope. So we’re limited in what we’re looking at. We’re looking at no more than three issues. So one, two or three issues tops. It’s not a comprehensive assessment of the family functioning. It’s not a comprehensive assessment of parenting and co-parenting strengths and weaknesses.

We’re not looking at a best fit scenario and automatically making a parenting time recommendation. If we’ve completed all the elements under 107.109 it’s going to be more descriptive in nature, rather than analytic, and we’re going to be limited in our inferences related to the data that we review.

Holly: Can you give us some examples of the types of questions that might be included in a BFA?

Christy: It really depends on what you’re looking at. If you’re looking at what a child’s preference is, that may just be the question. Interview the child, and the questions are, what is the child’s preference as far as their parenting time schedule?

What is the child’s perspective on, potentially, what’s gone on in either home environment related to maybe anger management or a parent’s substance abuse. If you’re looking at mental health issues for a parent, certainly a psychological evaluation, ultimately, is a brief focused assessment.

We just call them psych evals with the orders that we use. But you can draft questions if you’re concerned about the mental health of a parent or the abuse of substances by a parent, saying, does this parent have a diagnosis of a mental health condition or of substance abuse? Or are they compliant with treatment? Are they seeing their physician and taking their medication as prescribed? Are they attending counseling and achieving their goals and following their treatment plan?

There are a lot of questions you can answer and you may not opine on possession and access. But the goal of these evaluations is to get as much information as possible, to get the family to the one yard line, so that either the attorneys and the parties can figure out how to get the ball over the goal line themselves.

Or certainly the court can if they end up in court and needing to actually try the case. It’s going to put that Judge right where they need to be to really understand what’s going on with this family, and just at that point make the decision that they need to make.

Holly: So I know one of the limitations you just touched on would be the inability to make a possession and access recommendation. Are there other limitations to doing BFAs?

Christy: Certainly, if you’ve got a relocation case, or you’ve got a case where there’s allegations of abuse and you’re needing to decide if a parent needs to be supervised, are there significant concerns about a parent child relationship and that needs to be assessed more fully, you’re certainly going to need a full blown child custody evaluation in those instances.

And while we are prohibited in most BFAs from opining on possession and access and conservatorship, it really depends on what the questions are as well as have we done everything in the family code?

Because I can still interview both parents, conduct an observation, interview the child, run CPS checks and law enforcement checks, and acquire the data to answer the one to three issues and the questions posed around those one to three issues.

And I may have enough data to make a possession and access recommendation. But that’s where you need a really experienced evaluator to know, do I have enough data to make that leap, and can I defend it? or do I not, and I just need to give the information to the court for the court to make that decision if the parties can’t agree?

Holly: So if you, as the evaluator, believe I have enough information to make a recommendation about possession and access under the terms of this order, how do you get around the family code saying that the only person who can make a recommendation about possession and access is someone who’s done a full custody evaluation?

Christy: Well, if you read 107.109 it clearly states these are the basic and additional elements we have to complete. And when you have your BFA order drafted, if it checks that I have to interview all the parties, that I have to interview everybody who lives in both homes, if I have to interview the children, I have to do an observation.

And we’re talking about basic elements, not additional elements. And then getting relevant data, because relevant data is related to the questions posed by the court. If I’ve done all those things, and my order says if I’ve done all those things, I can make a recommendation, and I believe I have the data, I can do that.

I still have to address the limitations. I have to identify what I don’t have, why I don’t have it, and I have to speak to the impact that that missing data has on the confidence in my opinion related to my conclusions and my assessments.

So there’s going to be cases you can make a possession and access recommendation. It’s going to be limited based upon who the court wants you to interview and what data they want you to interview, because the goal is not to backdoor a custody evaluation with these, the goal is to stick to one to three issues.

Holly: I was just thinking this sounds like a really good way to try to get a custody evaluation done. Because as attorneys, in general, when we are trying to get a custody evaluation, it is because we want somebody to be making these recommendations about possession and access. And to the extent there is a way of streamlining that process, I would think most attorneys want to find that and do that.

