Expert Advice Consult:This is the briefest of the consults. Parents meet us, describe the child, describe their parenting strengths and limitations as well as practical concerns, explain their initial thoughts about custody and visitation, and share any concerns or uncertainties they are facing in making a decision. We will ask several questions to gather additional relevant information. Based on the information presented and our expertise of child development and parenting plans, we then verbally share our thoughts with the parents regarding what would likely be some good parenting plan arrangements for their child and family unit. (Fee: $200.00 per hour.)

Extended Expert Advice Consult: This consult includes an interview with parents as described in the Expert Advice Consult, and also includes an interview with the child, plus as needed, a review of relevant school and/or medical/psychological records with collateral interviews of professionals. We then verbally share our thoughts with the parents regarding what would likely be some good parenting plan arrangements for their child and family unit. (Fee: $200.00/hr.)

Extended Expert Advice Consult/Written: This consult includes all of the components of the Extended Expert Advice Consult, with written feedback. (Fee: $200.00 per hour or $2,500.00 flat fee for family of up to four, whichever is less. Over four: Additional $400.00 fee for each additional child, spouse, or significant other.)

Settlement Conference: Approximately 95% of all cases settle. After receiving your feedback summary it is most likely you and your spouse will attempt to reach an agreement. Our presence can help speed this process along as we can answer any questions parties or attorneys may have about options being considered, and can participate in brainstorming healthy solutions. (Fee: $250.00 per hour port to port; we are also happy to host the settlement conference at our office as a neutral ground.)

Evaluation: This evaluation includes all of the components of the Extended Expert Advice Consult, plus observation of each parent and child together. We will offer a written summary to the parents regarding what would likely be the best possible parenting plan arrangements for their child and family unit. (Fee: $5,750.00 flat fee for family of up to four. Over four: Additional $500.00 fee each.)

+ testing battery relevant to parenting plan/custody issues =

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS & RAISED CONCERNS

I don’t feel comfortable letting someone else make the decision about the custody of my child.
The evaluator provides a wealth of information and professional opinion, but does not make the final decision.  If you do not go to court, you and the other parent will utilize the expert opinion provided by the evaluator and will make the final decision, and your custody and visitation agreement will be written into your divorce or separation agreement.  If you do go to court, the judge will make the final ruling, taking into account the information provided by the evaluator.

How does the evaluator come up with an opinion regarding who is the “better” parent?
She doesn’t.  She analyzes the child’s psychosocial needs, which are related to developmental age and the unique personality and temperament of the child.  She then looks at each parent’s strengths and limitations in meeting that child’s needs.  She also takes into account how well the social environments of each parent (school, neighborhood, social supports, community, etc.) meet the current needs of the child, and considers the unique structure and needs of the family unit.  Lastly she factors in empirical data on psychosocial needs and on various custody and visitation arrangements at different ages.  With that she generates an opinion as to what would likely be the best custody and visitation arrangement at this time.  As you can see, this is a process that does not view one parent as “good” and one as “bad.”  All parents have strengths and limitations in parenting just as people have strengths and limitations in all skills.  The evaluator will look at skill sets and how these meet the child’s needs.

What does a custody or visitation evaluation consist of?
This depends on the type of consult or evaluation you want.  Lepage Associates offers a tiered approach which is designed to meet various information needs and cost parameters. (See above in-depth description of the Tiered Approach to Parenting Plans & Custody Evaluations.)

Time and money!  …  How much time will it take and how much will it cost?  When do I pay?

TIME: Obviously as you progress down the tiers more time is involved.  Since these build on one another, you can opt to begin with a shorter evaluation, and then progress if you feel you need more information.  (Also, the evaluator will let you know if she needs more information to offer an opinion.)  An exact amount of time is impossible to provide since each case has a differing number of family members and of collateral contacts to be interviewed, differing amounts of collateral data to review, and people test at different paces. Because of the limited hours necessary to complete verbal consults, these can typically be scheduled soon after you contact the evaluator, and can often be completed within 2-4 weeks, depending on the availability in everyone’s schedules to meet.  Evaluations take longer due to the increased number of face-to-face meetings, plus the time in contacting collateral contacts, records review, testing as necessary, and report writing.  The size of the family, number of collateral contacts, volume of records to review, and amount of testing all bear on the time line, as does everyone’s availability to meet, collateral contacts returning calls, and records being provided in a timely manner.  This complexity makes it difficult to estimate an exact number of weeks from beginning to completion of evaluations.  However, our turn-around time is excellent, and notably shorter than that of local university programs where reports are submitted by trainees and must then be reviewed by more experienced clinicians and rewritten several times before completion.

