Approaching a Child Custody Case from the Perspective of a Divorce Lawyer

While there is not set procedure for how a divorce lawyer goes about evaluating a child custody case, it is inevitable that there will be certain common characteristics will emerge. A lot of what an attorney is does is to try to understand what the parent presents the facts as and then applies their experience and understanding of the law to try to figure out whether what that parent is asking for is reasonable.

The overwhelming cases that a divorce lawyer faces are situations where they are making an original setting of child support. Here, clients are usually not asking for things such as joint custody or sole custody, rather they are presenting how the parents exercised custody and visitation prior to their breakup and/or prior to seeing an attorney. The client will then explain whether the arrangement that has been in effect is working or whether it needs to be changed. For the attorney, the task here is to understand the situation and then understand what is reasonable and in the best interests of the child.

Clearly, the difficultly here is that the divorce lawyer is not doing an exhaustive study of the family and is making decisions based on limited information. The hope, though, is that this information combined with the attorney's previous life and legal experience can sufficiently guide the attorney in giving effective advice. It will probably not be the case that in one meeting with the parent and the entire strategy and arguments will be settled, and it may even require the attorney to do some discovery from the other parent to learn more information.

While the law is clear that joint custody is presumed and sole custody requires a showing of clear and convincing evidence in Louisiana, but this is not typically what a divorce lawyer is thinking about. This is because there can be joint custody arrangements that result in less custody than some sole custody orders. Rather, the argument lies in how exactly the custody should be set and what arguments should be made in order to ensure the best interests of the child.

After (and sometimes during) this process, the divorce lawyer will attempt to resolve the dispute without going to court. This is best for the family, as the less animosity the legal process can be, it would seem that the more effective a co-parenting arrangement would be. For the vast majority of cases, the hope is that you and the other attorney can figure out how best the parties can work together for their child. If in the event that it is necessary to go to court, you may need to subpoena witnesses or obtain documents to justify the arrangement that you are proposing. Child custody trials are important to take seriously as a "considered decree" will emerge resulting an order that can be exceedingly difficult to overcome without a hugely substantial showing of a change in fact.

Will Beaumont is an attorney in New Orleans. This article is strictly informational and not legal advice.