SODs are the most important thing for an appeal to be successful….. but I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice (NALNLA). Without them, the appellate court will have a difficult time determining the facts because there are usually so many many many things flung around in family law cases. If you don’t have an SOD, the appellate court will be looking for a legal error and presume the facts supporting the judge’s decisions were correct. The law is that the judge gets to do pretty much whatever he or she wants to under the vague, unconstitutional, “best interest of the child” standard of evidence (everything is admissible).