Our Forensic Division offers evaluation services to courts; government agencies, such as Departments of Probation and Departments of Family and Children’s Services; law firms; and individual clients. Diagnostics, LLP professionals performing forensic evaluations are available to provide Expert Testimony when required for deposition or trial.
Neutral Forensic Evaluations | Custody/Visitation Evaluations | Parenting Fitness Evaluations | Adoptive Parent Evaluations | Adult Guardianship Evaluations | Competency Evaluations | Mental Status Examinations | Psychological and Neuropsychological Damage Determination Evaluations | Disability Determination Evaluations | Certificates of Merit
Neutral Forensic Evaluations:
These evaluations are typically referred by judges or law guardians interested in an evaluation free of influence as a function of the evaluator being hired by one party involved in a case. Referrals can involve custodial/visitation issues; parenting fitness; and many other types of forensic questions.
Custody/Visitation Evaluations:
These evaluations typically involve detailed assessments of parents and children involved in divorce and are aimed at providing recommendations around custodial care and/or visitation that are in the best interest of the children involved.
Parenting Fitness Evaluations:
These evaluations are aimed at determining an individual’s cognitive and emotional stability with specific attention to his or her capacity for parenting safely and effectively.
Adoptive Parent Evaluations:
These evaluations, required by certain countries of prospective adoptive parents, are aimed at determining prospective parents’ stability and capacity for safe and effective parenting.
Adult Guardianship Evaluations:
These evaluations are aimed at determining an individual’s need for adult guardianship as a result of mentall illness, developmental disability or age related cognitive or mental incapacity.
Competency Evaluations:
These forensic evaluations involve an assessment of a defendant’s ability to understand and rationally participate in a court process or trial.
Mental Status Examinations (Current and Time-of-Offense):
Often ordered concomittantly with Competency Evaluations, these evaluations comment on one’s state of mind at a given time. They typically involve a comprehensive retrospective assessment of a defendant’s mental state in the days, weeks and months prior to his or her commitment of a crime, as well as to his or her mental state at the time of the offense. Information is necessarily drawn from multiple sources.
Psychological and Neuropsychological Damage Determination Evaluations:
These evaluations are often requested in Personal Injury and Disability cases to ascertain that psychological, emotional or neuropsychological damage claims are founded and not a function of malingering.
Disability Determination Evaluations:
These evaluations determine the presence of developmental, cognitive or emotional disabilities and are used to assess one’s eligibility for benefits.
Certificates of Merit:
Diagnostics’ Forensic Division provides evaluations to ascertain the merit of legal claims that suggest damage to one’s psychological health and offers Certificates of Merit when such claims are substantiated. Examples include claims related to physical or sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and mental health related disability claims. Detailed Psychological Evaluations and/or Neuropsychological Evaluations with a focus on the area of impaired functioning are tailored to ascertain the veritability of the claim in question.