Articles Posted in Custody and Visitation

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If you are a parent who is anxious about the child custody process in California, you are in good company. These feelings are perfectly normal. After all, the decisions on custody and visitation are so crucial and most parents know so little about the process. I thought I would explain the process in a general sense so parents have a better idea of what to expect. This post will explain the process from the filing of the Petition until the time the Court makes its first orders. The process from that point forward until trial will be explained in a subsequent post.

Keep in mind that parents can agree to a custody and visitation arrangement and the Court will almost always rubberstamp it.  This post is mostly about cases where the parents can’t agree.

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There are some orders that we feel are underutilized by Judges in Custody cases. One of the reasons we list them here is because the judges in this county tend to not have egos: if you ask them to adjust an order they just made and they like the suggestion, they won’t have any qualms about doing so. So if a judge in your case doesn’t make an order listed here, feel free to tell them why they should!

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California has one of the most complicated child support laws of any state. Sometimes, the complications don’t end once you have an order: a parent sometimes has to deal with the other parent not paying the Court ordered child support. Here are 5 helpful tips Continue reading

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Coldplay singer Chris Martin opened up in an interview published in The Sunday Times on March 20th about his 2014 spilt with Gwyneth Paltrow. He described his divorce from Paltrow as a “weird one,” their split having been referred to as a “conscious uncoupling” rather than a “divorce,” where they remain close and continue to take vacations together with their two children. But even as smooth as their split has seemed, Martin admits that it led to a year-long depression, and he continues to struggle daily.

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At a recent continuing education seminar for San Diego family law attorneys, a family court judge was asked what, if anything, the court tries to do to minimize the harmful impacts of divorce on children. The judge responded that she often refers families in her courtroom to a program called Kids’ Turn San Diego, and that she has found the program to be very beneficial for children whose parents are going through a divorce. I began to do some research on the program out of my own curiosity, and I’ve decided to share a bit about the program in case any of our readers with children are also interested in knowing more about what they can do to help their child cope with divorce or separation.

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Let’s be honest shall we? I am a custody attorney, and there is only one kind of custody case that I take to trial; the high conflict custody case. (Okay…To be fair I take other custody cases to trial that are not “high conflict”, but those are generally move away cases that almost always require a trial.)

But just as a robbery detective does not do his job because he loves theft, as a custody lawyer I do not do my job because I love high conflict cases. Quite the opposite is true. My favorite case is the “low conflict” custody case. The problem is those cases do not get talked about.

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Last week, we wrote a post with some tips about child custody and international travel. This week, we will look a little more closely at the provisions in the Family Code that help the Court prevent international child abductions. Although the relevant provisions apply to domestic as well as international child abductions, we will be focusing on the international aspects in this post. While domestic child abduction is still a concern worth writing about, it is much more difficult to undo the harmful effects of an international abduction.

Before a Court can make orders intended to prevent the risk of abduction, the Court first must find that there is such a risk.

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Divorce isn’t easy. People get angry or hurt, and emotions can cloud even the most intelligent person’s judgment. We’ve already written many blogs about the need to “play nice” in divorce proceedings, and the benefits of positive co-parenting, but one star’s recent divorce has hit our radar as a real-life example of the positive behavior that we have been tirelessly preaching.

Actress Hilary Duff and former NHL player Mike Comrie’s divorce was finalized in January 2016, after their separation a year earlier. Continue reading

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This blog is a follow up to a previous blog titled “Should I go to Trial.” If you have not read that blog it is worth reading, and not just because I wrote. There are many factors you should discuss with your attorney before you go to trial. The two main factors are the amount of time required to go to trial and the cost of doing so. Each of these is unique in every case so my earlier blog does not go into them. Before you ever set a trial date it is imperative you discuss this with your attorney.

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On March 7, 2016, the United States Supreme Court unanimously and summarily reversed the Alabama Supreme Court on a same-sex adoption issue.
In the case, V.L. v. E.L., the parties were two women who were in a relationship from approximately 1995 until 2011. In 2002, E.L. gave birth to a child and in 2004, gave birth to twins. After the children were born, the parties raised them together as joint parents. All three children were adopted pursuant to a final decree of adoption from a superior court in Georgia. E.L. consented to V.L.’s adoption as a second parent and recognized both of the parties as the legal parents of the children. Continue reading

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