TRUE OR FALSE:
A DAD CAN'T WIN A CUSTODY FIGHT?
False !!!
The American Law Institute summarized all the studies they could find about who wins a custody fight: Moms or Dads? American Law Institute, Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations, Tentative Draft No. 3, Part I, Chapter 2 (March 20, 1998).
Overall, the research summarized in this chapter shows no tendency for either gender to win custody fights more often than the other, but careful study shows that as you move forward in time towards the present, and westward from the East Coast to the West Coast, dads tend to win more often than moms!
Another veteran family law attorney and I were talking about this question; we discovered that we both estimated that, when dads fight for custody in King County, they win about 70% of the time -- and I think it would be more often if dads were better represented.
A Boeing engineer told me he had examined every divorce file in King County over a three-year time period and calculated how often lawyers won custody for dads, and he told me I had won custody for dads 85% of the time.
Contrary to popular belief, fathers are the natural favorites to win custody!
Why?
The courts order custody based on the best interests of the child. Fathers tend to earn more money, and so can provide their children with better homes, in better neighborhoods, with better schools, better health care, etc., than mothers.
Divorced moms often have to work long hours, and also go back to school; divorced dads tend to have more quality time for their children.
Divorced dads tend to re-marry sooner than divorced moms, so can offer the courts a two-parent household for the children.
At custody trials, moms like to talk about how many times they threw up during their pregnancies, and how long and awful it was to go through labor and delivery, and how many diapers they changed; in effect, they are arguing that they have "sweat equity" in their children.
But children are not property; nobody owns them, and children aren't going to climb back into the womb or go back to using diapers.
Stay-at-home moms like to say they are better able to take care of the children, and that might have been true as long as they had a working husband to support the family. A dad, who is used to working, is in a better position to be a single working parent than a mom who used to stay-at-home, but now has to work.
Moms say they love their children more than dad does, but (1.) you can't measure love, and (2.) that isn't the court's decision criterion anyway: the court decides custody in the best interests of the child, not in the best interest of the mother.
The bottom line is: Dad is the natural favorite to win a custody fight, not Mom!
But Dad needs to make his case to the court. A father's custody case is not a mother's custody case in pants; moms want the court to focus on ancient history and emotion, Dad needs to keep the court focused on the practical realities that add up to "the best interests of the child" in the future.
I have never seen a mom offer the court a plan for the future which was anything more than vague ideas about what they're going to do after they win the house, the car, the kids, and most of Dad's money, now and forever.
Dads should offer a plan for raising the kids as primary parent that is as specific and detailed as the business plan you have to submit in order to get a business loan from a bank.
The trial judge should know exactly what Dad's plan is and why it will work, and then Dad should contrast his "what you see is what you get" plan with Mom's vague ideas that aren't practical, financially feasible, or at all thought out.
How can it be in the best interests of the child to order custody to a parent who has no real plan?
But when Dad clearly deserves to win, he often has to defend against false charges of domestic violence, because if Mom can convince the court that Dad is a DV bad guy, she wins automatically. RCW 26.09.191.
That's why a fathers custody lawyer has to be an expert in defending against false accusations of domestic violence.
Joshua Foreman Attorney at Law