Mental health professionals are often asked to help families who are also involved in custody litigation. That work can be meaningful, necessary, and clinically important — but it can also become complicated very quickly. Are you serving as a treating therapist? A reunification provider? A parent coach? A consultant? A collateral contact? An expert witness? An evaluator? And what happens when parents, attorneys, or the court begin asking you to do more than your role allows? In this practical 75-minute presentation, Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D., will help mental health professionals better understand the different roles they may be asked to occupy in custody cases — and why those distinctions matter. The workshop will examine the ethical, clinical, forensic, and legal boundaries that separate treatment from evaluation, consultation from testimony, advocacy from neutrality, and therapeutic support from custody decision-making. Participants will explore common problem areas for mental health professionals working with court-involved families, including requests for custody recommendations, parent pressure, attorney communications, subpoenas, records requests, releases, testimony, collateral contacts, reunification work, and situations where one or both parents attempt to recruit the therapist into the litigation. Dr. Garber will address how role confusion can harm children, damage therapeutic relationships, increase family conflict, mislead the court, and create professional risk for providers. This session will offer practical guidance for defining your role at the outset, setting clear expectations with parents and attorneys, documenting carefully, responding to legal requests, maintaining boundaries, and knowing when to say, “That is outside the scope of my role.” The goal is not to discourage mental health professionals from working with court-involved families. The goal is to help them do this work clearly, ethically, and safely — while preserving the integrity of the therapeutic process and keeping the children’s needs at the center.