We’re going to start talking about Judges and the courtroom. I don’t want you to go ahead and tune out. Even if you think that you’re absolutely certain that you can reach an outside of court agreement on custody, and that you’re never going to see the inside of a court room, you need to hear this for a few reasons.
Sometimes litigation is necessary. You may be sitting in a seat right now thinking, “No, never going to happen to me. Me and the other parent have always had a history of being able to talk about these things. We’re going to be great friends, we’re going to be very amicable.” You never know when that’s going to deteriorate.
Something could happen while the child is in the other parent’s care. You could completely change your tune on that, and you could immediately be finding yourself filing a lawsuit. The other parent could simply get mad about you moving on and engaging in a new relationship–that could be the catalyst for change.
You can’t predict how things are going to go in the future, so it’s always good to have an idea about what the process is before you find yourself panicking and thinking, “Oh my gosh, we have to file suit, and I know nothing about it.”
We’re going to go through what the litigation process is like, and the factors that are going to be looked at for those 2 reasons. Because, A – it’s going to be what the attorney’s look at when negotiating custody. And also because it’s always good to have awareness of the process, because you cannot ever – ever predict the future.
