1. Focus on Child Custody: Recent Developments in Law & Behavioral Science

Description

This is a Video Streaming Presentation.  Pending approval it will be 2.5 CLE Credit.
The program is a part of a series for the spring of 2021 – Look for new sections to come.
This Program is a two part Review examining the legal and behavioral science developments and how they relate to custody disputes.
The book and the video will be delivered electronically.

LEGAL REVIEW
Right to a Hearing
Court-Appointed Forensic Evaluations
Hearsay Issues
Child’s Therapist as Expert Witness
Facilitating Forensic Testimony
Verifying Evaluator’s Status
Parental Alienation – Domestic Violence – Unsubstantiated Allegations
Joint/Shared Custody; Decision-Making; Zones of Authority
Attorney for the Child
Child Witnesses; Hearsay; F.C.A. 1046(a)(vi)

BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE REVIEW
Forensic and Mental Health Guidelines
Child alienation
Remote child custody evaluations (RCCEs)
Domestic violence
Psychological testing
Diagnosis
Clinical and forensic judgement

                                                                                            PROGRAM FACULTY
Timothy M. Tippins, Esq. is an adjunct professor at Albany Law School and serves on the faculty of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology and on the Affiliate Postdoctoral Forensic Psychology Faculty at St. John’s University. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Forensic Psychology at Siena College. He is a private practitioner who has engaged in matrimonial and family law practice since 1975 and now devotes his practice exclusively to serving as special counsel and consultant to other family law practitioners on a nationwide basis, serving as trial and appellate counsel, with special emphasis on the presentation and cross-examination of expert mental health testimony. Tippins has served in all major professional leadership positions in the New York family law community, including President of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers – New York Chapter, Chair of the NYSBA Family Law Section, and Chair of the NYSBA Task Force on Family Law. Tippins is a regular feature columnist for the New York Law Journal. He may be contacted at tmtippins@matlaw.com.

Dr. Jeffrey P. Wittmann is a licensed psychologist and trial consultant whose practice concentrates on trial support for attorneys in custody and access matters and on forensic peer reviews. He serves as a consultant for major law firms nationally and provided custody evaluation services both at county clinics and in private practice from 1985 to 2013. He previously held an appointment as Adjunct Clinical Professor at SUNY Albany where he taught forensic psychology at the doctoral level. Dr. Wittmann is a recognized expert on the intersection of law and psychology, on professional practices in the child custody area, and on Frye/Daubert issues related to expert testimony in family matters. He is regularly on the faculty for training seminars offered to attorneys and mental health professionals, has been a frequently utilized instructor for judges in Family, Supreme, and Appellate courts nationally, and has served on multiple national task forces related to practice in the area of custody assessment. Dr. Wittmann was previously on the editorial boards of the Matrimonial Strategist, the Journal of Child Custody and the New York Family Law Monthly. He is the author of “Custody Chaos, Personal Peace” (Perigee, 2001) and of numerous professional articles regarding forensic psychology. Together with Timothy Tippins, Esq., he is the author of Empirical and Ethical Problems with Custody Recommendations: A Call for Clinical Humility and Judicial Vigilance, an award-winning article published in the Family Court Review in 2005 that generated widespread scholarly debate and that is a frequently-used template for critiquing the custody evaluation process. His most recent book is entitled: “Evaluating Evaluations: An attorney’s Handbook for Analyzing Child Custody Reports” (MatLaw, 2013).