New York looks to ban custody evaluators

That state may follow Arizona in taking a step towards reforming family law.

The killing of Thomas Valva may have sparked the current legislation in New York state.

In 2021, the New York legislature held what it called a “blue ribbon panel” to study the effectiveness of custody evaluators. The conclusion was damning.

Judges order forensic evaluations to provide relevant information regarding the “best interest of the child(ren),” and some go far beyond an assessment of whether either party has a mental health condition that has affected their parental behavior. In their analysis, evaluators may rely on principles and methodologies of dubious validity. In some custody cases, because of lack of evidence or the inability of parties to pay for expensive challenges of an evaluation, defective reports can thus escape meaningful scrutiny and are often accepted by the court, with potentially disastrous consequences for the parents and children. 

I recently exposed Dr. David Finn who does custody evaluations throughout Illinois.

The “blue ribbon” panel was sparked in part by the death of Thomas Valva. Valva was killed by his father, Michael Valva, who forced him to spend a night in the freezing garage. A custody evaluation was ordered in that case, but Thomas’ mom refused to participate. That was a contributing factor in granting custody to Michael.

Separately, I did an expose of Barbara Burkhardt, another New York custody evaluator who also had a habit of recommending abusers get custody.