Streamlining Family Law Cases
Alcohol monitoring plays a pivotal role in many Family Law cases – it supports accountability, promotes child safety, and simplifies litigation. However, for alcohol monitoring systems to be effective and useful in court or mediation, they must also comprise of a thorough, yet easy-to-digest, reporting system. Even the most precise alcohol testing results are of little value if it is difficult to understand and analyze them. With roughly a decade of experience in the industry, Soberlink understands the need for streamlined alcohol monitoring and reporting, especially during custody and alcohol cases where parental time is at stake. The following seeks to provide a brief history of alcohol monitoring reports, exploring the various benefits of Soberlink’s Advanced Reporting™ system in Family Law practice, and how it supports those involved in child custody cases involving alcohol.
The History of Alcohol Monitoring Reporting
While advancements in technology have been occurring for decades, improvements in the alcohol monitoring industry have only just recently begun to erupt. Alcohol monitoring reports, which document a person’s recovery from alcohol abuse, are amongst one of the areas experiencing evolution.
History of Alcohol Monitoring
In 2008, alcohol monitoring looked a little different than it does today. The monitoring process was labor-intensive, expensive, and landline based. It required a call center agent to manually review the test process in real-time via landline. Today, remote alcohol monitoring has become much more streamlined and convenient. Soberlink, often referred to as the ‘gold standard’ for alcohol monitoring in Family Law, now includes features such as real-time results, facial recognition, and tamper detection. These features allow for reliable and accurate results while automating the documentation process, making the alcohol monitoring fast and easy for both clients and attorneys alike.
History of Alcohol Monitoring Reports
Although Soberlink had changed the game in alcohol monitoring, it was not until 2019 that alcohol monitoring reports would follow suit. Alcohol Monitoring reports from Soberlink, and all other alcohol monitoring options were difficult to comprehend.
Some came emailed in multiple different PDF files.
Others came with all results on a list that was very hard to understand.
In the past, Soberlink’s reports came as a multiple-page document of test results followed by a series of complex data.
With thousands of clients taking multiple tests a day, and with the test data being compiled in this way, the reports were overwhelming and challenging to interpret. Soberlink saw the growing need for something more innovative and efficient—enter Advanced Reporting.
Soberlink Advanced Reporting™
Committed to changing the narrative, Soberlink launched Advanced Reporting in January 2019, solidifying their role as leaders in the alcohol monitoring industry. A breakthrough invention, Soberlink Advanced Reporting™, has revolutionized the monitoring industry by promoting swift, efficient litigation with an array of cutting-edge features. Using intuitive smart technology, Advanced Reporting compiles and outlines test results during the entire duration of ordered or agreed upon alcohol monitoring. Easy-to-read, single-page test results coupled with automated reports, makes Soberlink Advanced Reporting™ “the world’s smartest and easiest-to-read reporting system.”
Designed with ease and legibility in mind, Soberlink Advanced Reporting™ offers an abundance of unique features for simplified analysis of test results. First, the program automatically catalogs and showcases test results in an easily digestible calendar format, a departure from the previous nebulous configuration and design. On any given day, Family Law professionals can quickly see if a test was Compliant, Missed, or Non-Compliant, as the program automatically summarizes daily submissions. Outlining results on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis using universally understood red (non-compliant), yellow (missed), and green (compliant) icons, Advanced Reporting provides an all-encompassing snapshot of the client’s sobriety journey. Supplied with this new tool, Family Law professionals now can instantly sift through hundreds of test results to uncover meaningful insights faster than ever before.
Benefits of Soberlink Advanced Reporting™
While Advanced Reporting has had a positive impact on Family Law. For many, child custody cases involving alcohol abuse are emotionally charged. While hear-say is common in family court, the outcome always hinges on what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Regardless of whatever social media posts, witness testimony, or behavioral proof someone has in their arsenal, none of these aspects reflect conviction in litigation. This can make it hard for both sides of a child custody case to prove or disprove sobriety. Advanced Reporting provides factual data to judges in a simple format so that they may determine the extent of a parent’s alcohol abuse before making adjustments to custody.
Benefits for Family Law Clients
Before Advanced Reporting, legally recognized proof was delayed, confusing, and hard to obtain. Now, both parties are equipped with court-admissible documentation to present in court, highlighting alcohol abuse or continued sobriety in a streamlined format. Thanks to Advanced Reporting, both parties can review and present results during specific time frames at their convenience. If alcohol monitoring is only required during parenting time, clients can easily single out which days they need to focus on. Yellow and red dots in a particular calendar day indicate missed tests or alcohol use, while green dots indicate compliant behavior. Never has it been this easy to determine if a parent is or is not drinking. Additionally, Advanced Reporting has also streamlined the notification process for alcohol breath test results. The same, simple red, yellow, and green dots are used in the design of the real-time notifications, creating a better user experience.
With Soberlink being an accountability and recovery tool first and foremost, Monitored Clients must be able to see their achievements in a clear format. This visual representation can benefit clients by highlighting areas of improvement. Soberlink’s simple color method allows for parents to focus on their children, instead of being overwhelmed by complex testing data to present in court. In conjunction with supporting accountability, Advanced Reporting also promotes client motivation. Seeing test times and results condensed on a single page can be motivating if they are looking at a sea of green.
Benefits for Family Law Attorneys
Advanced Reporting also benefits Family Law professionals. In the past, legal counsel had to analyze hundreds of tests only to interpret one month of data. It was time consuming, inefficient, and repetitive. Today, professionals can look at an entire month of data in a single glance. Having evidence automatically compiled allows attorneys to spend more time working with their clients and less time sifting through and cataloging data. Family Law attorneys can choose to receive test results daily, weekly, or monthly, and can download full-detail reports at any time. This eliminates the process of always having to request reports and allows attorneys to present data from specific timeframes as needed from the court. Through providing concise results and reports, a client’s legal team can immediately intercept if they deem the client is in jeopardy of losing parenting privileges.
