"Why hasn't your son been to his father's home since March?" "He's sixteen. I can't make him." Sometimes that answer is true. Sometimes it's the end of a long, ugly…
Suppose you are asking for joint or equal physical child custody. The other parent opposes it. Why not ask the court to put your proposed schedule into effect temporarily so…
Summary. Family law increasingly describes ordinary misconduct in clinical terms. Selfishness becomes narcissism, and disagreement becomes gaslighting. When amateur psychology complicates a child custody dispute, courts and lawyers often respond…
Executive Summary: You do not save money in divorce simply by spending less on lawyers. You save money by using legal help where it adds value and avoiding work that…
Executive Summary: I draft legal documents the way a tailor fits a suit. I start with a proven structure, show the client an actual draft, and then adjust the approach,…
Nobody has any business demanding perfection from judges, commissioners, lawyers, guardians ad litem, custody evaluators, therapists, or court clerks. These are human beings doing difficult work, often under time pressure,…
Disraeli said never apologize for feeling, because to do so is to apologize for truth. He was right, and Utah family law should take him seriously. A parent's fear for…
The Lindsay Clancy murder trial is about as far removed from an ordinary Utah divorce case as one can imagine. Clancy admitted killing her three young children in Massachusetts in…
There is a powerful argument for caution in family court, and it deserves to be taken seriously. When a judge or commissioner is confronted with an allegation that a parent…
Utah Courts Should Stop Paying an Intermediary to Tell the Factfinder What the Factfinder Can Hear Directly When a child's wishes, concerns, experiences, or perceptions matter in a Utah child…
2026 UT App 130 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS JUAN MIGUEL GUANUNA, Appellant, v. LINDSEY R. SAWATZKI AND JONATHAN C. SAWATZKI, Appellees. Opinion No. 20240191-CA Filed August 20, 2026 Third…
Utah has enacted a meaningful improvement in access to court proceedings. Beginning January 1, 2027, Utah Code § 78A-1-203 will require an audio recording of each public court proceeding in…
What “Special Training” Does a Judge Really Need to Talk to a Child? In Utah child custody disputes, one of the stock objections to having a judge interview a child…
One of the strangest objections to judges interviewing children in child custody disputes is that the interview might make the child anxious. Of course it might. The child’s parents are…
Utah's entire system for dividing property, setting alimony, and calculating child support runs on one assumption: both parties are telling the truth about their finances. When that assumption breaks down,…
Summary: 1. Proposed paragraph (b)(2) applies to judicial interviews substantially the same restrictive threshold the Legislature imposed on compelled child testimony. 2. Concerns about litigation abuse and judicial workload justify…
Here is the objection this post is going to draw, so I deal with it directly instead of dodging it: raising questions about the reliability of memory sounds like it's…
An innocent respondent in a protective-order case often faces a problem that courts do not acknowledge clearly enough: The more fully he explains what happened, the more material he may give…
Utah's state court rules still prohibit litigants and attorneys from making their own audio recordings of court proceedings, even when a proceeding is open to the public and no legitimate…
Bluffdale City v. Verive - 2026 UT App 101 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS BLUFFDALE CITY, Appellee, v. AARON VERIVE, Appellant. Opinion No. 20250757-CA Filed July 2, 2026 Third District…
Paulson v. Paulson - 2026 UT App 108 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS TRISHNA PAULSON, Appellee, v. CHRISTOPHER PAULSON, Appellant. Opinion No. 20220914-CA Filed July 16, 2026 Fourth District Court,…
Schmidt v. Schmidt - 2026 UT App 98 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STEPHEN EDWARD SCHMIDT, Appellant, v. ANGELA SCHMIDT, Appellee. Opinion No. 20240759-CA Filed July 2, 2026 Third District…
Judge Kasey Wright deserves more credit than ridicule for refusing to pretend that chronic triage is competent judging. On July 13, 2026, Utah Fourth Judicial District Judge Kasey Wright submitted…
Judges in child custody disputes should hear from children more often. A lot more often. It should be routine, the presumptive course, the default. Not because children should decide custody…
At a recent hearing, a commissioner explained why she was appointing a private guardian ad litem instead of interviewing the child herself: "Given the age of the child, the statutory…
