Title: What Does a Guardian ad Litem Do? | Charleston, SC | Gregory S. Forman, P.C.
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Content: The two most important limitations are the prohibition on guardians providing written custody recommendations in their final report (and substantially limiting guardians making oral recommendations on custody at trial) and the requirement that the guardian’s written reports or recommendations “must be submitted in a manner consistent with the South Carolina Rules of Evidence and other state law.” The guardian who acts as an investigator and reporter tends to view his or her role as developing a factual understanding of the child’s life, each parent’s life (or other parties if the custody or visitation dispute involves someone other than the child’s parents), and the child’s relationship with parents, step-parents, siblings, relatives and other care providers and providing that information to the court. A guardian is uniquely situated to interview the parents and child, observe the parents with the child on multiple occasions, do surprise home inspections of the parents, and talk to and obtain information from the parents. In this role, the guardian’s task is to present the court with the necessary and unbiased information that a judge would want in order to make a just decision on custody and visitation disputes. The guardian who acts as an advocate for the child’s best interests advocates his or her view of what should be done as regards the decisions the court is asked to make regarding that child. There are varying ways to view what it means to “advocate” the child’s best interests. More restrained guardians advocate the child’s best interests by presenting the court all relevant information they can obtain. Other guardians actually decide what they believe should be done for the child and then attempt to highlight evidence that supports this view and diminish evidence that undermines this view. While a guardian cannot make explicit custody recommendations in a written report, a report that concludes that the children are doing wonderfully in the mother’s sole custody or that the father has a substantial drinking problem basically lets the court know how the guardian believes custody should be decided. Often guardians’ reports are rife with inadmissible statements from witnesses or the child or make credibility determinations regarding the parties and witnesses.