Articles Posted in Child Custody

Having a knowledgeable family law attorney on your side in your child custody case can help you in a number of ways. That’s because there are a number of ways in which your case can go wrong if you lack the sort of effective legal counsel that your case needs.

Procedural mistakes, for example, can be devastating. You can have the strongest evidence possible or make the most compelling and persuasive argument possible, but if you have not met all of the requirements of the procedural rules, then that proof or argument may go for naught and you may still lose.

A case from Prince George’s County offers up a good example. In early 2016, a mother and a father reached an agreement on joint custody. A few months later, the judge decided that the mother had engaged in misconduct to deny the father visitation and ordered that the father receive sole legal and physical custody of the child, with the mother receiving only daily electronic contact via Skype or Facetime.

Continue reading →

In life, everyone makes mistakes, sometimes. Some of those mistakes happen within the confines of your family law case and, if that happens, the consequences can be severe. Even if you have made significant mistakes in your case, it is still imperative that you don’t give up and that you continue aggressively to fight for your relationship with your children. The law in Maryland may give you more options than you might have thought. Contact an experienced family law attorney to find out what paths may be available for you.

So, what do we mean by mistakes? As an example, let’s look at the case of C.K.N., a Montgomery County mom and Cameroonian immigrant going through a custody battle with her child’s father, E.L. A custody case, like other civil law cases, has a “discovery phase,” where each side has the opportunity ask the other side to respond to certain questions (called “interrogatories”) and to turn over copies of certain documents (called “requests for production.”)

One of the reasons it is so important to have a skilled family law attorney representing you during every phase of your case is that failure to follow certain rules, including discovery rules, can lead to severe punishments. In C.K.N.’s case, she failed to respond to certain discovery requests on time, so the judge punished her by imposing severe restrictions on what she could argue at her hearing and what evidence she could present in her custody case.

An old saying by English author Alexander Pope theorizes that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” In few places is that more true than in the law. Too many times, non-lawyers sincerely believe that they can pursue their case successfully on their own. They think that, by spending a little time with the Google or Bing search engines, they can equip themselves adequately to act as their own attorney in their Maryland family law dispute.

Very often, they are mistaken. The consequence of that mistake is often losing a case that, with the aid of skilled lawyer, might have possibly ended more favorably. With something as precious and valuable as your family at stake, why would you chance losing due to some statutory technicality, filing deadline or nuance of caselaw that you’d overlooked? Your family is too important, which is why you should be sure you retain a knowledgeable Maryland family law attorney to handle your case.

How can your case go very wrong on your own? A recent dispute addressed by the Court of Special Appeals offers a useful example. O.K. was a father in a dispute with E.L., his children’s mother. On a temporary basis, the court gave the mother sole legal and physical custody.

Continue reading →

When your marriage comes to an end, there are many things that must be resolved, one of which is custody of the children. In the past, you may have worked full-time outside the home to provide for the family financially while your spouse was a stay-at-home caregiver. Just because your spouse was the primary caregiver prior to the marriage’s end, that does not automatically mean that she is legally entitled to be the primary physical custodian after the divorce. The court must decide custody based on the best interest of the children and there is large list of legal factors the judge must look at, with past arrangements being only one factor among many.

In other words, if you desire to be your children’s primary physical custodian, do not despair just because your ex was a stay-at-home parent prior to the divorce. Instead, consult with an experienced Maryland family law attorney and learn more about how to pursue your goals in your case.

As an example of a case where the “stay-at-home” parent didn’t receive primary physical custody after the divorce, there’s the case of A.P. and J.P., who began divorce proceedings in 2017. The husband had been an active member of the U.S. Navy for more than a decade. The wife was very briefly employed during that time, but mostly stayed home to care for the children.

Sometimes, family court cases may require a heavy focus on the facts in order to resolve. However, that is not always the case. Some family court cases can turn on a party’s knowledge – or lack thereof – of the rules of court procedure. To be sure you’re in the best position possible, be prepared with representation from a skilled Maryland family law attorney.

