On January 20, 2026, in one of his final acts before leaving office, Governor Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill S4510/Assembly Bill A5761 into law as P.L. 2025, Chapter 316. The legislation — officially “An Act concerning child custody, amending R.S.9:2-4, and supplementing Title 45 of the Revised Statutes” — took effect immediately upon signing, and it represents one of the significant changes to New Jersey’s custody statute in decades.
For families currently navigating a custody dispute, and for the attorneys who represent them, this is not a minor procedural update. It changes the analytical starting point for every contested custody case in the state, however, eight months into the inaction of the change, most practitioners and judges are still trying to navigate exactly how it should and does impact their individual cases.
Safety First
Under the prior version of N.J.S.A. 9:2-4, judges weighed a list of statutory factors together — the parents’ ability to communicate, the stability of each home, the child’s needs, and, among many other considerations, any history of domestic violence or abuse. Safety was in the mix, but it was one factor competing with the rest, including the statute’s long-standing emphasis on ensuring “frequent and continuing contact” between a child and both parents.
The amended statute changes that structure. Child safety is now treated as a threshold inquiry — meaning courts are directed to identify and address domestic violence, abuse, or credible safety risks before weighing the remaining best-interests factors, rather than balancing safety concerns against a parent’s interest in equal or frequent parenting time. The amendments also eliminate the statute’s prior “frequent and continuing contact” presumption altogether. Importantly, the statute refers not just to physical, but also emotional safety – which can be a highly subjective path of inquisition. For most experienced family law attorneys it is easy to see how such a subjective analysis can be used both positively, to ensure that children have better outcomes and protections in undesirable circumstances, and also weaponized in high conflict cases to be used by parents to make accusations based on different parenting styles that a child’s emotional safety is at risk.
This shift did not happen in a vacuum. It aligns New Jersey with **Kayden’s Law**, the federal custody-safety framework enacted as part of the 2022 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which incentivizes states to reform custody practices that have historically placed children with abusive parents in the name of preserving contact with both sides of the family. This is a valuable and valid goal, but given the complexities of family law, the legislature may have created as many problems as they solved in attempting to legislate a methodology to approach this goal that is just vague enough to be problematic and just specific enough to be even more problematic.
Reunification Therapy Gets New Restrictions and Children’s Voices Become More Centralized – Appropriate or Not
One of the most consequential — and most closely watched — pieces of the new law concerns reunification therapy: family therapy aimed at restoring a relationship between a child and an estranged parent. The amended statute restricts a court’s authority to order this kind of treatment, particularly in cases touching on abuse or domestic violence allegations. This has been a flashpoint in custody litigation nationally, where critics have argued that court-ordered reunification programs were, in some cases, used in ways that disregarded a child’s own reported fears or a documented history of harm. In South Jersey, reunification therapy has historically been often ordered but is difficult to obtain as a service because of the limited number of trained reunification therapists in the area and the expense associated with them. More likely ordered in recent years is family therapy with the goal of healing the relationship.
Specifically the statute says:
“g. (1) The court shall not order any therapy unless there is generally accepted and scientifically valid proof of the safety, effectiveness, and therapeutic value of the therapy. The court shall require a showing of good cause that therapy is appropriate prior to ordering such therapy. No treatment program intended to reunite a child with a party from whom that child is estranged and to whom that child resists or refuses contact shall be ordered by the court without the consent of both parties, and upon a determination that the child is of sufficient age. In determining good cause for ordering therapy, the court shall consider, but shall not be limited to, the following factors:
(a) the claimed reasons, extent, and duration of separation from the perspective of each parent and the child, if the court determines the child to be of sufficient age, capacity, and maturity to express the child’s reasons. A child deemed to be of sufficient age and expressing a desire to speak to the court shall be granted an audience off the record and in private chambers. The record of the conversation shall be sealed. The child may also include letters from a treating State-licensed mental health professional to support the child’s capacity and maturity to express the child’s reasons;
(b) the child’s age, capacity, and maturity level, including whether the child has special needs and whether those special needs affect the child’s capacity and maturity level;
(c) the willingness of each parent and the child, if the court determines the child to be of sufficient age, capacity, and maturity to express a preference, to engage in scientifically valid therapy;
(d) any conduct claimed by one parent against the other parent that weighs in favor of or against the implementation of any scientifically valid therapy;
(e) in compliance with the privacy provisions of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Pub.L.104-191 (HIPAA), a summary of the history of therapy in which the child was involved, including, but not limited to, individual or family therapy and any prior interventions or other efforts that were implemented and the results thereof;
(f) any history of domestic violence or child abuse, including sexual abuse, emotional or mental abuse, or evidence that either parent harmed or placed the child’s health, safety, or welfare at substantial risk of harm; and
(g) any other relevant factor.”
