An important service that child custody attorneys provide their divorcing clients is helping them negotiate custody questions, including visitation and other concerns.
Together, child custody lawyers and parents come up with feasible custody plans that will eventually, with court approval, become the basis of a custody order.
When Are Child Custody Modifications Needed?
When existing custody orders no longer work for one or both parents, child custody modifications can sometimes be sought.
With the help of their child custody lawyer, parents are able to make minor modifications to the order on their own as long as they are both in agreement and can still consider the legal agreement as their base law.
More significant modifications can be brought before the court and an official modification made as long as both parties are in agreement with the change.
What If Parents Don't Agree on the Modifications?
When a change must be made and the parties are not in agreement, the court will do what is in the best interest of the child.
As such, parents seeking child custody modifications to the court order must be able to establish, with the help of their child custody attorney, that a circumstance of material or substantial change that affects the child exists.
What Is A Material or Substantial Change?
To meet a circumstance of material or substantial change, requesting parents with the help of their child custody lawyer must prove that one of the following four circumstances exists:
- The child is in danger in their present circumstance.
- The conservator parent has given possession of the child to another person for more than six months, active military duty the exception.
- The child is 12 or older and wishes to ask the judge for a change over which parent they live with.
- Conditions since the initial custody agreement have substantially changed as long as it was issued one year or longer ago.
Based on these four points per child custody attorneys, “material and substantial change” refers to situations that result in a disruption to the family dynamic that should be modified for the benefit of the child.
These circumstances can include a parent moving far enough away that the current custody order is no longer feasible, a parent remarrying, the birth of a new half-sibling, a parent suffering a health complication, employment change, alcohol or substance abuse problems, incidents of child abuse, child neglect, or domestic violence, a parent is convicted of a crime, changes in the child’s needs, and changes to child support amounts.
In Summary
Generally speaking, the family court avoids approving child custody modifications without the agreement of both parties unless there is a significant reason to do so.
By proving issues of material and substantial change, parents and their child custody lawyers can demonstrate how a change would be beneficial for the child when seeking an official custody modification.