Christy: Absolutely. The key is, are you looking at a case that really only has one to three issues? That either the court agrees there’s only one to three issues, or the attorneys agreed that there’s only one to three issues.

And then you’ve consulted with the evaluator, that everybody agrees there’s one to three issues. That these are issues that can be answered by the evaluator within a limited scope evaluation. And an evaluator is going to say, if we get into that evaluation and go, there’s a lot more going on here than anybody realized, that I’m just going to answer my three questions.

I’m not going to opine on possession and access and I’m just going to tell the court, here’s the other factors that this family or the attorneys were not aware of, and these may require further evaluation.

Holly: So if you dive in on this BFA, and that’s what happens, where it becomes apparent that these three questions are not going to give us enough answers for the court to reasonably make the determination. Can you take any type of action to turn a brief focused assessment into a custody evaluation?

Christy: Great question, because the order is only going to indicate that I’m doing a brief focused assessment. This is all I’m supposed to do. But if you get to a point that there’s additional information, the first step is for the evaluator to call the attorneys. Get on the phone and go, okay, this is what I’ve uncovered.

This is where we are. I can’t go any further into investigating this. I’m going to complete my process. And if the attorneys are like, yeah, that’s great. Then you finish, and then they decide what they want to do from there. The other option is to notify the court via status report that we’ve uncovered more information.

The time that I’ve been allotted to complete this evaluation and the questions that have been posed to me, it limits my ability to opine on anything else, though additional information has surfaced. In my opinion, you need to finish the evaluation.

It’s kind of like if you get into a psych eval and go, boy, this family’s gonna need way more than what this is gonna provide. They still need to finish their evaluation. And then, certainly, it’s my opinion, certainly based upon what I understand about the literature and evaluations and custody evaluations, they can certainly then go do a full blown custody evaluation.

It’s no different at family court services. Like we were talking about those child interviews. If I did a child interview and then that family was ordered to do a full blown custody evaluation that came to me. I already had a relationship with the child, and it’s kind of like an update.

It would be the same thing. You would just get a full blown order, add in those additional issues, and at that point it should be at least more cost effective and more quickly completed, because at least there’s a big chunk of data already available.

But I don’t think you can alter your order midway through an evaluation. I think that puts the evaluator in a sticky position, and I think it undoes what the purpose of a brief focused assessment is in the first place.

Voiceover: This episode of the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast is sponsored by The Draper Law Firm, providing family law appellate representation for non parent custody cases, jurisdictional issues, property division, standing, conservatorship, possession and access, termination, parental rights and grandparent access. For more information, visit draperfirm.com or call 469-715-6801.

Holly: So if we’re talking about one to three questions, if, as an attorney, the question I most want answered is, what possession and access schedule is in the best interest of these children, is that appropriate for a BFA?

Christy: That’s a full blown custody evaluation. And I may have misspoke. It’s not one to three questions, it’s one to three issues. So you can have more than one to three questions, but it has to be one to three issues.

And it can’t be based upon full blown family functioning, parental capacity. What is the best fit for this child based upon those parents’ strengths and weaknesses? That’s pushed you over to a full blown custody evaluation.

But if you have questions about a parent’s mental health and the impact of that on their parenting, or you have questions about, we have a child under the age of three, and there’s dispute over who was primary from the time that little one was born until maybe one.

Certainly that’s something that you can ask questions of who was around and available for doctor’s appointments? What’s that child care plan been since birth? Who’s taking care of that baby? How are they co-parenting?

Those are some questions you can answer and address the factors that we know we need to consider in making parenting time assessments for children under three, but we don’t necessarily need to make the scheduling recommendation. It gives the court enough information, again, gets them to that one yard line to have the data they need to try a case and know what they need to do.

Holly: I can see it being really helpful in situations where there’s allegations that a parent has an alcohol problem or some type of mental health condition that has not been diagnosed, and asking the question of, does mom have an alcohol problem, and does that impact her ability to parent her children?

Christy: Absolutely. And it allows for the opportunity to say, are we looking at treatment recommendations for that parent? Are we looking at some kind of monitoring for them, like sober link? Those are questions that can be answered. Because certainly you can talk about treatment recommendations.

