Category Archives: Child Custody
Planning a Move? What Florida’s 50-Mile Relocation Rule Requires First
A job offer lands three states away, a new relationship pulls someone toward a different city, or family ties tug at a parent to come home. Ordinary reasons to move, except when a parenting plan is already in place. Does packing up really require a judge’s blessing first? Fifty Miles, Measured in a Straight… Read More »
How Florida’s Best Interest Factors Are Applied in Palm Beach County Custody Cases
“Best interests of the child.” It sounds warm and fuzzy, like something a fortune cookie might say. In practice, it is a legal standard with twenty separate ingredients, and a Palm Beach County judge is required to run through every single one before deciding your parenting plan. So what actually goes into this legal… Read More »
What Is a Parenting Coordinator and When Does a Florida Court Appoint One?
If you and your co-parent are constantly at odds over parenting decisions, you may have heard the term “parenting coordinator” come up. But what exactly does that mean, and could a Florida court appoint one in your case? Understanding this role can help you better navigate what is often one of the most stressful… Read More »
Beware of Summer Vacation Co-Parenting Conflicts
If you think it is a bummer to get home after a long day of work and spend the evening nagging your children to finish their school work, just wait until summer vacation, when you come home from work and find your kids sitting on the couch staring at their devices, as they have… Read More »
Family Law for Exes Who Were Never Married to Each Other
Some people say that love makes a family, but when love fades, and a couple breaks up, what is left of their family? From a legal perspective, it depends on whether they were ever legally married. The family courts see marriage as an economic partnership. Plenty of unmarried couples have an economic partnership and… Read More »
Making Up for Lost Time With Co-Parenting
The purpose of court-ordered parenting plans is to protect minor children’s right to a stable relationship with both parents and the role of parents, regardless of their relationship with their co-parent, to be involved in their children’s lives. Most parenting plans arise when the parents of a minor child get divorced; the court will… Read More »
Is Buying Duplicates of Children’s Personal Items the Secret to Peaceful Co-Parenting?
Anyone who has raised children remembers the constant scramble to find missing items. All the socks in your child’s sock drawer may be in perfect formation, but the one pair that landed outside the hamper and missed the most recent load of laundry is the only one your child is willing to wear today…. Read More »
In Co-Parenting, Continuity Is Better Than Perfection
The family courts base their decisions about parenting time on the children’s best interests, a criterion so context-specific that one cannot reduce it to a simple mathematical formula. It considers more than a dozen factors, but a major goal is to minimize disruption to the child’s routine. The parent that spent more time with… Read More »
Getting Your Children Back After You Achieve Sobriety Is More Complicated Than It Seems
If you are in a room with a sufficient number of people, the odds are that at least one of them is a recovering addict, and he or she measures time in terms of before and after sobriety. The day you stopped using drugs or drinking alcohol marks the separation point between the before… Read More »
Keeping Up With Legal Requirements When Your Life Is Falling Apart
In family law, almost nothing is forever. In the best-case scenario, a parenting plan remains in force until the child reaches adulthood; if the parenting plan pertains to more than one child, then it requires modification as each child reaches the age of majority. Modifying a parenting plan at some point between the divorce… Read More »