New Year, New Resolution (Methods): Collaborative Divorce

I find the beginning of a new year is a good time to remind people of the some of the new alternative to divorce and custody litigation, as well as other, more traditional means of dispute resolution.

When someone realizes that they are facing a divorce or custody dispute, they often face a moment of terror. Not just because there are now major questions looming as to how they will divide their assets or see their children, but because of the images it conjures up. Many immediately think of the tall, dark, imposing wooden panels of the courtroom walls; the stern, gavel-banging judge deciding their fate; the watchful eye of the gallery staring down the parties as their lawyers shout objections and witnesses burst into tears.

Fortunately, most of these images come more from a poorly written episodes of “Law & Order” than from reality. Even if a divorce or child custody disputes do proceeds towards litigation, typically the family court does not involve any of these sensationalized components. It’s more likely to involve modern facilities, a lack of gallery, limited objections and, frankly, I’ve never seen a judge bang a gavel once. There are, however, plenty of tears.

Nonetheless, the idea of something as personal as a separation from your spouse, or the custody of your children, proceeding in court can (and to some extent probably should) be a little terrifying.

In essence, in the traditional litigation process, a party appears in court, where they will sit quietly while someone they barely know (their lawyer) argues the facts and circumstances of their life to a person who essentially does not know them at all (the judge), who ultimately decides how they live the rest of their life—both financially and with regard to their children.

Many of the decisions in family court will be made without the parties even being present, and when they are, much like traditionally good children, they are preferred to be seen and not heard. All of this isolation from the decision making process can be quite terrifying for parties. In some ways it is even more terrifying than the specter of the dark wood panels and booming echoes of the stern Judge’s words off of the walls. It is for this reason, over the years, many parties have sought to find an alternative means of dispute resolution to assist them with their divorce and child custody matters.

One of the newer movements in alternative resolution in family law is the use of Collaborative Law techniques.

Collaborative divorce has been cited in several studies as offering parties an alternative to traditional litigation which is more confidential, faster, and potentially less expensive than the traditional path. More important to the parties themselves, I believe, is the fact that they are active participants in the collaborative divorce process.

By design, the collaborative divorce process focuses on the parties’ goals and interests, and their ability to work with one another, not just to finalize an initial agreement but also in the long term. Often the parties will have many years of co-parenting ahead of them, and a collaborative divorce can help them to communicate better, allowing them to address minor issues which may arise over the years without the need to lawyer up and run to court.

So What is Collaborative Divorce? Visit my website or keep an eye out for my next post to learn more.

For more information about collaborative law, or other means of dispute resolution, please feel free to contact me at 412-261-9900 to schedule a consultation. You may also contact me through my website at www.uncouplingpittsburgh.com.

Please note that commenting on this blog or otherwise electronically corresponding with Attorney Myers does not create an attorney/client relationship.

Which Home for the Holidays?

Its that time of year again! I'm not speaking of inappropriately early to arrive Christmas commercials and Toy books, I'm talking about holiday custody disputes.

For families that have separated, or are separating, deciding on holiday custody arrangements can be difficult. Below are some thoughts from an experienced child custody attorney on how to work through these issues.

With Thanksgiving arriving in just two (2) weeks, and Christmas, Hanukkah and a host of other holidays just around the corner, I wanted to recirculate my previous holiday post, updated slightly. Though another year may have passed, it rings just as true.

On the Simpsons, Helen Lovejoy is often quoted as saying, “Will someone please think of the children?”

I think this is a particularly appropriate sentiment during the holiday season. For families who have not been “intact” for some time or others who are going through a transition, often the stress of the holiday season, coupled with the additional stress of new living circumstances, makes the holidays particularly trying.

I find clients who are transitioning to their new lives find the first holiday season to be particularly difficult. Everyone faces stresses associated with the holidays in the form of decorating, baking, buying presents, making merry and balancing budgets. Those facing the new world of contemplating whose Christmas festivities the kids will attend and what holiday traditions can survive the transition have it particularly hard.

