A guardian ad litem is a person appointed by the court in a divorce action. Usually it’s related to a child custody issue and the guardian ad litem is an objective third party that the court appoints who examines both parents and both living situations to make a determination about who is the more suitable parent as far as primary custody is concerned.
The way that they go about doing that is it’s in conjunction with the Department of Social Services obviously. They will go and they will inspect each house of either respective parent for several things.
One, it’s pretty obvious, the basic necessities. They want to see that there’s power. They want to see that there’s running water. They want to see that the house is clean. They want to see that there’s food ready and available and they want to see that it’s a stable environment that is one that’s conducive to child rearing. All of those kind of come into – they’re thrown into a pot as far as the guardian ad litem is concerned and they consider that when they’re determining who’s the person who should be primarily responsible for the child?
When it comes to who gets custody, the guardian ad litem is going to take all of the factors that we discussed in together and he’s going to make a determination about who should be the primary custodian of the child, either the mother or the father.
Historically, the court has favored that the child be with the mother and that trend continues. However, joint custody and children being placed with the father as the primary custodian is becoming more prominent in South Carolina courts.
The guardian ad litem plays a significant role because ultimately he is the arbiter as far as the judge is concerned and the judge is going to take his opinion to heart more so than even the plaintiff or the defendant because both the plaintiff and the defendant obviously they have a very colored view on how things should be because they both want the child.
The guardian ad litem is supposed to be the middle neutral, the person who essentially is taking the best interest of the child into consideration and that’s the only thing that he’s considering. In that respect, the guardian ad litem is someone that your lawyer and you need to cater to. You need to be able to present a suitable place for a child to grow up. You need to be a suitable parent and you need to be the sort of adult that a judge is willing to allow to raise a child because in family court, the best interest of the child is the governing standard.
If you would like to know more about guardian ad litem or you have any questions, please feel free to contact The Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.
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