When Process Replaces Protection
A Spokane County Case Study in Failed Oversight
Based on a two-and-a-half-year review of court filings and orders, this report documents systemic patterns that undermine child safety and accountability in private-pay GAL proceedings.
When Oversight Becomes Process
This investigation documents how Guardian ad Litem processes, as implemented in a series of Spokane County family law cases, repeatedly failed to protect children and instead exposed them to prolonged instability, unaddressed abuse concerns, and procedural harm. Over a period of approximately two and a half years, public court records from twenty-seven cases involving Guardian ad Litem Heather Lund were reviewed and analyzed. The cases spanned custody disputes, domestic violence allegations, and child safety matters. The findings do not rest on isolated errors or disputed judgment calls. They reveal consistent procedural patterns that, taken together, demonstrate a system operating without effective accountability.
Across these cases, written GAL reports were frequently absent or severely delayed, sometimes for years. Courts nonetheless relied on oral recommendations to make major custody decisions, including placement changes and reductions in protective parent contact. Trials were repeatedly continued due to incomplete GAL work, leaving children in temporary arrangements that became permanent by default. Abuse findings by external authorities, including CPS and law enforcement, were often deprioritized or displaced without documented investigative justification.
The review also identified a recurring pattern in which parents who raised abuse concerns were labeled as engaging in abusive use of conflict, while the underlying safety allegations remained unresolved. These labels carried immediate and lasting consequences, even when later softened or not formally adopted by the court. In practice, protective action by abuse victims was frequently reframed as misconduct, resulting in penalties rather than protection.
A clear structural distinction emerged between state-pay and private-pay GAL appointments. State-pay cases showed defined scope, timely reporting, and resolution. Private-pay cases showed open-ended involvement, escalating scope, chronic delay, and a high incidence of no written findings. This contrast suggests that the failures observed are not incidental, but embedded in the way private-pay GAL systems operate.
The consequences are not abstract. Children remained in prolonged legal limbo during formative years. Abuse victims were subjected to extended litigation, financial exhaustion, and loss of parental standing. Processes intended to reduce harm instead compounded trauma.
This analysis is published because children’s safety is being placed at risk, and abuse victims are being penalized by a system that claims to protect them. These outcomes are not the result of a lack of laws or good intentions. They are the result of institutional practices that allow process to replace accountability, and delay to substitute for resolution.
A Record-Based Review of Guardian ad Litem Practices in Spokane County
Guardian ad Litem appointments are intended to protect children by providing courts with independent, neutral investigation in cases involving custody disputes, domestic violence, and abuse allegations. The role carries extraordinary influence. GAL recommendations can shape temporary orders, determine where children live, and affect whether allegations of abuse are pursued, minimized, or reframed.
This article examines a three-year, record-based review of twenty-seven family law cases in which a single Guardian ad Litem, Heather Lund, was appointed in Spokane County. All records analyzed are public court records. No sealed materials, confidential filings, or protected records were reviewed. The purpose of this review is not to assess intent, motive, or professional competence in any individual case. It is to document recurring procedural patterns that appear across cases with sufficient frequency to raise systemic concerns about accountability, transparency, and child safety within GAL-driven proceedings.
This investigation was conducted over approximately two and a half years and concluded in 2024. Some cases may have resolved after the period reviewed.
Scope of the Review:
- Time frame: 2020 to 2023
- Cases analyzed: 27
- Case type: High-conflict custody, domestic violence, abuse, or child safety matters
- Payment structure:
- 25 private-pay GAL appointments
- 2 state-pay GAL appointments
The analysis is limited strictly to observable procedural history and outcomes reflected in the docket and orders. It does not evaluate the factual truth of abuse allegations or whether courts ultimately reached the correct outcome in any given case.
Pattern One: Chronic Absence or Extreme Delay of Written GAL Reports
Across the majority of private-pay cases reviewed, the GAL either failed to file a written report or filed one only days or weeks before trial, after extended appointment periods that often exceeded one or two years. In eight cases, no written GAL report was ever filed. In several others, reports were submitted less than thirty days before trial, after discovery deadlines had passed or trial dates were imminent.
Written reports are the primary mechanism for transparency, evidentiary challenge, and appellate review. When reports are absent or delayed, courts increasingly rely on oral input, informal communications, or emergency representations that cannot be meaningfully tested. The result is custody and safety determinations made without a documented investigative record.
