Guardian Ad Litem: Protecting the 'Best Interest Of Our Children'

If you have not been involved in a high conflict divorce involving minor children or a custody dispute, you have probably never heard of a Guardian Ad Litem also referred to as a GAL. According to the State of Connecticut’s Family Commission Committee, the bottom line is that the role of a GAL is to protect the best interest of a child, investigate and report back to the court as to what is going on with the minor child and make recommendations to the court as to the ‘best interest of the child’.  The GAL is to be the "eyes and ears" of the court as Judge Elaine Gordon stated in a Family Commission Committee meeting on February 11, 2011. The court can’t possibly take on the role of an investigator outside the court therefore; judges rely heavily on the GAL to bring forth issues, concerns and to ultimately weigh-in as to the ‘best interest of the child’.

You may be asking yourself, with unemployment in North Haven at 8.7%, perhaps this could be a new found career. Although this could be the case, you will first need to complete the GAL comprehensive basic training held at Quinnipiac University Law School before a judge will consider appointing you for a case. These training sessions are held twice a year and can accommodate 200 trainees for each session. This means, 400 trainees each year, have the potential of receiving a Guardian Ad Litem Certificate as long as they fulfill the attendance requirements. There are approximately 14,000 divorces initiated in Connecticut each year and when you back out the reconciliations, marriages that did not produce children or the children are no longer minors or divorces that are amicable; this leaves a very small percentage of cases in need of a GAL. 

One statistic I recently became aware of is that of all divorces involving children, approximately 20% end up being high conflict. These parents cannot agree as to what is in the best interest of their children therefore they decide, consciously or unconsciously to allow strangers to weigh-in and ultimately affect the lives of their children. This is the point whereby a judge feels compelled to appoint a GAL. By the way, when an attorney acting as a GAL in one of these cases gets involved, they charge as if they’re working as an attorney. The years of schooling in order to become an attorney does not come into play when acting as a GAL. If a mental health professional charges $150 per hour and a lay person charges $45 per hour, how is it that an attorney acting as a GAL is able to charge $300 or $400 per hour? This really boggles my mind.

Getting back on track - In the GAL training sessions, you will find the majority of the participants are attorneys, probably 95%. The second largest group of trainees consists of mental health professionals and then there's a very small percentage of trainees who are neither. This group consists of child advocates, parent coordinators and those who simply have a desire to break into this “elite” group of Guardian Ad Litems in an effort to protect and represent the best interest of a child. Although I think this is a great start by those who created this training program, I do find it alarming that GAL’s have been around for years, yet no one has been policing these Guardian Ad Litems who have had no training untile recently. Who is to say an attorney, which comprises the majority of the GAL’s in Connecticut can possibly know what is in the best interest of a child? Aren’t there a lot of jokes about the morality of attorney’s that have been circulating for decades? Not all attorneys or car salesmen are morally challenged; however, I do question the capacity of a legal professional who makes their living by creating, promoting, participating and/or perpetuating disputes among families is among the ‘elite’ group of GAL’s. How is this ‘elite’ group more qualified than a lay person to make recommendations regarding the “best interest of a child?” I could be wrong, but this doesn’t seem to make sense to me as a lay person.

I applaud Chief Administrative Judge of Family Court Lynda Munro for being instrumental in bringing change to this system.

For more information: 

jud.ct.gov/external/news/press305.htm

www.jud.ct.gov/lawlib/Notebooks/.../Representingminors.pdf

www.law.yale.edu/rcw/rcw/jurisdictions/.../connecticut/frontpage.doc

www.jud.ct.gov/webforms/forms/jm194.pd

http://www.jud.ct.gov/committees/Family/default.htm