RECONCILING PARENTS' AND CHILDREN'S INTERESTS IN RELOCATION In Whose Best Interest? |
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| Authors: | Hon Arline S Rotman Robert Tompkins Lita Linzer Schwartz M Dee Samuels |
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| Institution: | Arline S. Rotman was appointed to the bench as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court in 1998, having previously practiced law primarily in the area of domestic relations. She was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court to chair interdisciplinary task forces which developed a Domestic Violence Risk Assessment Guide and a Supervised Visitation Risk Assessment Guide. She is currently president elect of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts;. Robert Tompkins worked for 20 years for the Family Division of Connecticut Superior Court, the last 10 administering a statewide agency of 115 court-employed evaluators and mediators. He is past-president of Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. He is currently deputy director for regional services of the Court Support Services Division of Connecticut Superior Court;. Lita Linzer Schwartz, Ph.D., ABPP (forensic), is distinguished Professor Emerita at Pennsylvania State University, where she still occasionally offers courses. Most of her publications focus on some aspect of the family: adoption, surrogate parenting, children's rights, divorce, and the concept of what constitutes a family;. M. Dee Samuels is a certified specialist in family law. She has written and lectured extensively in the area of family law and has been an adjunct professor of community property. She has served on the Council of the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association and has chaired the section's family law committees. She was executive editor of the;Family Advocate, and has written for the Family Advocate, The Compleat Lawyer, Trial for California Continuing Education of the Bar, and the Matthew Bender Trial Advocacy Series. |
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| Abstract: | When a family comes before the court, whose interests are really served? Can the court's representatives act in the best interests of the children while respecting the rights of parents? When a case is sent to a court‐connected evaluator, how does the evaluator balance the tensions and varying perspectives inherent in this work? Within the bounds of advocacy and legal ethics, how does the attorney balance the demands and rights of the client while guiding the parent to consider the needs of the children? How do judges frame the dilemmas before them and consider the work of the evaluator? This article addresses these questions in a multidisciplinary fashion, using a hypothetical case as a guide. |
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