What to Do if a Minor's Court-Appointed Attorney Seems Biased

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: New York

Hi. i am a non-custodial parent and im having a hard time with my court appointed attorney. she is showing favoritism toward my son's mother & not even showing me the basic respect. she didnt even iintroduce herself to me to let me know who she was.

ex: i found marks on my son's back. i put in a petition to get a court date. this would be my first time seeing this attorney because all of the other times, my son had a different attorney before this. when the referee asked me what my petition was about, i told him i would like begin the process to get full custody of my son. this "stranger in the room" immediately said that she saw no need to change custody. i had to stop the proceedings to tell the referee, im not arguing today until i can get an attorney as well because i assumed my son's mother retained this lady as an attorney from the way she was speaking. then the referee told me that she was my son's new court appointed attorney. i told him she is speaking as if she is my son's mother's attorney. i was never introduced to this lady.

the favoritism is obvious because in my petition, i only applied for full custody. i never told the reason in my petition so this lady never knew what my reasons were at the time and she never even asked me why i wanted full custody. her immediate response was no to change of custody. then i when i told the referee that he had marks on his back that for one, he could not have done himself and two, he kept telling me different reasons/stories as to how they got there. i asked for cps to get involved. her response was 'no' to the cps investigation when the pictures obviously show marks on him that were IMPOSSIBLE for him to do on his own.

how do i address this issue? who do i speak to besides her "supervisor"? can i address the bar association?

She is on neither side. She is on your son's side. Maybe she had already spoken to your son? She looks out for the best interests of the child, not either parent.

Did your son ever make any indication that your ex was responsible for these marks? Maybe he's being bullied at school and doesn't want to talk about it, which is a thing.

When a party seeks to modify custody, that party is required to demonstrate to the court , as a threshold, that there has been a change in circumstances since the prior custody order that warrants a review of the issue of custody to ensure the continued best interests of the children. When you file a petition and fail to support it with any law or facts that would support such a finding, you should anticipate that a judge or lawyer reviewing your petition is going to perceive it as groundless. When you fail to state in your petition any valid reason for modifying custody, you should not be surprised when the initial response to your petition is "no".

Also, given that your son now has a succession of attorneys in this custody case, it's reasonable to infer that there is a history of significant litigation on custody issues, and that history and its outcome may have an impact on how additional attorneys entering the case view the parties and the merits of their latest claims.

Unless you have been court-ordered not to involve CPS unless and until cleared to do so by the child's attorney, it is not clear why you wouldn't call CPS yourself. If you are barred, then it is likely that there is a history of abusive CPS reports by you and/or your spouse. If these marks were sufficiently severe such that they are indicative of child abuse, then after you took the child to his pediatrician for treatment the pediatrician would have made a report to CPS, as the child's pediatrician is a mandatory reporter.

at this time my son was 6 yrs old. when i asked him where they came from he told me everything from he fell to they came from his backpack to his teacher told them to do this for homework. i go to his school several times a month during the day....i asked his teacher as well as his gym teacher did he seem withdrawn or evasive and they both told me no.

this is a long story but in a nutshell, she is a hands off mother. my son has told me time and time again when i talk to him on the phone and on our monthly visits that he is always alone at home.....he plays alone everyday after school.....he even eats his dinner most of the time in the kitchen by himself. when i talk to him on the phone he is always indoors for that day as well as several times where he has told me on weekends that he hasnt seen his mother and/or he is in the house with his 14 yr old sister. i'm court-ordered to call btwn 7pm & 8pm and plenty of times she's not home from a job that she gets off at 4:30pm. she doesnt parent....she just make sure he's looked after.

with all due respect, this is not an exaggeration. at least the last attorney gave me her card and contact info. this attorney didnt even introduce herself.

So I'm curious. If mom is never around, who do you believe is abusing your son? The excuses he is giving are just as common with kids who are bullied as they are with kids that are being abused by a parent or other adult. Also, you should know that kids are capable of hiding things from authority figures like teachers, coaches etc...

ok......i think you missed some.......the attorney for my son said no as soon as i told the referee that i wanted full custody......she 'interrupted' me while i was talking and said there is no reason to do that. i didnt even get to the 'why' yet.

then i told the referee that i had pictures of marks on my son's back & my son told me several different stories as to what happened which didnt make sense. i let him know that something happened to my son & it's obvious that this person scares him & maybe threatened him to make sure he didnt tell anyone. i have pictures of the marks on my son's back. i then asked for a cps investigation. the court appointed attorney then refused cps investigation. i had to get a lawyer to force the cps investigation.

i went to cps on my own and they said i had to go thru family court. when i followed up with cps, the investigator told me that these are significant marks and will definitely try to get to the bottom of it because someone definitely did this to him.