This is a significantly complex analysis to serve as a block to a lot of useful therapies and to create for parties a need for much more extensive proofs before a judge to get therapy instituted, meaning greater cost and time considerations in receiving any orders for therapy. Further, in disallowing the ordering of therapy for reunification purposes without the consent of both parties allows alienating parents to withhold opportunities to resolve parent-child conflicts with the other parent, even if that’s in the best interest of the child.
Also problematic is the requirement that judges interview children who are of sufficient age and want to be heard. Although, frankly, this lawyer has always believed children should have far more voice in the proceedings that affect them – this should be a process guided by a judge’s decision based on the circumstances, not prescribed in all cases even if that might be a situation where a child is stuck in the middle of two warring parents and this process may add to their trauma. Further, children’s voices may not be best heard by a judicial interview. Sometimes it is better to obtain the data from a Guardian ad Litem, from reporting from their therapist’s records when available, or -expensively but perhaps ideally- a court appointed attorney for the child’s interests. In contested guardianship cases of adults, as a matter of routine an attorney is court appointed in every case to represent the allegedly incapacitated adult. Why do we not do the same for children in contested custody cases? Their rights are fundamentally affected by the decisions made by judges in custody matters and yet they remain unrepresented. This could potentially be a more expensive process, but if we’re removing so many opportunities for children to have access to therapy and their parents, and we are considering their voice a priority, the Legislature should put their money where their mouth is and provide these children with attorneys.
Mental Health Professionals Face Higher Standards
The portion of the act supplementing Title 45 — the title governing professions and occupations — raises the bar for who can weigh in on a custody case. Evaluators must be state-licensed, and in cases involving allegations of domestic violence or abuse, the professional offering findings or recommendations must have specific training and experience in those areas. Courts are also now required to consider the findings and recommendations of any licensed mental health professional already providing private therapy or services to the child, not just a court-appointed evaluator. The question is – how are they going to get these findings and recommendations given that many private therapists are unwilling or prohibited from participating in any court hearing by their employers or their insurers? The Legislature has made multiple demands in this statute that are almost impossible to fulfill in real world experience.
What This Means for Pending and Future Cases
The law applies to both pending and future custody matters, and it took effect the day it was signed. Existing custody orders are not automatically reopened or modified — but the amendments will shape how new motions, trials, and evaluations are handled going forward. Because retroactivity questions like this often generate appellate litigation, we expect further guidance from the courts on exactly how the amended statute interacts with orders that predate January 20, 2026 particularly as many have come forward to re-litigate thinking that this new statute gives them a second bite at the apple with new statutory guidelines. However, in order to be reheard on custodial issues, the change of circumstances standard remains in effect so not every case is going to be instantly relitigated because of the new statute.
The Bottom Line
New Jersey’s custody statute has not been discarded — the best-interests-of-the-child standard remains the governing framework. But the 2026 amendments reweight that framework in a meaningful way: safety comes first, a child’s own voice carries more formal weight, reunification therapy is harder to order, and judges must show their reasoning in detail. Parents currently in litigation, or considering filing, should talk with their attorney about how these changes affect their specific case, particularly if safety concerns, a child’s stated preferences, or reunification therapy are already part of the picture.
If you need to have your case reviewed, call for a free consult 856-227-7888. The OPINIONS in this article are that of Lynda Hinkle, Esquire alone.