How to rate your custody evidence: strong, medium or weak

Every experienced family lawyer and judge has seen a parent overstate their evidence. The first time it's caught, everything else that parent says gets discounted, including the parts that were solid.

The protection is simple and slightly uncomfortable: rate your own evidence honestly, before anyone else does.

Strong

Independently verifiable. A third-party record. A dated document. A message with clear content and intact metadata.

The test: it doesn't rely on your account of events at all. A stranger could check it without needing to trust you.

Examples include school attendance or sign-in records, a phone provider's call history, receipts and bank statements, the full export of a message thread, and letters from professionals.

Medium

Supports you, but has a gap.

• A message that implies something without stating it
• A record that's consistent with your version but doesn't confirm it
• A witness who saw something, but who is close to you

Medium evidence is genuinely useful. It just can't stand on its own.

Weak

Rests mainly on your own recollection or interpretation, with nothing independent behind it.

Your memory of a conversation with no message to show for it. Your reading of a child's mood. Your belief about why something happened.

None of that is worthless. It's just weak as evidence, however true it may be.

Then use them differently

• Lead with strong. Build each point on the most independent material you have.
• Support with medium. Use it to add colour and context, but never carry a point on medium evidence alone.
• Be very careful with weak. Ask whether the point needs to be made at all, and if it does, present it plainly as your own account rather than dressing it up as more.

Why this matters so much

Including a point you can't back up, and having that exposed, costs you more than leaving the point out would have. Much more.

A reader who catches one overstatement starts reading everything else differently. A reader who sees you separate what you can prove from what you believe starts trusting your judgement, and that trust carries across to every other page.

Rate yourself too

Apply exactly the same scale to what you say about yourself, not just what you say about the other parent.

"I'm very involved in their schooling" is weak. "I attended 11 of the last 12 parent-teacher meetings, and the school's sign-in record confirms it" is strong. Same claim, different tier, and only one of them survives a sceptical reader.

A practical way to do it

Add one column to your evidence index, Strength, and fill it in as S, M or W for every item. Then, for every point you want to make, check what it actually rests on.

If a key point rests only on items marked W, you've found a gap. Better to find it now, while there's still time to look for something stronger, than to find it in a hearing room.

It's slower to assemble and less satisfying to write. It also survives contact with scrutiny, which is the only test that counts.

General information, not legal advice. Court process differs between countries and regions; check anything that matters to your case with a qualified lawyer where you live.