To those of you who have already worked through these issues, and who know exactly what you will be doing this holiday season, where the kids will be over their break, etc., I commend you on the efforts that had to go in to finalizing these arrangements and making peace with the new schedule.

To those of you who are just facing these challenges for the first time, I wanted to share some thoughts.

1) Helen Lovejoy was right. We should be thinking of the children. The holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas break…these are magical moments for them and getting bogged down in the stress or fights over exactly how they will be spent detracts from that magic. Even if you are not so foolish as to try and discuss these issues with your children (which is hopelessly inappropriate), your stress still shows and they’ll still pick up on it. First off, never, ever, ever talk to your children about difficulties that you’re having making holiday arrangements, or tell them you’re sad that they won’t be there with you Christmas morning or anything of the like. They’re your children, let them stay that way. The world is going to do enough to disavow them of their innocence and hope; don’t speed up the process.

2) Do talk to somebody. Separation and divorce are incredibly stressful and emotionally painful experiences. Going through them alone and maintaining some degree of self and sanity is nearly impossible. Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. Talk to your priest. Talk to your therapist. Talk to somebody. Anybody—(except your children). You can talk to your lawyer, too, but it’s best that you rely upon them for some education on your legal rights and responsibilities and not the emotional issues. We bill at a higher hourly rate than therapists and we’re never covered by insurance.

3) You should talk to your co-parent. Now that you’ve talked out some of the emotional pain that goes with trying to navigate these new issues, it’s time to talk to somebody else, and that’s the other person, the person with whom you’re sharing custody of your children, not just for this holiday season, but for the rest of your lives. The sooner you can work out a schedule for how holiday custody will work and where the children will be over their break, the sooner you can close this chapter and move forward with actually enjoying the holiday season.

Not everyone can talk through their issues in a reasonable, productive manner. They may have to turn to lawyers or to the Courts for help. Let me assure you of two things:

1) There is emergency Motions Court on December 22nd which will be filled with almost nothing but last minute motions trying to resolve Christmas custody disputes; and

2) You do not want to be there.

Please make the effort at resolution. If you can’t talk it through between yourselves, perhaps you can try mediating, or having your attorneys negotiate, but I assure you, you do not want to be litigating where your child eats dinner or opens a gift.

Divorce or separation from the parent of your children will be hard. Nobody can make it easy. Talking to the right people, learning the right information, and addressing your outstanding disputes in a timely manner will make it easier.

There is no cure for the hurt, but there are many proactive things you can do to try to minimize how that impacts you and your children and how you navigate the co-parenting relationship moving forward.

In all likelihood, you will share custody of your children. It’s almost a guarantee that you will share custody on the holidays. It will be necessary to make new traditions and work on moving forward. The better you do that, the more positive lessons you teach your children about how to work with others, to manage your emotions and hurt, and to move forward in a responsible manner. As I said above, life will do plenty to eat away at your children’s innocence and hope. Don’t help it. What you’re doing now is teaching them the skills to deal with those upsets that will happen in their own lives.

Teach them well and enjoy the holiday season.

www.uncouplingpittsburgh.com

New Year, New Resolution (Methods):

How Collaborative Divorce is Changing Divorce and Child Custody

When someone realizes that they are facing a divorce or custody dispute, they often face a moment of terror. Not just because there are now major questions looming as to how they will divide their assets or see their children, but because of the images it conjures up. Many immediately think of the tall, dark, imposing wooden panels of the courtroom walls; the stern, gavel-banging judge deciding their fate; the watchful eye of the gallery staring down the parties as their lawyers shout objections and witnesses burst into tears.

Fortunately, most of these images come more from a poorly written episodes of “Law & Order” than from reality. Even if a divorce or child custody disputes do proceeds towards litigation, typically the family court does not involve any of these sensationalized components. It’s more likely to involve modern facilities, a lack of gallery, limited objections and, frankly, I’ve never seen a judge bang a gavel once. There are, however, plenty of tears.

Nonetheless, the idea of something as personal as a separation from your spouse, or the custody of your children, proceeding in court can (and to some extent probably should) be a little terrifying.

