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Senate committee advances child custody bill after substantive debate on children's wishes and safeguards

New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee · May 29, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

The Senate Judiciary Committee released a custody-procedure bill sponsored by Senator Lagana after an extended debate about how and when a child's wishes should be considered, the role of mental-health professionals, and the risk of parental alienation; sponsors said the measure is a work in progress.

Senator Lagana presented a bill intended to adjust procedures in contested child-custody disputes to give greater weight to a child's stated preferences in certain reunification contexts and to formalize a role for a court-appointed mental-health professional. Supporters described the change as a limited, age-appropriate process…

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