There is no one size fits all advice, however there appears to be a pattern in which lawyers, psychologists, and judges behave and rule when it comes to high conflict family cases that involve abuse.
If you are in a battle with an abuser, and if it involves manipulation, deception, gas-lighting in family court where you are portrayed as the abuser [through false allegations] and the abuser as a victim, and if you find that the system [lawyers, judges, psychologists] fall for it, we believe the following to be the best advice.
Context
Situations described above involve people with dark personalities. We use a term Narcissistic Paradigm to describe the lens through which they see the world. It is not the scope of this article to describe the reasons, motives, or behaviors of this paradigm, however there are patterns that show that this paradigm is recreating trauma [through abuse]. It is again not within the scope of this article to describe the purpose of the trauma, but it [the abuse] serves something else that the paradigm is after. If you encounter people with this paradigm and it includes parents or professionals such as lawyers, psychologists, or judges, you are most likely dealing with a Narcissistic Pyramid. They will enable each other and feed off YOU to get their narcissistic supply which in one form or another is your suffering and distress. They share persecutory delusion, and the target is YOU.
Advice #1:
Do NOT show distress in any form or that you are suffering.Do NOT be defensive. Do NOT show fear, especially for your children. Do not show it physically, or in any form in communication whether a text message to an abuser, email to a lawyer, or pleading to a judge. They will pick up on it and feed off it. That is what they are after. Everything else is secondary. They will enable each other to get more. And if they need to use your children to get it, they will. Do NOT give it to them and they will move on as they NEED it. Read the Codependent Paradigm article.
Advice #2:
It's not about justice, it is about PRETENSE of justice.
The Narcissistic Paradigm always hides. It MUST show itself as good on the surface. But it is very malevolent underneath. Exposing it is very dangerous for the paradigm and it will fight back. So, if you have hard proof of abuse and the case law clearly shows what the ruling should be, do it. But always do it in a way described in Advice #1. If you do not have a direct proof, then don't do it, because it will backfire. And if it does, contain the damage with Advice #1. Always!
Deeper explanation
Individual / Parent Level
The abuser is very efficient in masking the abuse and portraying you as the abuser. If you are reading this, you are most likely very familiar with this. It reverses the roles and that's how the paradigm hides. Most victims of such are shocked that nobody in the system can see it [or pretends it doesn't exist].
Court [Judge] Level
There is so much discretion in interpretation of witnesses or evidence that the Judge will rule so that there is appearance of justice. What's the truth and underneath does not matter. The system does exactly the same thing that the parent-abuser does.
Judicial Oversight Offices
If you ever tried to report a lawyer or a court to an oversight office, you will encounter the same thing. Pretense of justice on the surface, yet enabling of abuse underneath.
The behavior of the paradigm is the same on all levels. We call it the Narcissistic Pyramid. They feed off each other, they need each other, and they need its narcissistic supply. Once you are identified as such, and the parent abuser will identify you as such very quickly, you WILL become the source of their narcissistic supply. Do NOT give it to them. Your and your children's life depend on it.
Yes, there is a systemic gender bias in the legal system [or the society in general] but the above overrides any such bias. Women get abused through physical, sexual, emotional violence, or false allegations, and men get abused through mostly emotional violence and false allegations. This is not gender issue, this is a Narcissist issue.
We MUST UNITE to fight this common enemy. We Have Had Enough of the abuse.