Custody: Still in Dispute

Recent articles [“Dealing From the Bottom,” September] and letters in The Rake compel corrections of the record. Disagreements about custody will occur; places for their resolution are required. Many are resolved privately by written agreements without attorneys involved. Mediation works for more. Collaborative law works for others. Only a few custody cases actually go to trial. The late Honorable Joseph Summers, Ramsey County judge and first Almanac host, once said to me, “When divorce cases go to trial, it’s because there is a jerk somewhere in the group of parties and lawyers. If I can figure out who the jerk is, we can settle the case.” There is truth to that, but I would not go as far as Judge Summers. Every month, I see civilized presentation of divorce cases in my court. The original article did a great disservice to the many attorneys who, in the last twenty-five years, have drastically changed custody and divorce cases for the better. If you want to know more about that quiet revolution, contact the Minnesota chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the Collaborative Law Institute, and the Honorable James Swenson, presiding judge in Hennepin County Family Court. Finally, Glenn Bruder’s letter [November] is filled with inaccuracy. While gender-based arguments are made to the legislature every year, the legislature has given us laws that are child-focused and helpful. There is nothing about our current system that devalues fathers. For example, about forty-four percent of custody studies done by Hennepin County Court Services result in recommendations of either joint or father’s custody. The system of twenty-five years ago was a “win”-based system for most people. That has changed dramatically, in the last few years especially, to a problem-solving model. Fathers who were significantly involved with their children before the divorce are seeing their children much more often than alternate weekends. If they don’t have joint physical custody, they have evening and overnight access during the week; they coach their children’s teams; and they take children to the doctors, attend school conferences and performances, and provide alternate care when mothers are unavailable. The child support guidelines do assume that the custodial parent has financial responsibility for children. It is rare that a child support order covers all the costs of raising the affected children. One can righteously quibble about the details of the guidelines and how they are implemented. But the evidence is strong that, overall, the Child Support Guidelines have corrected financial inequities, not created them. On the issue of divorce and custody, the Rakish angle needs to be tipped toward telling the whole story.

Stephen C. Aldrich
Judge of Hennepin District Court
Family Court Division

The author was a family law practitioner for twenty-two years before taking the bench in 1997. He has served in the Family Court Division since 1998.


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