this is only my son's 2nd attorney. the first attorney went into a different aspect of family law i was told by the clerks in the office. the only thing we have been to court for are the 4 violations i have against her in regards to my visitation. i actually just filed another violation against her & have an upcoming court date. there has been ZERO cps involvement in our relationship.....NONE. i live in a separate state.....i set up an email address for us so i dont have to worry about her foul mouth on the phone. we only communicate as to pick up & drop off times for my court-ordered time with my son & that's how it's been since 2012.

i discovered these marks when i had him for the weekend. these marks are so obvious there was no need for a doctor.......there were several marks in a whipping motion so whoever did this to him did it purposefully and i know he was hurting when it happened and the perpetrator obviously didnt care & kept going. when he kept telling me different stories, i stopped asking because i saw he was getting very upset. i asked him if he was hurting, he said no so i let it go for the time being. i know he is alone & by himself most of the time so i just tried to have fun with him for the cpl days i had him & went straight to cps on that monday morning.

it could have been her or one of his sisters. one of his sisters(not my child), has run away several times....she also attempted left letters and ran away saying she would commit suicide. she never got help for her & this was the main reason for our break up....this particular daughter.

a kid can hide things from people on the outside but not at home. what i did ask him was if he dresses himself and/or does he bathe himself & he says sometimes he does but most of the time his mother gives him a bath or shower or this particular daughter gives him a bath or shower. knowing that, how could they miss the marks? that leads me to believe it is one of them. out of the stories he told me, he blamed kids at school saying they wrote on his back to his teacher writing on his back and then he said his teacher told him to do it for homework. he never made an excuse in regards to his sisters or it happened at home which makes me think he's trying to purposely lead me away from his sisters or home.

So ... you are not qualified to assess or diagnose, you didn't bother taking your son to see a doctor, and you've actively pressed and likely coached him?

You're just winning here, aintcha? Looks like the court is doing the right thing.

So the marks were present on a weekend, but were not so bad that it was worth taking the child to a doctor. You pumped him for explanations about the bruises and, despite your efforts, you learned nothing that would suggest that they resulted from an action or omission by your ex. You didn't think that they were so serious to justify seeing a doctor. Days later a case worker told you that they might be abuse, but refused to take a report from you. Then you filed a motion to modify custody in which you failed to even state a basis for filing your motion, let alone mention any suspicious bruising.

You are about a million miles from meeting the threshold of a material change in circumstances that would justify reopening your custody case. If you are serious about trying to move forward, you should hire a lawyer so that you stop making mistakes that all-but-guarantee your failure in court.

you obviously didnt read everything i wrote. on top of that, the marks were not new marks. i get my son once a month. the marks could have been there for up to 4 weeks. i asked him does it hurt, he said no. i didnt see the marks until around 10pm on a friday nite. he said they didnt hurt. they werent bleeding. there were obviously in the healing stages. he insisted they didnt hurt. that did not warrant an emergency room visit. i dropped him off sunday night and called cps first thing monday morning. they said i had to do it thru the court.

on my petition i filed, i wrote down i wanted change of custody. on the day of the court date, the referee asked me what i why did i file the petition.....i told him that i wanted full custody....the court appointed attorney INTERRUPTED ME WHILE I WAS TALKING and said she didnt see a reason for it BEFORE I FINISHED MY STATEMENT AND WITHOUT EVEN ASKING WHY I WAS ASKING. THAT IS BEING BIASED.

Like i said, when i saw her, i thought she was someone working in the building but when she interrupted me and said that, i thought she may have been a lawyer my son's mother hired.

After i confronted her and told her she was being rude for interrupting and didnt have any facts, i told the referee i had pictures of bruises on my son's back that he couldn't have possibly put there on his own....i told him that my son was uncomfortable talking about it and that he kept telling me story after story that didnt make any sense.

i showed the referee the pics, he then said he had to show the court appointed attorney for my son. she looked at them and then said that she DID NOT want to initiate a cps investigation. i then came back with a lawyer to follow up with this petition and my lawyer argued so a cps investigation would be opened.

i want this lady off of my case. like i said, she took the case over and i was never notified by her. i see her and my son's mother walking down the hall TO the courtroom and walking away together from the court room talking like they're friends. this lady didnt even have the respect to introduce herself to me, give me her contact information....NOTHING let alone how she acted in the courtroom that day.

i have spoken to a retired social services worker who even told me that during her career she witnessed that time and time again when they court appointed attorney was a woman. there is no exaggeration here. i followed the directions and procedures i was told to. the only mistake you may say i made is not bringing him to a doctor. had they been sores or open wounds, i would have.

after my lawyer had them open the case, i followed up with cps on my own to make sure they were taking this case serious. at that time, the cps worker told me that they reviewed the pictures and did in fact say that it would be impossible for him to do this on his own.