Christine Miller recently made a point about family court that deserves more attention: the appearance of independent professional agreement where no genuine independence exists. When a court appoints a private guardian…
“A woman's greatest strength [in divorce court] is her ability to be a victim.” It’s a statement that immediately makes people boil over—either in furious agreement or absolute outrage. But…
A recent podcast clip I saw this week made a deliberately provocative claim: “A woman’s greatest strength is her ability to be a victim.” Taken literally, the statement is too…
Christensen v. Christensen - 2026 UT App 104 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS JEFFREY CHRISTENSEN, Appellant, v. COURTNEY JESSICA CHRISTENSEN, Appellee. Opinion No. 20240810-CA Filed July 9, 2026 Third District…
One of the most complex, high-stakes scenarios occurs when federal immigration policies collide head-on with state domestic relations law. Under the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a non-citizen spouse…
Anyone who practices Utah family law has watched it happen. A child custody dispute is going badly for one parent, or hasn't started yet, and a protective order petition appears.…
A temporary protective order should do one thing well: protect against the danger actually alleged and shown by nothing less than a preponderance of the evidence. It should not become…
A low evidentiary burden is still a burden. That should be obvious. In Utah temporary protective order practice, however, it is often treated as optional. The preponderance of the evidence…
Few legal proceedings can rearrange a person’s life as quickly as an ex parte protective order. A judge can remove someone from the family home, restrict contact with children, limit access to…
This post is a companion to The Bloodletting of Family Law. That post diagnosed a system that mistakes itself for the cure. This one is about the cure the system…
For centuries, physicians bled their patients and called it medicine. The patients got weaker; the doctors, confident in their training, prescribed more bleeding. Medicine now has a name for harm…
In most courtrooms, a litigant cannot restrict another person’s fundamental rights by repeating untested, out-of-court accusations. If a party tries to prove serious allegations through “someone told me” evidence, the…
On the surface, family court looks like a place of reason. There are statutes, rules of evidence, financial declarations, parenting plans, sworn testimony, judicial findings, and orders written in the…
When parents separate or divorce, one of the most important questions is how custody of their children will be determined. Many parents enter the process believing the court will automatically…
In re A.H., 2026 UT App 88 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF UTAH, IN THE INTEREST OF A.H., J.H., J.H., L.H., N.H., S.H., AND E.H., PERSONS UNDER EIGHTEEN…
State v. Collard, 2026 UT App 87 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF UTAH, Appellee, v. KEVIN MICHAEL COLLARD, Appellant. Opinion No. 20240532-CA Filed June 4, 2026 Third District…
Few courtroom phrases are more soothing—or more dangerous—than this response to a valid hearsay objection: “I’ll admit it, but I’ll give it the appropriate weight.” The phrase sounds disciplined. It…
Family court is not ordinary litigation. In a business dispute, the parties may fight hard, settle, and never see each other again. In divorce and child custody disputes, the parties…
In a Utah personal injury case, if a doctor testifies that a low-speed collision caused a traumatic brain injury, that opinion will usually face meaningful scrutiny under Rule 702 of…
State v. Paramoure - 2026 UT App 74 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF UTAH,Appellee, V. PHILIP CHRISTOPHER PARAMOURE, Appellant. Opinion No. 20240381-CA Filed May 7, 2026 Third District Court, Salt Lake Department The Honorable…
In a surprising number of child custody disputes, courts make major decisions based heavily on conversations nobody else gets to see or hear. A custody evaluator interviews the child privately.…
Deleting digital evidence during a Utah divorce can trigger sanctions, contempt findings, attorney fee awards, and devastating credibility problems. Learn how Utah courts treat destroyed evidence under URCP 26, 26.1,…
Wilson v. Wilson - 2026 UT App 72 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS LISA A. WILSON,Appellant, v. BRAD J. WILSON, Appellee. Opinion No. 20240444-CA Filed May 7, 2026 Third District…
Stephen Petro recently made a point that should be obvious, but in the heat of litigation, often isn’t: A “reasonable” answer is not the same thing as a correct one. A reasonable answer…
When a $100,000 asset can become $1,000 before trial, valuation timing—not ownership—is the real fight. If you’re holding NFTs and heading into a divorce, understand this: the court does not…