When Looking at Sole and Joint Custody, Make Sure the Statutes and Case Law Make It Clear There’s No Preference
Video Transcribed: How do you go from joint custody to sole custody of your children? Hello, my name is Ryan Cannonie, I’m an CPS Defense Lawyer with the CPS Investigation Defense Law office. Something that that comes in occasionally is people who are in a joint custody type of agreement after a child custody matter, or a divorce, or they have no custody agreement and so they’re wanting to get either sole or joint custody.
When you start looking at sole and joint custody, one of the big things is that, while the statutes and case law make it clear there’s no preference, there is an impracticality, and the way it’s applied, there is more of a preference for joint if the parents can communicate; that’s really the big thing.
If parents can communicate together, work to put their differences aside, to make sure that each parent has time with the children, and they’re able to communicate about medical appointments, visitation schedules, and can actually talk to each other about those exchanges for visitation and for custody…
Who has custody at this time versus this other time, and can make the agreement work, then joint custody is something that’s probably going to be applied in the case.
If there’s a joint custody agreement and things start to deteriorate; if, before you go to court for a custody agreement, things have gotten very hostile, then the courts may consider a sole custody because, under both statute and case law, to have a joint custody, parents have to be able to have communication about the child or children.
If you cannot have any communication, if it’s so hostile that there is nothing that can be done between the two of you in regards to taking care of the children… It’s not just about visitations, and who’s staying at what weekend, but this goes further.
It goes to medical, it goes to school, it goes to anything in that child’s life. If you can’t both parent from separate locations, then joint custody is probably not going to work for you, and the court needs to be made aware of that so that it’s not ordered, setting this whole system up for failure.
If you have questions about joint custody and sole custody of children, or any questions about child custody in general, then please, give us a call. You can go online to tahlequahattorney.com, send us a web form. We do low-cost consultations. Please give an Oklahoma DHS attorney a call and we can help you with your legal matters.