Pattern Two: Repeated Trial Continuances Attributed to GAL Incompletion
Trial continuances tied to incomplete GAL work appear throughout the private-pay cases reviewed. In many matters, trial was continued multiple times over periods ranging from one to three years, explicitly because the GAL required more time or had expanded investigative scope without completion. These delays had predictable effects:
1. Temporary orders became long-term living arrangements
2. Interim placements hardened into de facto custody
3. Children remained in unresolved, unstable conditions during critical developmental periods
By contrast, state-pay GAL cases reflected defined timelines, completed reporting, and materially fewer continuances.
Pattern Three: Reliance on Oral GAL Recommendations to Make Major Custody Changes
In numerous cases, courts relied on oral GAL recommendations to make significant custody and visitation changes before any written report existed.
These changes included:
- Removal of supervised visitation
- Expansion of parenting time for parents with documented abuse histories
- Placement reversals during ongoing CPS or forensic investigations
- Mental health labeling and AUoC findings without written evidentiary foundation
Oral recommendations lack transparency and cannot be meaningfully challenged or reviewed. When they substitute for written findings, they effectively bypass procedural safeguards.
Pattern Four: Abusive Use of Conflict as a Recurrent Label
Abusive Use of Conflict appeared repeatedly across cases, often applied to the parent who initiated protective actions such as filing DV protection orders, contacting CPS, or reporting abuse to schools or police. Abusive use of Conflict is used as a substitute in Washington state for the widely disputed Parental Alienation.
In several cases, AUoC findings were later softened, reversed, or not formally adopted by the court, yet the interim consequences remained. These included custody loss, supervised visitation, mandated evaluations, and reputational harm that persisted even after the label itself was not sustained. The inconsistent application of AUoC raises concerns about subjectivity and procedural drift, particularly in prolonged cases without timely written reporting.
Pattern Five: Discounting or De-Prioritization of External Abuse Findings
Across the dataset, GAL input frequently displaced or minimized external abuse findings, including CPS determinations, DV protection orders, police reports, forensic interviews, and military or criminal convictions. In multiple cases, CPS investigations were stayed or deferred in favor of GAL review. In others, prior abuse findings were characterized as flawed, historic, or not relevant to current parenting decisions.
This created parallel evaluative tracks, with GAL interpretations effectively overriding external child protection systems without a documented investigative record to support the shift.
Pattern Six: Escalating Scope Without Corresponding Completion
In many private-pay cases, the GAL’s scope expanded repeatedly to include alienation, mental health, coercive control, or additional allegations raised mid-case. Expanded scope often justified further continuances, yet did not result in completed written findings. Investigations grew broader but never reached closure, leaving courts and families in procedural limbo.
Pattern Seven: Settlement After Prolonged Delay Without GAL Findings
A significant number of cases resolved by settlement rather than adjudication, often after years of GAL involvement and repeated continuances. Settlements frequently occurred without any written GAL report, after attorney withdrawal or financial exhaustion, and following long reliance on temporary orders shaped during delay. This pattern suggests resolution through attrition rather than completed investigation.
State-Pay Versus Private-Pay: A Structural Contrast
State-pay appointments showed defined investigative scope, timely written reporting, fewer continuances, and clear termination of GAL involvement. Private-pay cases showed open-ended involvement, repeated scope expansion, chronic delays, and high incidence of no report. This contrast points to structural incentives rather than individual conduct. Oversight and constraints appear to matter.
Synthesis
Across twenty-seven cases, the dominant issues were procedural rather than substantive.
- Delay without documentation
- Oral influence without written accountability
- Expanded scope without completion
- Custody changes preceding investigation
- Systemic reliance on GAL process in lieu of adjudication.
Taken together, the record reflects a system in which the GAL role becomes a central decision driver without corresponding transparency, particularly in private-pay cases involving abuse allegations. When investigation does not conclude, process itself becomes outcome.
Why This Matters
Guardian ad Litem systems exist to protect children. When procedural safeguards erode, children bear the cost. Extended instability, diluted abuse findings, and pressure-driven settlements shape lives. This analysis began because children’s safety is placed at risk, and abuse victims are repeatedly penalized within a process that was intended to alleviate trauma, not compound it.
This analysis is published in the public interest, and others impacted by Guardian ad Litem practices are encouraged to exercise their First Amendment rights to document and speak, using records, facts, and lived experience to inform public accountability when children’s safety and well-being are placed at risk and treated as negotiable.
~ Kim Morrigan, Author & Researcher