I lost custody of my kids over a year ago. The judge use to be an attorney and my ex-brother-in-law was her client at one time. Is there a l...

Question

I lost custody of my kids over a year ago. The judge use to be an attorney and my ex-brother-in-law was her client at one time. Is there a law that could have stopped the judge from taking the case or can I still do anything about it? Please help me understand the law

Answer

I gather by the fact that you posted here instead of asking your lawyer that you made the one catastrophic mistake guaranteed to make a custody battle go badly - do it without a lawyer. Big mistake (and that is likely what went wrong).

As a general rule, representing an ex-brother-in-law is far too remote a connection to support recusal, but it's fact dependent, and your lawyer would have raised it at the time if it mattered (you can't wait a year and raise it).