You can talk about interventions that may be needed to protect the child, but also help that parent reach their full potential and get sober and be able to parent. That’s a great use of the BFA.

Holly: So as attorneys, what are some things that we should be thinking about or looking for in our cases to know if a BFA is appropriate for a particular case?

Christy: The key is to get with your client and talk through okay, what are the outstanding issues that we don’t have agreement on? We may have property figured out, or we may have most of conservatorship figured out, but we disagree on maybe a child’s special need, or where a child goes to school.

And we want additional assessment on where that child’s been in school. And we want an assessment on how they’re doing in school, who’s been involved in school, or maybe you have a child with a special need, and the parents disagree on how to treat that.

Then you certainly can get a BFA to examine what are the doctors saying? There’s been multiple doctors look at all of those records and help provide the parents some guidance on who’s doing what is appropriate, and how do we intervene on those issues?

But if you’re looking at a case where it’s really you’re looking at one to three issues, the client agrees it’s one to three issues. That’s something to then start the next step of can I get with opposing counsel? Can we agree that we need a BFA? Can we then find an evaluator and all agree together that this fits a BFA?

That’s the one thing about these that take a little longer. This isn’t something that you can just show up at the courthouse and go, let’s just do a custody evaluation and throw a form book order at it, because there’s not a form book order.

And so you have to do the work in advance, what I call triage the case, and call the evaluator. Have that all teed up before you get to the courthouse. So knowing how many issues we’re talking about, and I’m happy to send anyone the list of questions I’ve developed, because there’s lots of ways to address different issues, and having questions to do that is helpful.

I’ve also got a sample order I’m happy to share as well that Aaron Rob and I worked on. He did most of the heavy lifting, to be clear, but certainly we helped tweak that and change that. But it’s got questions too for consideration.

So it’s taking the time to take a step back, not automatically throw a custody evaluation at every case. And see is this something that’s useful? Especially if you’ve got a child preference, or we’re just concerned about the home visit. Maybe we’ve got concerns that a parent’s hoarding then we want somebody to go out and look at that home.

There’s just a lot of ways to utilize these to hopefully expedite resolution for the families. And one of the areas that I think is important for us all to look at is, and I have a different opinion from some of what the AFCC guidelines speak to.

But when we’re dealing with parent child contact problems and we have a child resisting or refusing contact, I think having a BFA strictly to look at those issues can help us determine a treatment plan to hopefully prevent a cut off of a relationship.

Or to start the process of repairing that relationship before we end up in a full blown resistance situation with a child who’s gone potentially months without contact with the parent while they wait on a custody evaluation to be done. And then we all know time is the enemy. That’s going to be that much harder to repair.

Holly: So in a resist refusal situation, where we’re talking about, I would assume reunification therapy or some type of family therapy, how do you draw the line to say this is not a possession and access recommendation?

Christy: Well I’m not going to speak to what the schedule needs to be, because ultimately there is a schedule in those cases, and we’re just having resistance to the schedule, and the ultimate goal of any reunification therapy is to repair the relationship and get that family back on track with the parenting plan that the court has already established.

And so we’re looking at what behaviors are the parents engaging in that may be contributing to the resistance or refusal. We’re looking at what’s going on with that child that is contributing to the resistance and the refusal, and trying to identify the behaviors that need to change to get that family on the path to healing and moving forward and getting on track with that schedule.

So it’s more looking at it through the mental health lens of what’s going on that’s causing this, and what does everybody need to be doing differently in this family system so that they can move forward and get back on the path of what that parenting plan is, and get back to a healthy relationship with both parents, if possible.

Holly: Is a BFA a good tool to deal with conservatorship issues? Should these parents be joint managing conservators, or should mom or dad be sole, should one parent have exclusive educational decisions or invasive medical decisions, things like that? Is that something we can use a BFA to help with?

Christy: If that’s all that you’re looking at, they’re not going to be able to opine on conservatorship, because 107.109 says unless we’ve done everything that’s required in a custody evaluation, we can’t opine on conservatorship, much less possession and access. However, if you ask, it’s all about the art of this and asking the right questions.

