My impression is that the mother has received poor legal advice. One of the points argued by her lawyer in the bias hearing, which aimed to remove the Judge, is that the Judge communicated privately with the psychologist. Miller, her lawyer, knew that the communication was between the Judge's assistant and the psychologist to schedule an appointment, yet the lawyer implied that the Judge spoke directly to the psychologist.
I think it is impossible for the mother to make good decisions when her lawyer is involved in creating confusion over the ethics of the Judge. Miller, her lawyer, should have assured her client that psychologists do attend custody hearings after interim reports have been prepared.
[52] Although not raised in the bias application itself, counsel for the mother argued at the bias hearing that a further reasonable apprehension of bias could be drawn from the fact that Dr. Froberg attended the December 15, 2020 case management meeting at my invitation. Counsel said that it took the parties by surprise that Dr. Froberg was present at that meeting. Counsel went on to state:
“It’s not uncommon in the psychological literature for experts to become aligned with one party or another, and it is increasingly problematic when that expert is engaged in private conversations with the Court. I understand Dr. Froberg was contacted by the Court via phone, was requested to attend to that appearance and none of that information was provided to the parties ahead of time. It raises the question to what extent those conversations and the extent to what conversation was had with Dr. Froberg prior to that December 15th Court appearance.”
[53] In reply, counsel for the father, Ms. Pritchett, advised the Court that Ms. Miller had communicated with Dr. Froberg about my alleged communications with the expert and had been advised that the only contact was with my judicial assistant who asked her to appear.
[54] I asked Ms. Miller to confirm Ms. Pritchett’s comment, i.e. that
she knew that the communications were only between my judicial assistant and Dr. Froberg. Ms. Miller replied to say “there was a telephone call followed by an email. I don’t have the contents of the telephone call.” I asked her to again confirm her understanding that the communications were just between my judicial assistant and Dr. Froberg to join the case management conference dealing with parenting. Ms. Miller responded: “Yes, my Lady, I appreciate that would have been on direction from the court.”
https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2021/2021abqb80/2021abqb80.html