Does the judge always adapt mediation report
Ok we went to mediation before and the mediatior suggest i do a substance evaluation. I went january 3rd 8 days prior to court we were rerefered back to fcs. I had finished my evaluation but report wasnt in on that day. I went the following day and turned it in. The mediator didnt even review it. It was a court appointed evaluator and her finding was that there is no evidence that i have any issue and suggest i be granted my 50/50 custody. Since mediator didnt review it will the judge and will he take this into consideration mediator suggest supervised visits until my substance abuse evaluation is back. So will the judge just adopt the recomendation or will he use his brain and see for his self that she was lying and isnt the counselor like a court expert since thats who they refered??
Nathan’s Answer
It would be incumbent on a party to make any points they believe are appropriate to a judge when they are not represented by counsel. Mediators do not make final determinations as they can only recommend or suggest as this mediator has done here, so if a suggestion was made to report to an evaluator, and a party did, the evaluator may forward their findings to the court. As other counsel has mentioned, a party will want to confirm the judge was made aware of these findings, if that was the party's goal to begin with.