Divorce Lawyer: Focusing on the Best Interests of the Child

It is hard to imagine that there is a jurisdiction that does not focus on the best interests of the child when making a custody determination. This means that it is not the parents who are focused on by the finder of fact; instead it is the child and the child's interest and the child's needs. Because this may be the standard applied, it is important that this also be one of the primary considerations that the divorce lawyer takes into consideration when advising his or her clients and when making decisions and drafting pleadings before a court.

It is probably also the case that the standards for attorney representation of his or her client is to be a zealous advocate for the client and to zealously represent the client interests, or something similar to this. In order to represent the client’s interests, however, a divorce lawyer may need to understand how a court may make its decisions based upon the frame of mind of a court. This includes the law and evidence that a court may consider. By understanding that a court may weigh the best interests of the child very heavily in making its decision, the divorce lawyer might decide to focus heavily on this in order to represent his or her client to the best of his or her ability.

What types of arguments may fit best with what the court may be interested in hearing? What are the bases of these arguments? If your response is what in the best interests of your client, this is probably the exact wrong frame of arguments to make it a child custody case -- arguing the scenario that most favors your client, in other words, probably will not be very persuasive. Rather, it may be the case that the court wants to hear most of what is in the best interest of the child and how the child would be best served by your clients’ position and proposed custody and visitation arrangement.

In fact, this is probably one of the main reasons that a client may actually need a divorce lawyer to go through the legal process with them. This is because there are a number of people who will begin with a framework of why they need custody, when the court might actually be thinking almost exclusively about what the child's needs and interests are and how would those be best served. This means that the attorney may have to work with the client in order to bring the client around to thinking about how to serve best the child and how the child's interests likely closely resemble what the client is seeking regarding his or her proposed arrangement.

In short, a divorce lawyer may need to make sure that the arguments that they make are structured through the lens of the best interests of the child, or whatever the law is that the court is most likely to apply. After all, it is difficult to imagine a court wanting to hear anything else.