And you can ask who’s been the primary medical provider? Who’s compliant with what the doctors recommended for this child? Who’s been the one who’s been in charge of this child’s education? What does the co-parenting look like?

In relation to those issues, specifically, not their entire co-parenting relationship, but those issues. It’s all on how you pose the questions to again, help give information that gets the family or the court to that one yard line, and then that should give them, hopefully, the information to decide what they need to do to settle their case.

And if not, help the judge decide for them if they’re not able to. You can’t ask the specific who should have conservatorship or which right, but you can pose questions that give you the data you need to get there.

Holly: Perfect. So if I have a case, and I think you know what this one seems like a really good candidate for a BFA, what are the steps that I as an attorney should take to move that process forward?

Christy: Well first of all, you want to talk to opposing counsel and ensure they agree. And if they don’t, that’s okay, at least you need to know. And then from there, you need to identify a qualified provider who’s willing to take your case.

And at that point it becomes okay, we need to identify what are the steps that we want them to take, so that we can draft a really solid order? What interviews do they need to do? What data do they need to acquire what questions do we want them to answer? How much time do we think they need to answer the questions and complete the evaluation? Who’s going to pay for it?

And get that sample order locked in, and hopefully get either the opposing counsel to agree, and preferably if opposing counsel’s in agreement, get on the phone with that evaluator and align on those questions, align on those issues, so everybody’s on the same page. And then once you get a signed order, prepare your client.

Because the key is, clients need to understand this is not a custody evaluation. You’re not going in to tell your whole life story to this individual. It is limited in scope. You need to listen to what that evaluator is asking you.

Keep your focus on what that evaluator is asking you, so that it can be the efficient and cost effective process that we want it to be, so that these families can resolve their issues and move forward.

And they’re less intrusive at the end of the day to families. And a lot of families would appreciate that, that somebody’s not digging into all their medical records and all their psychological records unless it’s warranted.

Holly: So our whole discussion has really revolved around BFAs taking place in the context of either attorneys have agreed on both sides that we’re going to have this done, or a court has ordered one based on circumstances of the case. Is there a way of doing one, strictly on one side, where you were trying to use this to combat a child custody evaluation or combat something the other side has going on?

For example, if I have the client, the other side is accusing of being an alcoholic and saying that impacts their parenting. Is there some type of BFA that I can do only on my side to have our retained expert and try and present those facts to the court?

Christy: You can’t do a BFA, because that has to be ordered under the custody evaluation statute. Now, if you can get the court to order a BFA to strictly look at one side’s parenting, co-parenting, especially if we want to talk about the example you gave about their substance abuse history.

We could do a psychological evaluation looking at those substance abuse issues, which a psychological evaluation should consider regardless. Because the code allows under 107 that we can do a one sided evaluation, that’s allowed.

But it’s got to be a court order, because that gives us the ability to get the records that we need, and covers us from that perspective, and ensure we have a qualified person. If you’re looking at just wanting to combat something, the better approach, from my perspective, would be to get your client into therapy with somebody who can do a psychological and substance abuse evaluation as a part of treatment.

So clinical evaluation, not forensic, with the goal of continued treatment. And then you have an individual who can come in and testify to what their findings are, and their work with that client on a therapeutic basis to mitigate the behaviors that potentially were found in the custody evaluation or that are being alleged by the other side.

Holly: And word of warning to the attorneys out there who are going down that path, not all providers in a clinical setting are willing participants in the litigation process. So you want to be really careful that whoever your client is going to meet with is going to cooperate with you and be willing to testify, even though they’re not a quote forensic expert.

Christy: Absolutely, and I certainly would say that the attorney needs to be the one to vet those, look at those, ensure there’s somebody that’s qualified, respected by the court that you’re in and more than willing to do what you’re asking them to do.

And that’s certainly a phone call. You don’t want to ever call a mental health professional and go down the slippery slope of giving them all the facts of your case, because that potentially creates a conflict.

But certainly calling and saying, I need a therapist to do an evaluation and then to provide therapy and provide testimony related to your findings and your to work with that client. That’s absolutely a fair question. Oftentimes I find attorneys do a better job of asking those questions than sending their client to do that, so yeah.

