so that happened.

Despite my lawyerly heritage, I didn't grow up around actual litigation or other court proceedings: more stuff like tax/zoning/real estate law. As a result, like so many Americans, my impression was that of the Law & Order TV series, where you see the lawyers doing motions and depositions and whatever, but of course they don't show the months in between when you're just waiting for the next court date.

There are months in between court dates. But ours finally arrived!

I say "ours" even though I'm not named anywhere, and by the strictest letter of the law, I don't exactly exist. In fact, Angry Biodad (ABD) has always reflexively thought of me as some sort of backup babysitter in J's life, which has often been useful, especially in the times when J was struggling with the tension between his biological parents. I'm an alternate category of parent, called a "Chris": a poorly defined but highly reliable source of unconditional love.

The hearing was a little nerve-wracking, since the judge got progressively (and mostly justifiably) crabbier as it unfolded. I see where they're coming from: they don't know us, they don't know J, they just have the ruling from two years ago, and a new pile of papers with a bunch of contradictory claims in it. This whole motion was J's idea, so the filing had a ton of his statements in it, and he needed to vet it before filing (and in fact had some corrections); buuut, the previous ruling was very clear that no one should show J any court paperwork! (Because ABD had done exactly that, last time.) And Anna had taken faithful dictation for a couple of angry emails J wrote to ABD, because J's had a headache for nine months limiting his screen time, and that also bugged the judge. There wasn't really a better way to do this, though.

The goals were:

1. Let J stay with whoever he wants without hassle, which means ABD stops showing up at school or the house to pick J up as though everything's fine.
2. Get a court-appointed person to talk to J (and his doctors and therapists and whoever) and get his voice into the record.

The judge's summary went something like this:

1. For fuck's sake, none of you people have abided by the previous court orders. You suck.
2. The child is 6'1" and is clearly not going to comply with the existing custody order, and there's no point in my ordering something a 6'1" child isn't going to comply with, so: 
• the original custody order stands, but
• my interim order is that no one will try to force the child to comply with the original custody order.
3. Contact (phone calls, whatever) with the non-resident parent must be initiated by the child.
4. To unravel the parents' clusterfuck of conflicting hearsay and sketchy document serving habits, Family Court Services will interview the child and everybody with "Dr." in front of their name, so I can be sure of what this kid actually wants and if there are good reasons for it.
5. Family therapy with ABD and J continues, with the mom if the therapist wants.
6. None of you will talk to the kid about court stuff.
7. See you in August.
8. Go away.

If you're going to be rebuked by a judge, the best kind of rebuke is certainly the kind where you get the outcome you wanted along with it. Success!