As an example, there’s the recent case between C.C. and A.S. The pair were reportedly in an intense dispute regarding custody of their two daughters. The dispute escalated after the mother placed an app on each of the daughters’ cell phones that allowed her to monitor from a remote location the girls’ texts and social media posts in real time.

When the parents went to court in Queen Anne’s County, the mother was prepared to offer evidence regarding the content of certain texts between the father and the daughters. The father argued that the mother had violated Maryland’s Wiretap and Electronic Surveillance Act and asked the judge to exclude all of this text-message evidence. The trial judge sided with the father and kept all of the text-related evidence out of the trial.

A recent child custody case ruling made by the Court of Special Appeals offers parents in custody disputes several very important pieces of information. One, the ruling explains many of the legal standards that judges use to resolve custody disputes. Two, as the court stated, in “custody disputes, the ‘overarching consideration’ is the best interest of the child.” This, of course, is as it should be. When it comes to advocating for your child and your relationship with that child in a legal custody matter, be sure you are protecting that relationship by securing legal representation from a knowledgeable Maryland family law attorney.

That recent case involved the custody of a girl named K.T. From the time that K.T. was born until she was almost 9, her parents lived together with her in Prince George’s County. In 2016, however, a fight between the mother and the daughter escalated to an altercation between the two parents and ended with the mother receiving a protective order and the father being ordered to leave the home. Eventually, the courts decided that the parents should, on a temporary basis, share joint legal custody and have equal physical custody on a week-on-week-off basis.

The court assigned a custody evaluator to the case. The evaluator concluded that both parents were fit, that both homes were appropriate for custody and visitation, and that both parents communicated with each other effectively in matters regarding K.T. The father was open to a 50-50 custody arrangement; the mother less so. Based on the evaluator’s evaluation and other evidence, the trial court ordered that the parents share joint legal custody and share physical custody on a 50-50 basis. The mother appealed, but the appeals court upheld what the trial court ordered.

Going to court in a family law case can be a very stressful time for many parents and spouses, even when things go the way you expect them to. Now imagine going to court where the judge addresses an issue and makes a ruling that you totally did not expect and for which you were completely unprepared. That would probably be exponentially more stressful. Would you know what you could, or should, do in that situation? Circumstances like this, which do happen in real life, are examples of why it pays to have representation from an experienced Maryland family law attorney on your side.

A recent case illustrating this scenario was the custody dispute between M.M. and J.S. For the first few months after the couple divorced, the parents temporarily shared joint physical and legal custody. The father lived in Maryland. The mother lived out of state and was pregnant. The day before the couple’s three-day custody hearing was to begin, the wife’s lawyer informed the court that the wife was experiencing pregnancy complications and could not travel from Illinois to Maryland until after the new baby’s birth, which was still six weeks away.

The wife provided that information as part of an emergency request for postponement of the custody hearing. The judge held a hearing on the postponement request and ultimately postponed the custody hearing. The judge, however, also modified custody, giving the father temporary sole custody. The wife appealed that custody modification and she won. She won because the trial judge’s action violated her constitutional rights.

As a parent in a custody case, there are several hurdles you have to clear. Obviously, the first one is achieving success in the trial court. Once you’ve done that, though, you may still have some hurdles ahead of you. The other parent may decide to appeal the ruling. If you find yourself in the role of the “Appellee” (which means that you were successful in the trial court and are asking the appeals court to affirm what the trial judge ordered) it is important to understand that there can be multiple ways to get the outcome you need, which is a ruling of “Affirmed.” To get the representation you need to get that positive result, be sure you have an experienced Maryland family law attorney on your side.

As an example of how this legal process can play out, there’s the case of K.M. and C.D. The two were the parents of two children, a son and a daughter, the younger of whom was born in December 2010. In 2013, the father, who had never been married to the mother, filed for custody. The mother appeared in the case and counterclaimed for custody.

One of the issues in this couple’s case was the mother’s alleged lack of stability, including a history of mental health problems and substance abuse. In her arguments, the mother asserted that she was in treatment for anxiety and depression, that she had begun refraining from drinking, that she had acquired a proper home for overnight visits and that she’d been gainfully employed for more than 12 months.