Hiring a Guardian Ad Litem for Your Child Custody Case

Child custody battles can be long, contentious and expensive. Messy divorces can be especially hard on the children involved. These heated battles can tear the children in two, creating upheaval in their lives and making it difficult for them to live at peace. A guardian ad litem is a helpful resource in ensuring that the parents will come to a peaceful resolution when it comes to their children’s permanent custodial arrangements.

What is a Guardian Ad Litem?

In short, a guardian ad litem is an attorney whose purpose is to defend the best interests of the child. The guardian ad litem is either appointed by the court or hired by the parents. It can be helpful to have a guardian ad litem in a contentious divorce to help sort through the complex issues regarding custody and visitation.

What Tasks Does the Guardian Ad Litem Perform?

The guardian ad litem is the child’s attorney. If the child is old enough, he will meet with the child and get his input about the child’s wishes. In some cases, the child will express a preference about where he wants to live. This usually occurs with older children. The guardian ad litem also takes into consideration the child’s needs. He usually makes a recommendation to the judge and helps in the final decision of custody.

Hiring a Guardian Ad Litem

In most cases, the guardian ad litem is appointed by the court. This means you likely will not have a say in the person who is chosen. In heated child custody battles, the judge will appoint a guardian ad litem if it appears that the parents can’t come to a consensus.

The key to hiring a guardian ad litem is to find one who will be impartial and fight for your child’s rights. The guardian ad litem is not supposed to take the side of one parent over the other. It is often considered a conflict of interest if one parent is in charge of hiring the guardian ad litem. In this case, the judge may order both parents to split the costs of the fees so that neither parent has a financial relationship with the attorney.

Fees for the GAL can vary widely. The longer the case continues, the more you will pay in fees for the attorney. If there are special meetings, hearings and evaluations that your guardian must attend, it will increase the cost of the service. Keeping your case conflict-free will help keep costs down. Child custody battles can be brutal on both the parties divorcing and the children. Hiring a guardian ad litem will help to keep the arguments at bay and figure out what is in the best interest of the child.

If you require assistance, our Family Law Lawyers and Divorce Lawyers in Toronto are here to help.