Holly: Definitely. And then it’s a really horrifying surprise when all of a sudden that provider says, okay, I’m going to charge you $5,000 for half a day of testimony because they really don’t want to testify in your case.

Christy: Right. And vetting those in advance, and the attorney’s just better at asking those questions, just because they work in this world, and our clients don’t.

Holly: So we’re just about out of time. But one of the questions I ask everyone on the podcast, and I’m sure I asked you this before, so we’ll tailor it a little bit more to this specific topic. But if you could give one piece of advice to young family lawyers when it comes to working with mental health professionals, what would that advice be?

Christy: Communicate with us. Be nice. Be kind. You get more flies with honey than you do vinegar. I love the whole, anybody who’s ever heard me present, especially to mental health professionals, the old quote from Roadhouse, we’re going to be nice, and we’re going to be nice until it’s time not to be nice.

Part of what is getting mental health professionals to not want to work in this field is how we’re treated at times, by attorneys. And that’s certainly not all attorneys. I know that. But certainly being upfront with mental health professionals, notifying them the minute you have a hearing, even if it’s a question that you might call them you’re not sure, at least tell them to pencil it in on their calendar.

If you know you’re going to need their records, please ask for them way in advance, the minute you know you need them. Not when you need them tomorrow. Because guess what, we have 15 days to provide them to you. So it’s just treating us as equal professionals. We certainly come from different disciplines.

We use different language. And then getting to know your mental health professionals. If there’s somebody new that you don’t know, call them up, take them to lunch, have coffee. Don’t talk about the case, but at least go get to know them, who they are, the services they provide.

The more we develop those relationships, the better job, at least in my 25 years, I think that we do with families. Because we then are providing information, we’re providing good communication, and it’s not seen as adversarial. And that’s often how mental health professionals feel, is that when attorneys are hunting them down, it’s to attack them or to confront them.

And it doesn’t have to be that way, and it shouldn’t be that way. I mean, that’s what we do in a courtroom. That’s part of the job, right? That just comes with the territory. But it’s not personal, and we need to be able to walk out of that and have it not feel that way.

Holly: Yeah, I think there could be a tendency for an outsider, or somebody who doesn’t know to think there’s something shady about an attorney having any type of relationship with a mental health professional. But the reality is that the good attorneys all do, and they know a variety of mental health professionals, and they have a good relationship.

And they’ve most likely been on the opposite side of a case from those mental health professionals too. But just like dealing with opposing attorneys, where, if you can have a good working relationship and mutual respect, it goes a really long way. So I think that’s great advice, and would definitely encourage all the newer family lawyers out there to make that a priority.

Christy: Absolutely. The more we can have good work. And we all have to have boundaries, right? We don’t show up and have discussions about all these cases, but certainly, just having that working relationship, understanding each other, where we come from, regardless of what side you’re on, it just helps things go more smoothly, and that benefits the clients we serve in the end.

Holly: Absolutely. So where can our audience go if they want to learn more about you or connect with you?

Christy: My website is TX, like Texas, familylawforensics.com, and I’m also on LinkedIn, and I’m certainly always available and happy to provide any papers I’ve written or court orders that we can provide.

If people have never been on the co-parenting Texas website, there’s a number of court orders, sample orders for all sorts of things that are available to attorneys and clients, as well as a list of providers in the area who do this work. And that’s a great place to start if you’re looking for a provider and in an area that you’re not familiar with.

Holly: Is that website just coparentingtexas.com?

Christy: It is. It covers mainly north Texas, but at least those sample orders are certainly things that can be used throughout our state, because they’re state specific to our Family Code.

Holly: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us again, and always a lot of great information whenever we can talk to you. So I’m sure we’ll have to have you on again someday to talk about some more mental health professional issues.

Christy: I appreciate the opportunity and am always happy to be helpful.

Voiceover: The Texas Family Law Insiders podcast is sponsored by The Draper Law Firm. We help people navigate divorce and child custody cases and handle family law appellate matters. For more information, visit our website at www.draperfirm.com.