Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts

Re: Father friendly GALs in MA

GAL are supposed to be investigating what is the best interest of the child. They are not suppose to be gender bias. In the past GAL's that I have used have sided with one gender because it was the best thing for the child. It was never a gender thing in my cases. Your attorney should be able to advise you as to who a good neutral GAL would be to investigate. If you have been truly active with your child's upbringing any good GAL will see that.

Re: Father friendly GALs in MA

First off, no one is going to give you names of GALs here on a website.

Second, you should be aware that there is a bias toward women as parents, but it is in some ways a rational bias. The fact is that the majority of women put aside more "face time" for their kids than do men. That's because the majority of men can earn more money, so the mother takes the "face time" roles. It is not necessarily "fair" that this assumption exists, but it has to come to one's attention before it can be determined whether it's fair in your case.

The reality is that a custody battle is often itself damaging to the child. If it is not for a reason such as serious substance abuse or other psychiatric issues (yes, true parental alienation is part of a psychiatric illness, in my view -- the illness of putting one's anger over a child's interest, thus quite destructive). Your lawyer seems to be telling you this. Listen and think.

Judges tend to appoint professionals who are reasonably local to the court. There certainly are some objective GALs out here, and probably in your locality.

By the way, just because you identify and ask for a "good" GAL does NOT mean that you will get what you asked for -- even if you get the desired GAL.