Psychological and Legal Considerations in Reviewing the Work Product of a Colleague in Child Custody Evaluations

This article has three primary objectives: 1) to examine what the authors believe are some important psycholegal and ethical considerations for work product reviews of a child custody evaluation; 2) to make suggestions to custody evaluators and retained reviewers to incorporate the concept of "helpfulness to the court'' as a fundamental, guiding principle; and 3) to offer some suggestions about how and why a custody evaluator might derive some positive value from a competent and ethical review of his or her work product. The role of a reviewer of the work product of the court's appointed child custody evaluator is becoming more common in custody litigation. The functions and ethics of this evolving role are discussed. The inherent tension between a retained reviewer's obligation to provide ethical and helpful testimony to the court, while in the role of a retained expert, is examined. The psychological perspectives of both evaluator and reviewer are presented. This article discusses the commonly held, but erroneous, belief that a psychologist (as a retained reviewer) has an ethical duty to discuss his/her concerns with the psychologist whose work was reviewed. The legal and ethical reasons why the APA ethics code (2002) does not apply to review work are presented.