In January 2011, when Pennsylvania’s child custody laws were rewritten, the provision in the new Child Custody Act requiring the trial courts to state the reasons for their decisions either on the record in open court, in a written opinion, or in the order was welcomed with open arms as it was believed that it would provide more transparency for the litigants and enable them to better understand the reasoning behind the decisions. The mystique of a decision can lead to more disgruntled litigants and more appeals. Knowing why the court made a decision can go a long way in helping a litigant cope with a decision of a trial court in child custody litigation.

In child custody cases, it is not uncommon for a custody order to be orally delivered by the judge in open court. This appears to be even more common in recent years, since revisions to the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Superior Court cases that have been decided after the enactment of the custody statute in 2011 reiterate that custody decisions should be delivered swiftly. Similarly, if an agreement between parties is reached on the day of a trial at court, it is not uncommon for the agreed order to be read into the record in open court. When the order is either delivered orally by the court or read into the record, the transcript becomes the actual custody order. The problem with the method of the order being read into the record is that the “order” can end up being many pages long and hard to follow. To complicate things, some attorneys and parties interrupt while either the court or other attorney reads the order into the record, which makes the transcript/order that much harder to follow.

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