About 1,200 cases involving custody issues were filed in Mecklenburg last year. Court officials estimate psychologists usually work with about 5 percent of custody cases. Authorities don't keep statistics on how many cases individual psychologists handle. The evaluations usually take several months, and one or both parents pay. If a parent objects to the findings, a second psychologist can be hired to challenge the findings.
Judges can either accept or reject the recommendations.
By most accounts, the debate is an emerging one, and Charlotte's courts are on the cutting edge. Forensic evaluations are better because in the court environment you're looking for truth and facts. What you do in the clinical environment is, you try to treat the patient as he is. Still, parents who lose custody fights often find the evaluations lacking. One Charlotte man, Alan Elam, filed a complaint against Gould with the N.C. Psychology Board after Gould wrote a negative evaluation of him during his custody battle in 1999.