604B evaluation

David Siegel: Let’s talk about the after affect in Aurora. Once custody is established there are issues that arise where one parent doesn’t agree with how the child is being raised. Can you ever change custody after it’s been determined?

Jesse Barrientes: You can, but before we get to that I’d like to mention the other scenario – and again, either party can do this. It’s called a 604B evaluation which is a psychological evaluation to determine the best interest of the child for custody or visitation purposes and what will happen is that everybody will go to the psychologist and they’ll do the psychological tests and the psychologist will make a determination as to what’s in the child’s best interests. Now, it gets even better. I can tell you that that can range anywhere from four to eight to ten thousand dollars.

David Siegel: Right.

Jesse Barrientes: Now, if you get a recommendation back from a 604B, and that’s essentially the court’s expert – it’s the court’s witness essentially. And essentially one party is not going to like what that person is going to say, and then they can get their 604.5 evaluation which is their own expert and they’re going to have to pay for it. But the statute says that the other party may be required to pay for some of that. And that expert is going to – you’re going to go through the same thing and they’re going to make a recommendation. So if it’s the same recommendation, then it is what it is. If it’s contrary recommendations, then the court battle is just going to be about who is the better expert, who did the more detailed job, and it’s going to be about finding what this expert did and what that person didn’t do, and how well they didn’t do it or did it.

David Siegel: But importantly, this expert that you’re talking about is only a piece of evidence. The court does not have to go with that expert’s opinion.

Jesse Barrientes: Absolutely.

David Siegel: They can rule contrary to that expert’s opinion and shock everybody.

Jesse Barrientes: They sure can.

David Siegel: Or they can do some combination of the two.

Jesse Barrientes: Right.

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