This post is the first in a four-part series examining Utah courts’ reliance on guardians ad litem (GALs), private guardians ad litem (PGALs), and custody evaluators, beginning with the strongest case for why that reliance exists.
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Custody disputes place courts in an unenviable position. They arrive laden with emotion, incomplete information, and consequences that will shape children’s lives long after the case is decided. In Utah, as elsewhere, judges must resolve these disputes under real-world constraints: crowded dockets, limited hearing time, and parties who often disagree not only about facts, but about what facts matter. Against that backdrop, Utah courts’ reliance on guardians ad litem (GALs), private guardians ad litem (PGALs), and custody evaluators did not arise by accident. It reflects an institutional effort to manage complexity, protect children, and reach decisions that feel informed rather than improvised.
While I have been and remain critical of current practices regarding the ways Utah courts utilize GALs, PGALs, and custody evaluators, this post takes that rationale seriously. It does not question motives, impugn integrity, or critique outcomes. Instead, it explains why courts rely on these actors at all, and what role they are understood to play, before asking whether that role is consistent with core judicial principles and the law.
The pressure to decide well, and to decide efficiently
Utah’s domestic dockets are busy. Custody cases are fact-intensive, time-consuming, and emotionally charged. Judges must synthesize competing accounts of family life, evaluate credibility, and make predictive judgments about children’s futures—often on limited time.
Like most contested litigation, custody cases involve disputed facts and competing narratives; what distinguishes them is not complexity itself, but the institutional choice to manage that complexity through off-record synthesis rather than ordinary evidentiary processes.
From the judicial perspective, GALs, PGALs, and custody evaluators promise efficiency not in the sense of haste, but in the sense of manageability. Rather than reconstructing a family’s dynamics from raw testimony and documentary evidence alone, the court receives a condensed account: interviews summarized, collateral information distilled, and conclusions framed in a way that appears directly responsive to the statutory custody factors. This synthesis is further appealing because it is presented by actors seen as disinterested third parties—neither aligned with either parent nor engaged in partisan advocacy—whose perspective is presumed to filter conflict rather than amplify it. Taken together, these features help explain why courts view such input as a practical aid in navigating emotionally charged custody disputes.
Whether this actually produces efficiency in practice is a separate question. But the impulse to seek assistance that reduces informational overload while preserving decisional quality is understandable.
Shielding children from the adversarial process
Another commonly cited justification is the desire to protect children from the perceived harms of litigation. Judges and domestic relations commissioners routinely express concern about placing children at the center of parental conflict, subjecting them to direct and cross-examination, and forcing them to choose sides in open court. The adversarial process, it is said, is designed for adult disputes and may be ill-suited to children’s developmental needs.
GALs, PGALs, and custody evaluators are therefore often viewed as buffers. They are expected to gather information from children in developmentally appropriate ways and convey it to the court without exposing children directly to the pressures of the courtroom. This framing reflects long-standing assumptions in family law practice and is central to why these roles are so entrenched.
Again, this post does not test those assumptions. It simply acknowledges that courts rely on these actors in part because they appear to reconcile two competing obligations: deciding cases based on facts, and minimizing perceived harm to children.
The appeal of synthesis over raw evidence
Custody disputes are not about isolated events. They are about patterns, relationships, and competing interpretations of behavior over time. Judges are asked not only what happened, but what it means.
In that context, courts often express a preference for synthesis over raw data. P/GAL recommendations and custody evaluation reports are valued not merely for the information they contain, but for the way they organize that information into a coherent narrative. Someone else has already decided which facts matter, how conflicts should be resolved, and what conclusions follow.
This preference is neither unique to Utah nor inherently suspect. Courts routinely rely on synthesized expert input in other areas of law. The difference in custody cases is the breadth of that synthesis and the extent to which it precedes and shapes judicial engagement with the underlying evidence.
The functional role these actors actually play
Functionally, the off-record information gathering, synthesis, and reporting performed by GALs, PGALs, and custody evaluators places them in a role that goes beyond mere assistance. In many cases, they operate as decision-influencers: court-authorized third parties whose off-record work shapes how custody disputes are framed, understood, and resolved.
In some cases, their role approaches that of a pre-adjudicator, in the sense that they make and present judgments about credibility, relevance, and significance without the court independently reviewing the underlying evidence on which those judgments are based.
In others, their function resembles that of a decision proxy, where synthesized narratives or recommendations operate as a practical stand-in for direct judicial fact-finding, even though formal decision-making authority ultimately remains with the court.
These descriptions are not pejorative. They are functional. They do not imply that adjudicative authority has been formally delegated or that courts abdicate their role. They describe how adjudicative labor—sorting facts, weighing credibility, framing outcomes—often occurs upstream, outside the courtroom, before the judge engages in formal fact-finding.
Unlike attorneys or expert witnesses, whose influence is procedurally constrained and tested through sworn, on-the-record processes, the influence exercised by these actors often arises through off-record synthesis that precedes—and at times effectively substitutes for—adversarial testing. That influence is further amplified by the blurring of roles: the same actor may gather information, interpret it, and then advocate for or frame a preferred outcome before the court engages in formal fact-finding. This structural overlap helps explain both the perceived value of these roles and the deference they often receive—while also signaling a point of tension that warrants closer examination.
For ease of reference, this series will use the collective term “best-Interest professionals” to describe guardians ad litem (GALs), private guardians ad litem (PGALs), and custody evaluators. Although their formal roles and methods differ, they are unified by a shared assignment: to assess family circumstances and recommend custody and parent-time arrangements they believe serve the child’s best interests. The term is intentionally descriptive rather than flattering. It does not assume neutrality, methodological rigor, or evidentiary authority. Instead, it reflects the common function these actors perform in custody disputes—evaluating, synthesizing, and framing outcomes through the lens of the statutory “best interests of the child,” often with substantial influence on how cases are ultimately decided.
A pragmatic, not ideological, explanation
When Utah judges explain their reliance on these decision-influencers, they rarely do so in ideological terms. The explanation is pragmatic. Custody cases are difficult. Time is limited. Children are vulnerable. The court needs help.
From that perspective, reliance on best-interest professionals is seen not as a departure from judicial responsibility, but as a way of fulfilling it under strain: the court remains the decision-maker, and the decision-influencer is cast as an aid rather than a substitute. Taken at face value, these justifications are understandable. They explain why the system persists and why it is defended even by those who acknowledge its imperfections.
The question that remains
This post has intentionally stopped short of evaluation. It has not asked whether these assumptions hold up, whether the promised efficiencies materialize, or whether the roles as they function are consistent with evidentiary principles and judicial responsibility. Those questions matter, but they come next.
The real issues, then, are not whether these goals are understandable, but whether the motives for relying on these tools are consistent with fundamental judicial principles—and whether the tools themselves are used in compliance with the law.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277