Child custody is always a difficult issue for parents. It’s emotionally charged, the legalities of it all can be confusing, and often you have conflicting feelings as you try to think about the issue from the perspective of what’s best for your child and the perspective of what’s best for you. A child custody attorney in San Diego can do a lot to smooth the road for you, and here are some questions you should be sure to ask.
What Questions Should You Ask a Child Custody Attorney in San Diego?
What Laws and Precedents Will Be Relevant to My Case?
The overarching rule when it comes to child custody in the state of California is that the child’s best interests always trump all other considerations. Although the court will take many things into consideration, ultimately, it must weigh those other things more lightly than what’s best for the child, or consider them only in light of that primary concern.
Despite this, there can be nuance to the situation and areas where precedents set by the courts in previous cases could influence what happens in your case. The courts are also willing to work with you to a degree, as long as you can explain why your needs can be provided for a while also doing what’s best for your child. But the best way to convince the court of this is by having an experienced attorney on your side making the case for you.
It’s absolutely essential that you be completely honest with your attorney and talk through everything. Once your attorney knows your needs and priorities, they can help you craft a parenting plan that is likely to be acceptable to the court and which works for you. Your attorney can also help you understand how the courts are going to view the rights of the other parent and help you balance all the various goals and requirements involved as you make a parenting plan.
What Kinds of Things Will the Court Feel Are In the “Best Interests” of My Child?
The court tries to take a balanced look at your child’s whole life to determine what kind of parenting arrangement will be best for their physical needs as well as their emotional stability and growth as a person. Although the preferences of the child do matter, they are not a primary consideration. The older the child is, and the better able they are to express themselves and give mature reasons for their preference, the more weight their preference will have with the court. But ultimately, the court is going try to determine what will be best for the child’s overall thriving.
In most cases, the courts assume that it is best for the child to keep having a relationship with both parents. In most cases, the court also assumes that it’s best for the parents to come up with a plan together, if at all possible, so that the family itself is making the decisions. Talking with the lawyer will help you understand how the court is likely to view the various issues in your family.
What Factors Will Matter Most In Determining Custody?
The court has freedom to look at a vast array of factors, but in most cases, the key factors are going to be the stability of the home environment provided by each of the parents; the parenting skill (or lack thereof) shown by each parent; how involved the parents are in the child’s life; any history of abuse or neglect; the general health of the parents, mental and physical, if that would affect their ability to parent; and an array of practical considerations, such as which parents’ home is closest to the child’s school or which parent can provide a richer home life with extended relatives, for example.
The court will interview both parents, and usually the child, as well. They’ll want to see the child interacting with each parent, talk with other important adults in the life of the child, such as grandparents or educators, and may order different types of evaluations by professionals. Your lawyer can help you understand what factors are going to weigh for you, and which might weigh against you, and how to maximize the first and minimize the second.
How Do I File for Custody and How Long Will It Take?
One of the importance duties of your child custody attorney in San Diego is to guide you through the San Diego courts and all their procedures. Your lawyer will know exactly where you need to file, what paperwork you’ll need to provide along with your filing, and how to ask for a modification to the custody agreement (if there’s already one in place).
If you are a father who was not married to the child’s mother at the time of birth, you may need to establish paternity before you can file for custody. This can be simple if the mother is cooperative and agrees that you are the father; it can be a bit more time-consuming if there are questions over paternity or if the mother refuses to cooperate. Overall, if everything goes smoothly, and you’re basically on the same page, you can get it done in a few weeks to a month or two. If there is a lot of contention about the situation, it could easily take 18 months to two years or more to get things worked out. Your lawyer will be able to give you a much better estimate on the timeframe based on the details of your case.
How Does Custody Affect Support Payments?
The point of child support is not to give money to the other parent, but to give money to the child. The court’s goal will be to ensure the child has everything they need to thrive, and, if possible, to allow the child to live a similar lifestyle to that which they enjoyed before their parents broke up.
If one parent has the child most of the time, then the other parent is likely to have to pay child support. But even if the parents enjoy almost 50-50 custody, if one parent makes significantly more money than the other, the court may still order a certain amount of child support. The goal is to ensure that the child has the same lifestyle no matter which parent they’re living with.
How Will Visitation Be Determined if I Get Primary Custody?
When one parent has sole custody, the other parent is almost always awarded visitation, except in rare cases where it can be shown that the other parent is too dangerous to be allowed access to the child. If you and the other parent can come to an agreement, this will usually be accepted by the court if it’s reasonable and in the child’s best interest.
If you can’t, some of the common custody arrangements that are popular in California include visitation every weekend; arrangements where the noncustodial parent has the child every third week; visitation on alternating weekends; or assigning either the first, third, and fifth or the second, fourth, and fifth weekends to the noncustodial parent.
For help with your custody issues, contact the Law Office of Kevin Lemieux in San Diego right away for a free consultation.
