We get a lot of questions about custody and visitation in Virginia. Does the court assume 50/50 here? Does the court prefer mom? No, the court definitely prefers dad, right? Is there a standard custody arrangement that the court orders? Like, what happens in these cases, anyway? I hear you. It’s like most moms...
50/50 Custody in Virginia
You’ve probably heard a lot about father’s rights groups. They’re all over the place, campaigning for 50/50 custody, and arguing that dads should have more of a role in raising their children. You probably haven’t heard a lot about mother’s rights groups. They…don’t really exist. Though there may, in fact, be a need for them...
Child custody is complicated, especially because it’s really never absolutely final. Under Virginia law, anything related to the children, including child custody, visitation, and child support, are always modifiable based on a material change in circumstances, up until the time the child turns 18 and is no longer legally considered a child. School enrollment...
Custody litigation presents a million different ways for mothers to be caught in a potentially devastating catch-22, especially in cases where the non-custodial parent seems to be at something of a disadvantage. Lately, I’ve seen several different cases where, for example, a mother was granted sole legal and primary physical custody, with very narrow...
In terms of vocabulary, there are all sorts of things that we say when it comes to custody and visitation that may seem new to you. I’ve written extensively on legal and physical custody, the different types (primary, shared, and split), coparenting, parenting education seminars, and many other topics related to custody and visitation that...
In a divorce and/or custody case, you can get whatever you and your soon-to-be ex/child’s father can agree to or whatever the judge is willing to award. In many cases, we’re really limited by what the judge will do. When the other side knows that, for example, the military retirement will be divided so that...
When your child’s father abandons you, there are hard feelings. I’ve heard some pretty horrific and heart rending stories throughout the course of my career, and, even though I’ve been doing this a pretty long time at this point, it still weighs on me. A woman I talked to the other day told me how,...
In Virginia, there are two different types of custody: legal custody, and physical custody. Most of the time, parents fight over physical custody, because that has to do with where a child spends the majority of his or her time. Legal custody, on the other hand, refers only to the right to make three types...
