Books by Dr. Wittmann
Evaluating Evaluations: An Attorney's Handbook for Analyzing Child Custody Reports, 2nd Ed (MatLaw, 2024)
Evaluating Evaluations: An Attorney's Handbook for Analyzing Child Custody Reports (Second Edition) can make all the difference for attorneys representing parents or children. While there are many worthy tomes on the market that discuss custody evaluations, what makes Dr. Jeffrey Wittmann’s Evaluating Evaluations unique is that it takes up where the others leave off! It provides a comprehensive and detailed step-by-step system that attorneys can apply to custody reports to discern both their strengths and weakness. Dr. Wittmann presents his Custody Assessment Analysis System-Revised (CAAS-R) in an easily understood and readily applied format that the attorney can put to work immediately in his or her practice. He essentially leads the reader through a process for parsing reports developed over his years of functioning as a trial consultant that is rooted in the forensic and clinical judgment literature and that provides detailed annotations for each of the model’s main components. When used side-by-side with the companion Custody Assessment Analysis System Workbook what was once a daunting venture into a morass of psycho-jargon becomes a clear roadmap to astute analysis and, ultimately, to persuasive courtroom presentation.
The second edition includes a significant refinement and update of the model first offered in the 2013 edition: Key professional guidelines for child custody evaluation have been revised since the first release -- this updated version annotates its components with these updated treatises so the attorney’s negotiations, direct or cross are made more persuasive. The original bias typology has been expanded. Attorneys under significant time constraints are also offered a “Short-Cut Analysis” process for rapid and incisive assessment of an evaluator’s reasoning about a case.
Although originally designed to assist attorneys, evaluators and experts conducting peer-reviews have also come to rely on the CAAS-R model in their professional work.
FOR ATTORNEYS: Comprehensive, efficient, and persuasive analysis of custody evaluations.
FOR EVALUATORS: An organized guide for improving evaluation technique and report-sturdiness.
FOR PEER-REVIEWERS: A structured model for conducting thorough, fair, and effective reviews.
Custody Assessment Analysis System Workbook-Revised (CAAS-R) by Dr. Jeffrey P. Wittmann is a companion tool for use with Evaluating Evaluations: An Attorney's Handbook for Analyzing Child Custody Reports (Second Edition). In a clear, concise, structured, and comprehensive manner the CAAS-R workbook offers a step-by-step sequence of tasks for the practicing attorney to complete while analyzing a forensic custody report. The CAAS-R workbook is a tool for recording answers to a series of interrogatories about forensic reports that will help the attorney gradually crystalize a thorough analysis of the forensic document, an analysis that can then form the basis for effective cross-examination or client guidance about case-strategy. Armed with a completed analysis via the CAAS-R workbook, advocates for parents or children will be in a better position to discern whether a report should be considered adequately reliable or fatally flawed, toward the end of providing effective, informed advocacy for their client.
Note: This workbook is designed to be used in concert with the main Evaluating Evaluations book (which contains the annotations to professional guidelines, research, and other treatises).
Although originally designed to assist attorneys, evaluators and experts conducting peer-reviews have also come to rely on the CAAS-R workbook in their professional work.
FOR ATTORNEYS: Comprehensive, efficient, and persuasive analysis of custody evaluations.
FOR EVALUATORS: An organized guide for improving evaluation technique and report-sturdiness.
FOR PEER-REVIEWERS: A structured model for conducting thorough, fair, and effective reviews.
From the back-cover of Custody Chaos, Personal Peace:
“How can your problems disappear if your ex won’t? How can you cultivate a civil relationship – for your child’s sake – with an ex who is disrespectful, irresponsible, or downright nasty? Here’s the answer. In this empowering, common-sense, and insightful guide for reclaiming your life, you’ll discover a roadmap for relating to a difficult ex while raising children from separate homes. You’ll also learn how to create inner peace in the midst of a relationship that often feels impossible. Above all, you’ll find enlightening ways for handling, adjusting to, and dealing with a spouse who refuses to give an inch.”
From Dr. Carl Schneider book review in Family Mediation News, Spring 2002:
“Wittmann offers a wonderful mix of encouragement and skill- specific advice that leaves the reader feeling clearer, more solid, more hopeful…. Initially, I also wondered if my enthusiasm was a product of knowing the author. I have found, however, that every professional who has followed my encouragement to read the book has come back wanting additional copies for clients. I am also recommending this book to my clients. I believe in bibliotherapy. Wise books help clients. For many years, I have faithfully given all my clients Isolina Ricci’s Mom’s House, Dad’s House. I still do. It, however, is for “normal” couples. I have increasingly felt the need for something different, something with more of an edge for my high conflict couples. Custody Chaos, Personal Peace is it.”
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