“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…
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…
If you are in a child custody dispute and the court appoints a "guardian ad litem," it sounds reassuring. A lawyer appointed for the child? What could there be not…
New ideas are rarely adopted by the average person first. That is a useful point Seth Godin recently made in his blog recently. When you ask ordinary people whether they like a…
When a parent isn't active in a child's life, most people think they already know why. He must not care. She must have checked out. He must have wanted something…
Special masters and parent coordinators sound like practical solutions to exhausting parenting disputes. When parents keep fighting over exchanges, expenses, holidays, phone calls, school issues, and extracurricular activities, the idea…
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…
2026 UT App 85 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS JOHN B. ALLEMAN, Petitioner, v. THE HONORABLE CHRISTINE JOHNSON AND APRIL SLAUGHTER, Respondents. APRIL SLAUGHTER, Appellee, v. JOHN B. ALLEMAN, Appellant.…
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…
There is a basic principle at the heart of equity: where there is a legal wrong, there should be a remedy. But the inverse matters just as much: where there…
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…
This opinion is subject to revision before final publication in the Pacific Reporter In re Adoption of R.P. - 2026 UT 9 2026 UT 9 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF…
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…
Divorce cases spiral and stagnate because the system allows for posturing and delay without consequence. The courts are overwhelmed and apathetic. Mediation, as typically structured, does not require resolution. Without…
“Temporary orders” sound harmless. Interim. A placeholder until the whole case gets decided. That’s not how they function in the real world. In virtually every Utah divorce and child custody…
When most people think about divorce, many may picture a courtroom, a judge, and a decision. But this process is a long, costly, and discouraging one. A typical contested divorce or…
A few years ago, the concern was fake law; lawyers citing to AI-generated cases that didn’t exist. That already happened in Utah. See Garner v. Kadince. The next concern is worse:…
The modern Utah home is a goldmine of digital data. In a divorce or child custody dispute, it often becomes something else: a surveillance system one spouse tries to weaponize…
The Missing Step Courts in child custody disputes routinely make determinations without ever hearing from the child directly—or even reviewing a complete and reliable record of someone who did. That…
2026 UT App 39 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS LEONA MARIA PRISBREY,Appellee, V. KENT TERRY PRISBREY, Appellant. Opinion No. 20250070-CA Filed March 19, 2026 Fifth District Court, St. George Department The Honorable Keith C. Barnes No. 234500039…
In Utah child custody and parent-time disputes, courts routinely defer to a familiar class of professionals: private guardians ad litem (PGALs) and custody evaluators. These professionals are held up as…
The Basic Logic of Factfinding The Protection Rationale The Expertise Rationale The Record Disappears Credibility Cannot Be Tested The Court’s Position: Real Constraints, Imperfect Tools Institutional Convenience One of the…
When people begin thinking about divorce, most want to get it over with quickly. Keep the suffering to a minimum. They want to file immediately, schedule hearings, and get the…
Reese v. Reese - 2026 UT App 31 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS MAKAIBREE MARIE REESE,Appellee,v.KYLAN REESE,Appellant. Opinion No. 20240830-CA Filed March 5, 2026 Third District Court, Salt Lake Department…
People who hire a lawyer tend to assume one of two extremes. Either: “I hired the lawyer, so the lawyer does what I say.” Or: “The lawyer is the professional,…
In court, neither a party nor one of that party’s witnesses can simply claim to repeat what someone else said and expect the judge to treat it as proof. As…
Seth Godin observed that every important medical innovation of the last several centuries—handwashing, antibiotics, acknowledging the dangers of smoking—was initially resisted by the medical establishment. Not because the ideas were…
A constitutional critique of Utah Code § 81-9-204(5)(a) Utah, like every state, bears a solemn and compelling responsibility to protect children involved in custody and parent-time disputes. That responsibility is…
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…
Questioning the Assumed Superiority of Custody Evaluators and Guardians ad Litem A foundational assumption in modern custody practice is rarely stated outright, but it governs nearly everything that follows: that…
Evidence, Record-Making, and the Limits of Testimonial Substitution Courts, lawyers, and commissioners in child custody and parent-time disputes often operate on an unspoken assumption: that the only acceptable way to…
2025 UT App 189 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF UTAH,Appellee, V. REDWAN A. YUSUF,Appellant. Opinion No. 20240190-CA Filed December 18, 2025 Third District Court, Salt Lake Department The Honorable Amber M. Mettler No.…
2025 UT App 188 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF UTAH,Appellee, v. KASSIE ANGEL TOLMAN, Appellant. Opinion No. 20230006-CA Filed December 18, 2025 First District Court, Logan DepartmentThe Honorable Angela FonnesbeckNo. 191100466 Lyla Mahmoud, Debra…
2025 UT App 187 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS OREM CITY, Appellee, v. DAVID AMMON JAKEMAN, Appellant. Opinion No. 20241042-CA Filed December 18, 2025 Fourth District Court, Spanish Fork Department…
Utah courts are tasked with making custody and parent-time decisions based on the best interest of the child. But you cannot know what schedule truly serves a child’s best interest if…
In re P.M.- 2025 UT App 155 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF UTAH, IN THE INTEREST OF P.M., A PERSON UNDER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE. O.D.M., Appellant, v.…
2025 UT App 154 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF UTAH, IN THE INTEREST OF P.M., A PERSON UNDER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE. M.M., Appellant, v. STATE OF UTAH…