Child Custody Evaluation How do I Document in Preparation for Meeting with the Evaluator?

It is definitely a challenge to keep track of all the back and forth in a high conflict child custody case. You know you need to document the daily drudgery that has become your life, but what is a good way to go about it? How do you organize and track, email, conversations, voice mail and texts?

You start by grabbing a composition folder. The folder will serve as a journal of the day-to-day back and forth that is your life. If you put all of your transactions in the journal as they happen, you can always find anything else you need.

The biggest problem you have is that it is nearly impossible to keep track of all the issue you run across. By journaling you can keep track of all your issues in one place. The piece that is most important is to make sure you have the dates, times, and issues gathered in one place. Once you have that done the rest is just housekeeping. The journal can help you with the 4 w's of who, why, when and where. Once you decide you need a specific email to prove a point, all you need to do is find it in the journal.  The journal; will have all of the rest of the pertinent details. You will be able to tell what the email was about and more importantly you will be able to find it when you head for evaluation.

Evaluation is the corner stone in the high custody relationship. Your job is to frame everything you have for the evaluator. You will need to put everything in its best light. By having a journal you will be able to not just recall all of the documentation, but also your thoughts about what was happening at the time. This is extremely important because when you need to explain to the evaluator why something is important, you will be able show them the empirical evidence along with providing them the context of issue.