H. D. Kirkpatrick

A Floor, Not a Ceiling

Abstract With the identification of twenty-six standards, this article argues that the child custody evaluation field has defined a set of minimum practice standards that go beyond the aspirational goals of existing “guidelines” and “parameters.7rdquo; These twenty-six standards constitute a floor, but not a ceiling, for conducting child custody evaluations (CCEs).

Forensic Expert Roles and Services in Child Custody Litigation: Work Product Review and Case Consultation

Courts determining the best interests of children in custody disputes frequently request help from mental health experts. This article addresses the three expert services typically provided to the court (evaluator, reviewer, and instructor) as well as the trial consultation services offered to attorneys for the parties. After noting recent developments in scientific methodology and processes that evaluators use to inform and instruct the court, we examine the work product review and consultation services that have emerged to help the court understand the scientific relevance and reliability of the evaluators work product. But reviewers, instructional experts, and consultants are retained by attorneys, not the court. Ethical reviewers and consultants remain objective and loyal to the data and facts of the case. While others have suggested ethical and professional standards based upon “role” designations, we advocate for recognizing the overlapping nature of these four services and argue that reducing these services to their “role” obfuscates the complexity and multiple facets within each service. Establishing best practices and minimum standards should revolve around the experts loyalty to the data, the ability to develop opinions based upon this factual basis, and the ability to resist pressures that bias or distort this process.

Psychological and Legal Considerations in Reviewing the Work Product of a Colleague in Child Custody Evaluations

This article has three primary objectives: 1) to examine what the authors believe are some important psycholegal and ethical considerations for work product reviews of a child custody evaluation; 2) to make suggestions to custody evaluators and retained reviewers to incorporate the concept of “helpfulness to the court” as a fundamental, guiding principle; and 3) to offer some suggestions about how and why a custody evaluator might derive some positive value from a competent and ethical review of his or her work product. The role of a reviewer of the work product of the courts appointed child custody evaluator is becoming more common in custody litigation. The functions and ethics of this evolving role are discussed. The inherent tension between a retained reviewers obligation to provide ethical and helpful testimony to the court, while in the role of a retained expert, is examined. The psychological perspectives of both evaluator and reviewer are presented. This article discusses the commonly held, but erroneous, belief that a psychologist (as a retained reviewer) has an ethical duty to discuss his/her concerns with the psychologist whose work was reviewed. The legal and ethical reasons why the APA ethics code (2002) does not apply to review work are presented.

Response to Amundson, Lux and Hindmarch: Critique of Investigative Practices Article

ABSTRACT This article responds to a commentary by Amundson, Lux and Hindmarch (2005), in which they offer a pejorative criticism about our article (Austin & Kirkpatrick, 2004) in which we described the investigative component within comprehensive child custody evaluations–something they label as “maximalist” evaluations and contrast with a model they prefer called the “minimalist” approach. We believe our approach to custody evaluations is in keeping with the current standard of practice and professional guidelines.