Need For A Child Custody Lawyer In Divorce Proceedings

While divorce is often a difficult experience for both parties involved, it becomes even more difficult when there are children involved. Thus, the need to be in contact with a child custody lawyer is quite important for any parent in such cases to prevent losing their rights to the children and to participate in their life.

And while one may think the custody of children may not affect the divorce in general, they would be quite wrong as child support and alimony are dependent on which parent’s custody the child is staying. Therefore, anyone planning to proceed with the divorce proceedings should also be prepared with a custody lawyer.

Types of custody

Unlike how the films and televisions portray, one parent does not solely gets custody of the children — both parents have equal rights, and sole custody is quite uncommon. It is only seen in extreme cases when one parent is abusive or unavailable in a manner that they are not humanly reachable. Other cases in which sole custody is given when one parent relinquishes their parental rights completely.

Beyond sole custody, the other type of child custody is the joint one where both the parents have equal custody of the children following their schedules. It is the most common type of custody practised in real life, making many exes co-parent their children through two different households.

The other types of custody depend on the authority over the children; that is, the physical and legal custody. Physical custody entails that the parent has custody of the child in a physical manner, let it be by living with the child in the same household or by living nearby and having authority over their physical authority.

Legal custody, on the other hand, entails that the parent has the rights and authority over the decision-making concerning legal matters of the child. In most cases, both parents have legal custody but, in some specific cases, the legal custody is granted to only one parent due to the other parent being abusive or unreliable to the children.

Conclusion

In the end, the need for a child custody lawyer is important for both the divorce proceedings and settling the maintenance issues concerning the assets and alimony since child custody can affect the monetary value of the latter quite a lot.