How Can We Best Listen to Children in Family Law Proceedings

This article critiques how children's views are commonly heard in adversarial family law proceedings, focusing on practices in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Children's views play an important role in determining their best interests. How those views are heard impacts on the quality of evidence available to the court and on children's experiences. Benefits and limitations of expert reports, direct and best interests representation by lawyers and judicial meetings with children are discussed. These are viewed in the context of children's right to be heard and literature on children's dissatisfaction with their participation experiences. It is argued that New Zealand's team approach, where a child's views are heard through a variety of methods, is desirable. However, we must ensure not to expose children to proceedings in ways that may be contrary to their best interests.