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Quoting li.bee94

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ok......i think you missed some.......the attorney for my son said no as soon as i told the referee that i wanted full custody......she 'interrupted' me while i was talking and said there is no reason to do that. i didnt even get to the 'why' yet.

then i told the referee that i had pictures of marks on my son's back & my son told me several different stories as to what happened which didnt make sense. i let him know that something happened to my son & it's obvious that this person scares him & maybe threatened him to make sure he didnt tell anyone. i have pictures of the marks on my son's back. i then asked for a cps investigation. the court appointed attorney then refused cps investigation. i had to get a lawyer to force the cps investigation.

i went to cps on my own and they said i had to go thru family court. when i followed up with cps, the investigator told me that these are significant marks and will definitely try to get to the bottom of it because someone definitely did this to him.

this is only my son's 2nd attorney. the first attorney went into a different aspect of family law i was told by the clerks in the office. the only thing we have been to court for are the 4 violations i have against her in regards to my visitation. i actually just filed another violation against her & have an upcoming court date. there has been ZERO cps involvement in our relationship.....NONE. i live in a separate state.....i set up an email address for us so i dont have to worry about her foul mouth on the phone. we only communicate as to pick up & drop off times for my court-ordered time with my son & that's how it's been since 2012.

i discovered these marks when i had him for the weekend. these marks are so obvious there was no need for a doctor.......there were several marks in a whipping motion so whoever did this to him did it purposefully and i know he was hurting when it happened and the perpetrator obviously didnt care & kept going. when he kept telling me different stories, i stopped asking because i saw he was getting very upset. i asked him if he was hurting, he said no so i let it go for the time being. i know he is alone & by himself most of the time so i just tried to have fun with him for the cpl days i had him & went straight to cps on that monday morning.

it could have been her or one of his sisters. one of his sisters(not my child), has run away several times....she also attempted left letters and ran away saying she would commit suicide. she never got help for her & this was the main reason for our break up....this particular daughter.

a kid can hide things from people on the outside but not at home. what i did ask him was if he dresses himself and/or does he bathe himself & he says sometimes he does but most of the time his mother gives him a bath or shower or this particular daughter gives him a bath or shower. knowing that, how could they miss the marks? that leads me to believe it is one of them. out of the stories he told me, he blamed kids at school saying they wrote on his back to his teacher writing on his back and then he said his teacher told him to do it for homework. he never made an excuse in regards to his sisters or it happened at home which makes me think he's trying to purposely lead me away from his sisters or home.

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When you noticed these marks did you take your son to the doctor?

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Quoting li.bee94

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you obviously didnt read everything i wrote. on top of that, the marks were not new marks. i get my son once a month. the marks could have been there for up to 4 weeks. i asked him does it hurt, he said no. i didnt see the marks until around 10pm on a friday nite. he said they didnt hurt. they werent bleeding. there were obviously in the healing stages. he insisted they didnt hurt. that did not warrant an emergency room visit. i dropped him off sunday night and called cps first thing monday morning. they said i had to do it thru the court.

on my petition i filed, i wrote down i wanted change of custody. on the day of the court date, the referee asked me what i why did i file the petition.....i told him that i wanted full custody....the court appointed attorney INTERRUPTED ME WHILE I WAS TALKING and said she didnt see a reason for it BEFORE I FINISHED MY STATEMENT AND WITHOUT EVEN ASKING WHY I WAS ASKING. THAT IS BEING BIASED.

Like i said, when i saw her, i thought she was someone working in the building but when she interrupted me and said that, i thought she may have been a lawyer my son's mother hired.

After i confronted her and told her she was being rude for interrupting and didnt have any facts, i told the referee i had pictures of bruises on my son's back that he couldn't have possibly put there on his own....i told him that my son was uncomfortable talking about it and that he kept telling me story after story that didnt make any sense.

i showed the referee the pics, he then said he had to show the court appointed attorney for my son. she looked at them and then said that she DID NOT want to initiate a cps investigation. i then came back with a lawyer to follow up with this petition and my lawyer argued so a cps investigation would be opened.

i want this lady off of my case. like i said, she took the case over and i was never notified by her. i see her and my son's mother walking down the hall TO the courtroom and walking away together from the court room talking like they're friends. this lady didnt even have the respect to introduce herself to me, give me her contact information....NOTHING let alone how she acted in the courtroom that day.

i have spoken to a retired social services worker who even told me that during her career she witnessed that time and time again when they court appointed attorney was a woman. there is no exaggeration here. i followed the directions and procedures i was told to. the only mistake you may say i made is not bringing him to a doctor. had they been sores or open wounds, i would have.

after my lawyer had them open the case, i followed up with cps on my own to make sure they were taking this case serious. at that time, the cps worker told me that they reviewed the pictures and did in fact say that it would be impossible for him to do this on his own.

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Again you didn't answer the question: Did you take the child to the doctor when you noticed the marks and bruises? Yes or no? Why didn't you call CPS?