> Naively, before the divorce proceedings play out, I would expect the fathers to on average have access to more money and be more able to afford the expensive

> Naively, before the divorce proceedings play out, I would expect the fathers to on average have access to more money and be more able to afford the expensive corrupt lawyers. Perhaps child support/alimony money is expected to be higher than what the father would be willing to pay without a court order. > If the judges are always ruling in favor of lawyers that donate more to them, how are mothers always winning? Are they just that much better at choosing the lawyers that donated correctly? Marketing seems an obvious answer here. The lawyers that donate more to judges know that they will gain more from the winning mothers (or rather, their ex-husbands) so they market their services more aggressively/exclusively to women. > How is the biggest affect of judges corruptly ruling in favor of attorneys that contributed to their campaigns that default custody tends to go 100% to moms? Sticking with the corruption theme, there could be additional hoops that fathers are required to jump through which mothers simply aren't. Mothers could additionally be given extra leniency for mistakes where any mistake by the father is likely to render default custody. (Not that I have any evidence that these things occur, just that they seem to be plausible explanations.)