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Drafting the parenting evaluation court order: A conceptual and practical approach
Author(s) -
Zervopoulos John A.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.947
Subject(s) - order (exchange) , law , psychology , guard (computer science) , psychological evaluation , political science , computer science , business , psychiatry , finance , programming language
A court's order begins and directs the process of a court‐appointed parenting evaluation. If the order is ill‐defined, the evaluation, its conclusions, and the resulting expert opinion may be compromised. To draft a clear order, lawyers should understand the nature of a psychological evaluation, identify the legal bases and the authority in psychological literature and ethics for conducting a parenting evaluation, and establish the specific purposes for the court‐ordered evaluation. Likewise, psychologists should understand these drafting issues to guard against role and ethical pitfalls in their court‐appointed tasks. This paper will explore these issues. In addition, suggestions for drafting a motion petitioning the court for an evaluation are offered, and a model court order for parenting evaluations is presented. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.