Soberlink Advanced Reporting™ in Family Law
To comprehend the full scope Advanced Reporting has had on Family Law, we must first look back on what sparked the industry change. As telehealth and telecommunication technology grew in popularity as different forms of client monitoring, Family Law began capitalizing on this new digital opportunity. According to the American Bar Association, attorneys began to launch “virtual offices,” which challenged lawyers to begin to think differently about how they could best manage their business. As the ABA goes on to note, lawyers are now equipped with various tools helping integrate technology into their practice. Today, it is common to see law professionals using cloud-based technology to operate their respective firms. This new technology allows professionals to communicate and work with their clients in a much more convenient, efficient, and inventive way, much like that of Advanced Reporting.
Aside from wanting to be a part of a growing professional digital dynamic, law professionals are also mindful of their client’s desires for connectivity and convenience. With many Millennials becoming parents and raising children, law professionals are now more encouraged than ever to include the use of smart technology in their practice. Linking alcohol monitoring with state-of-the-art technology, Soberlink with Advanced Reporting is a modern way for Millennial parents to present evidence regarding sobriety in their child custody cases.
Soberlink Advanced Reporting™ Supports Best Interest of the Child Principle
Family Law cases where alcohol abuse is involved, are often plagued by ‘he-said-she-said’ arguments. Constant back-and-forth can intensify feelings of frustration and turmoil between parents, which can put unnecessary stress on children. For law professionals, their goal is to minimize conflict, and one way they can do this is by implementing Advanced Reporting into their practice. Soberlink’s Advanced Reporting™ continues to gain momentum because it advocates for child safety during parenting time by providing concise results and alerts that allow for immediate action, if necessary. If a parent has a drinking event, the report will detail it and provide an update to all listed parties. In the past, children were often placed in the middle of their parent’s arguments, expected to side with one parent, or accuse the other. Today, Advanced Reporting takes the guesswork out of co-parenting, instead allowing for court-admissible documentation that clearly details whether a parent is drinking during parenting time or not. With Family Law case evaluations always being in the best interest of the child, it is evident why Soberlink’s Advanced Reporting™ has grown in popularity.
Advocacy
Admissibility Paper
To make sound decisions, law professionals, specifically judges, must utilize all tools available to them to distinguish what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court. Advanced Reporting benefits judges by providing them with court-admissible documentation< detailing a parent’s sobriety so they can adequately determine a custodial agreement involving alcohol. The admissibly of Soberlink has been discussed by retired judges of the Justice Speakers Institute.
Case Study
In a recent case study with Texas-based, Family Law Firm, KoonsFuller, Attorney Sherry Evans shares her support for Soberlink and the ease of Advanced Reporting. Evans echoes the importance for clients on both sides of the case to be able to provide evidence when alcohol is involved in child custody. “As a lawyer, I need to know if my client is drinking. I need evidence for when one side is saying, ‘drunk, drunk, drunk’ and the other side is saying ‘no, no, no.’” Understanding that the court will always ere on the side of the child, Evans is focused on implementing sound solutions that provide evidence that stands up in court. Evans and her team are also committed to staying up to date on new technological advancements in Family Law so that they can best meet their client’s wishes. Soberlink Advanced Reporting™ satisfies both of these needs. Utilizing its automatically summarized test results, clearly displaying one of three outcomes: Compliant, Missed, Non-compliant, Evans and the entire KoonsFuller team are better equipped to dispute whether a drinking event took place or not. A feature like Advanced Reporting enables parents to “take the ammunition away from the other party and address the accusations being made against them.”
Success Story
Advanced Reporting’s benefits are vast, but the main advantage is the peace of mind it provides families. For one client who was struggling to maintain sobriety, she found Advanced Reporting offered the documentation necessary to support her accountability during her recovery journey. A mother to two children, the client tested four times a day, which could’ve caused a congested calendar view. With Advanced Reporting’s easy to read, color-coded reports, the client and her family were able to review her test submissions, providing them with instant reassurance and strengthening their support. “I was able to keep my children in my life because of Soberlink. Without Soberlink Advanced Reporting™, I do not feel that the courts would have allowed that to happen.” She goes on to mention how “When you have nothing to hide, you hide nothing.” Advanced Reporting compliments this ideation. Being able to provide one’s family with documented results, highlighting successes, goes hand-in-hand with a sustained recovery.
With Advanced Reporting, Soberlink is now the most intelligent alcohol monitoring system on the market. Delivering simple, easy-to-read reports, Advanced Reporting streamlines the entire reporting process, for faster litigation and helps ensure child safety. What was once a laborious affair, Soberlink Advanced Reporting™ has helped change the scope of Family Law legal proceedings with its innovative and efficient system. Equipping law professionals with factual data to present in court, Advanced Reporting was designed with the best interests of the child in mind. No longer are children placed in the middle of tumultuous, ‘he-said-she-said’ arguments, and are instead granted the opportunity to spend quality, uninterrupted time with both parents with the help of Soberlink. Implementing this tool in relevant Family Law cases has helped to keep countless children with their parents during divorce and intends to continue this mission for years to come. Whether a law professional, Monitored Client, or Concerned Party, Soberlink Advanced Reporting™ can benefit you. To learn more about the Soberlink system, visit soberlink.com/divorce/family-law.
About the Author
Soberlink supports accountability for sobriety through a comprehensive alcohol monitoring system. Combining a breathalyzer with wireless connectivity, the portable design and technology includes facial recognition, tamper detection and real-time reporting. Soberlink proves sobriety with reliability to foster trust and peace of mind.