In the Best Interests of Children: What Family Law Attorneys Should Know about Domestic Violence

It has been known for several decades that abuse between married, cohabitating, or dating partners, whether in same-sex or opposite-sex relationships, is a major social and public health problem. Intimate partner abuse (IPA or PA), commonly known as domestic violence, may involve physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, stalking, and domineering and controlling behaviors. It negatively impacts millions of families in the United States, including families in which the parents seek a dissolution of their marriage. Ample social science research finds that children who witness abuse by one parent against another, or by both parents, are at greater risk than other children for incurring a variety of emotional and behavioral problems, including depression, anxiety, aggression, and declining school performance.1 In child custody disputes, “the determination by the court that domestic or family violence has occurred,” according to Model Code 401 from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, “raises a rebuttable presumption that it is detrimental to the child and not in the best interest of the child to be placed in sole custody, joint legal custody, or joint physical custody with the perpetrator of family violence.”2 Although wellintentioned, these guidelines are at best vague, and at worst they