Robert Sturdy was
the county custody evaluator for the case. Unlike almost everyone
else involved in my case Sturdy did not make more money by causing
more pain. With the lawyers, the longer a case drags on and the more
contentious it becomes, the more money they receive. The same goes
for mediators, testimony coaches and the majority of others involved
with a divorce case. Even the judges, given that they generally come
from local law firms and return to them if they lose an election or
choose not to run for reelection, have an incentive to drag the case
out. After all, if as a judge you ruled in a manner that made a law
firm a lot of money then of course that firm would be more likely to
hire you. And if you rule in manner that makes both the litigant and
defendant's firms lots of money that is just securing your future. I
suppose you could argue that custody evaluators benefit indirectly
from a system that encourages litigious divorces and I am sure there
are some that act unethically because of this but I think the benefit
is so indirect and the case loads of custody evaluators so large that
most do not view it that way. At any rate Robert Sturdy didn't. He
was a decent guy who, I believe, tried to do his best.
The irony is that
the custody evaluators are probably the lowest paid people involved
in divorce cases. Money corrupts as they say.
One interesting fact
about Sturdy is that he was not born in the United States. As such he
may have developed a more ethical sense of justice than native born
Americans who often view the U. S. legal system as dysfunctional and
corrupt.
I met with Sturdy in
person, both with and without the boys, several times and talked with
him extensively on the phone. He also met with the boys separately.
He was very thorough. He also genuinely cared which, in my
experience, is a rare thing with people involved in divorce cases.
In short, Robert Sturdy was a good person.
Unfortunately Sturdy
didn't have a lot of hard evidence. Both Spring and I were asking for
sole custody but the way the system works is that one of us needed to
agree to accept joint custody or the evaluator could not recommend
it. I ended up agreeing to this as I thought it would lead to a
quicker settlement which would lessen the pain for the boys and I
figured the kids would spend most of their time with me anyway. I
was mistaken for the first and correct for the later.
Sturdy recommended
joint custody and found no evidence whatsoever for Spring's
allegations against me. In fact, he stated that I had a wonderful
relationship with both children. I'll always wonder if I had held
out for sole custody whether Sturdy would have given it to me. I
think it likely and in hindsight it would probably have been a better
path. It wasn't the only time the kids and I were hurt by my wanting
to just settle things and move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment