Although we normally reject approximately 75% of the requests we receive for child custody investigations, the ones that we do accept are usually successful. The only reason that we would refuse any custody case is that the potential client has no real interest in the welfare of their child and is attempting to use custody only as a means of harassment. A typical example would be a father, involved in a divorce and mad at his wife, requesting the investigation to get even with her, so-to-speak. The life of a child is not a toy or a tool to be used by an angry parent. We take any custody case very seriously and our main concern is the best interest of the child, most especially when there is any type of abuse or neglect present.

Also, when considering any child custody investigation, we carefully discuss all issues with any potential client to determine if they honestly have the patience, desire and ability to properly complete the investigation. Although this may appear strange, it is vital to the success of the case. I have seen far too many people who want an investigation completed instantly and who are ready to go to trial with very little or no evidence. Carefully consider that evidence is like a pencil. If you hold one pencil in your hand, you can easily break it. You could probably break two, three, four or five, but the fact is, you can continue adding pencils until you reach a point where it becomes impossible to break them. The same is true of evidence. With very little evidence, your case can be defeated or broken so the intelligent avenue is to continue adding evidence until it cannot be defeated. Any parent who honestly loves their child and puts the child's best interest first will refuse to accept any less.

If we do believe that a potential client does not have the patience to properly complete an investigation, we will not get involved, simply because we must consider what will probably happen to the child if our client does lose. If a father, our client, loses at trial, who will the ex-wife take all of her frustrations out on? Most probably the child.

In addition, there are also other areas of concern in any custody case. As an example, let's say a father desires to get his child out of an unfit environment so he begins a custody investigation. He gathers some evidence and, since his attorney tells him he has a 75% chance of winning, he files a petition with the Court. Normally, the ex-wife will become furious and possibly even to the point of filing charges against the father for sexually abusing the child. Amazingly, any male we impart this to snickers and responds with, "I'm not worried about anything like that." "It could not possibly happen to me." Be advised that sexual allegations have become so common-place today, they have been given a name; The S.A.I.D. Syndrome, "Sexual Allegations in Divorce," so it can and does happen.

In one case I personally worked, a father came to us to gather evidence of unfitness on the part of his ex-wife. In that particular case, there was a mountain of evidence and it did not appear that the father could not possibly lose, so he filed his petition. Shortly thereafter, he was visited by the police, arrested and charged with sexually abusing his child. His attorney laughed about the allegation. He simply said it did not wash, that anyone with intelligence could see that the allegation was false and that any moron could see why the ex-wife filed the charges. Well, the jury obviously was not intelligent, at least by that attorney's standards, because they sentenced the young man to prison for 15 years. I would strongly recommend that any father, who finds themselves falsely accused, read The Father and False Allegations in a Custody Case. There is a great deal of information on that page that will assist fathers and mothers in custody matters, even when false allegations of abuse are not an issue. I would also recommend reading the link, Custody Evaluations. These evaluations can be critical to a case and you need to fully understand the concept.

Child custody cases are very stressful because you are dealing with the life of a child, who normally has no, or limited, say-so in the matter. That fact alone demands that the evidence gathered be sufficient to win and that there are no mistakes made while putting the case together.