Leslie O. v. Superior Court

In Leslie O. v. Superior Court (2014) 231 Cal.App.4th 1191, where an appellate court issued a peremptory writ of mandate, commanding the trial court to issue an order granting mother's request to disqualify the custody evaluator and strike her evaluations. (Id. at p. 1213.) In Leslie O., after reviewing the totality of the circumstances, the court determined that the evaluator "stepped outside her role as evaluator to advocate against" mother and help father by, among other things, including information unfavorable to mother in her report, while ignoring information unfavorable to father, providing information to father and encouraging him to seek other counsel, and telling father, in effect, that she was on his side and asking him to keep her updated regarding his visitation problems. (Id. at pp. 1205, 1209-1212.) The circumstances here do not rise to the level of those presented in Leslie O. Moreover, in rendering its conclusion, the Leslie O. court "cautioned that an evaluator whose conduct in one or two respects appears similar to the evaluator's conduct here may not need to be removed. To hold otherwise and thus to endorse appellate micromanagement of every communication or act by the evaluator would make it impossible for evaluators to perform their very difficult and crucial functions." (Id. at p. 1212.)