MONEY: Quick overview for evaluations for family of up to 4: $5,750 without psych testing; $7,750 with psych testing. We package our rates and thus clients can be assured of this fee, unlike evaluators who charge hourly and cannot give you a concrete price for the entire evaluation. You will find that our fees are very reasonable when compared with rates in this area of expertise.  While we hesitate to use “$200 per hour” or “$4,000-$9,000” and the word “affordable” in the same sentence, we actually keep our fees very affordable.  For example, our custody evaluations begin at $5,750, whereas the average custody evaluation currently costs $8,000-$15,000.  The only other place to find a beginning/basic evaluation fee at near $5,000 is at local universities, where the work is done by trainees, and supervised by more experienced people.  At Lepage Associates the work is done by psychologists experienced in parenting plans and custody evaluations. Perhaps more important than the cost, you also get the highest quality at Lepage Associates. (You can find additional information in our bios on our website.) Also, we have been innovative in designing a system of parenting plan consults to help people come to agreement without needing a full custody evaluation. Our expertise is unique in this as we designed our own tiered system, whereas other custody evaluators do not also have a system for parenting plan consults.

My spouse is paying for the evaluation and I worry that will bias the evaluator.
This should not be a concern.  The evaluator is a professional and specialist fully focused on her ethical responsibility to make a determination based on what would be in the best interests of the child.  The best interests of the child are paramount.  It makes absolutely no difference who provides payment for her services, as this has zero bearing on her evaluation and final opinion.

Should each parent hire a separate psychologist and do two separate evaluations?
No.  It is not in the best interests of the child to go through the evaluation procedure twice.  Not only is it time consuming, tedious, and tiring for a child to be interviewed, observed and tested twice (with limited attention spans this process is more difficult on children than adults), in fact many tests are no longer considered reliable and valid if re-administered without an interval of several months in between administrations.  Thus due to the strain on the child and the loss of reliability and validity of the test data, Lepage Associates will only take cases in which both parents agree to use their evaluator as the sole evaluator.  Most often the evaluator engages in peer supervision and, while maintaining your confidentiality, consults with other psychologists regarding their professional opinion; thus you are often already getting more than one professional opinion on your case.  However, should the parents be unhappy with her final opinion, the evaluator will agree to provide the case file to another expert for a second opinion, and likewise she will provide second opinions on cases when provided full information.

Ideally I would like to keep costs down and avoid court.  Do we need a custody or visitation evaluation if we do not plan to go to court?  For example, could the evaluator just provide mediation services instead to help us work out the custody and visitation issue?

The majority of divorces do not go to court; parents work out the custody arrangement and have it written into the divorce or separation agreement.  There are many cost-effective ways in which Lepage Associates can assist with that process.  For example, the consult process is an effective mediation process for helping parents agree upon a custody and visitation arrangement, and it is very cost effective as it is brief.  As to whether you need a custody or visitation evaluation if you do not plan to go to court, that depends upon two major factors: (1) if you feel confident in your knowledge of what custody and visitation arrangement would best meet your child’s needs, and (2) if you and the other parent are able to reach agreement on this issue.

If you feel fairly confident that you know what custody and visitation arrangement would work well for your child, and you and the other parent are in agreement about this, then you don’t need an evaluation.  If you and the other parent are making these decisions in a fairly amicable manner but would feel better if you had a professional opinion, then a consult would be a good choice.  Also, if you and the other parent are having a hard time agreeing, then a brief evaluation can be helpful.  If you suspect that your inability to agree might be fueled by anger over the divorce, then a consult can include an initial mediation process to help you put the anger in perspective and put it aside long enough to come up with a custody and visitation agreement.  If you and the other parent have vastly differing opinions on this issue and deciding upon custody and visitation has become contentious, then a full evaluation can be very helpful.  (If cost is a concern, beginning with a consult in these cases can be a cost-effective idea as it may provide all of the information you need and thus save you the costs of a full evaluation.)  Lastly, both amicable and contentious parents may opt for a full evaluation up front if they have a child with special needs, if the custody and visitation questions in the case are complex, or if they simply want the most in-depth information possible in making their custody decision.  Also, you may find that having either Dr. Lepage or Dr. Kuzyszyn-Jones attend settlement conferences is quite helpful in moving the process along to a decision that both parties can live with.

A WORD ON COST, OUR UNIQUE EXPERTISE, AND QUALITY

You will find that our fees are very reasonable when compared with rates in this area of expertise. While we hesitate to use “$200 per hour” or “$2,500-$9,000” and the word “affordable” in the same sentence, we actually keep our fees very affordable. For example, our custody evaluations begin at $5,750, whereas the average custody evaluation currently costs $8,000-$15,000. The only other place to find a beginning/basic evaluation fee at near $5,000 is at local universities, where the work is done by trainees, and supervised by more experienced people. At Lepage Associates the actual work is done by licensed psychologists experienced in parenting plans and custody evaluations. Perhaps more important than the cost, you also get the highest quality at Lepage Associates. (See above Our Custody Evaluation Expertise.) Also, we have been innovative in designing a system of parenting plan consults to help people come to agreement without needing a full custody evaluation. Our expertise is unique in this as we designed our own tiered system, whereas other custody evaluators do not also have a system for parenting plan consults.