In essence, in the traditional litigation process, a party appears in court, where they will sit quietly while someone they barely know (their lawyer) argues the facts and circumstances of their life to a person who essentially does not know them at all (the judge), who ultimately decides how they live the rest of their life—both financially and with regard to their children.
Many of the decisions in family court will be made without the parties even being present, and when they are, much like traditionally good children, they are preferred to be seen and not heard. All of this isolation from the decision making process can be quite terrifying for parties. In some ways it is even more terrifying than the specter of the dark wood panels and booming echoes of the stern Judge’s words off of the walls. It is for this reason, over the years, many parties have sought to find an alternative means of dispute resolution to assist them with their divorce and child custody matters.

One of the newer movements in alternative resolution in family law is the use of Collaborative Law techniques.

Collaborative divorce has been cited in several studies as offering parties an alternative to traditional litigation which is more confidential, faster, and potentially less expensive than the traditional path. More important to the parties themselves, I believe, is the fact that they are active participants in the collaborative divorce process.

By design, the collaborative divorce process focuses on the parties’ goals and interests, and their ability to work with one another, not just to finalize an initial agreement but also in the long term. Often the parties will have many years of co-parenting ahead of them, and a collaborative divorce can help them to communicate better, allowing them to address minor issues which may arise over the years without the need to lawyer up and run to court.

So What is Collaborative Divorce? Visit my website or keep an eye out for my next post to learn more.

For more information about collaborative law, or other means of dispute resolution, please feel free to contact me at 412-261-9900 to schedule a consultation. You may also contact me through my website at www.uncouplingpittsburgh.com.

Please note that commenting on this blog or otherwise electronically corresponding with Attorney Myers does not create an attorney/client relationship.

WHICH HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS?

With Thanksgiving arriving next week, and Christmas, Hanukkah and a host of other holidays just around the corner, I wanted to recirculate last year’s holiday post, updated slightly.  Though another year may have passed, it rings just as true.

On the Simpsons, Helen Lovejoy is often quoted as saying, “Will someone please think of the children?” I think this is a particularly appropriate sentiment during the holiday season. For families who have not been “intact” for some time or others who are going through transition, often the stress of the holiday season, coupled with the additional stress of new living circumstances, makes the holidays particularly trying.

I find clients who are transitioning to their new lives find the first holiday season to be particularly difficult. Everyone faces stresses associated with the holidays in the form of decorating, baking, buying presents, making merry and balancing budgets. Those facing the new world of contemplating whose Christmas festivities the kids will attend and what holiday traditions can survive the transition have it particularly hard.

To those of you who have already worked through these issues, and who know exactly what you will be doing this holiday season, where the kids will be over their break, etc., I commend you on the efforts that had to go in to finalizing these arrangements and making peace with the new schedule.

To those of you who are just facing these challenges for the first time, I wanted to share some thoughts.

1) Helen Lovejoy was right. We should be thinking of the children. The holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas break…these are magical moments for them and getting bogged down in the stress or fights over exactly how they will be spent detracts from that magic. Even if you are not so foolish as to try and discuss these issues with your children (which is hopelessly inappropriate), your stress still shows and they’ll still pick up on it. First off, never, ever, ever talk to your children about difficulties that you’re having making holiday arrangements, or tell them you’re sad that they won’t be there with you Christmas morning or anything of the like. They’re your children, let them stay that way. The world is going to do enough to disavow them of their innocence and hope; don’t speed up the process.

2) Do talk to somebody. Separation and divorce are incredibly stressful and emotionally painful experiences. Going through them alone and maintaining some degree of self and sanity is nearly impossible. Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. Talk to your priest. Talk to your therapist. Talk to somebody. Anybody—(except your children). You can talk to your lawyer, too, but it’s best that you rely upon them for some education on your legal rights and responsibilities and not the emotional issues. We bill at a higher hourly rate than therapists and we’re never covered by insurance.

3) You should talk to your co-parent. Now that you’ve talked out some of the emotional pain that goes with trying to navigate these new issues, it’s time to talk to somebody else, and that’s the other person, the person with whom you’re sharing custody of your children, not just for this holiday season, but for the rest of your lives. The sooner you can work out a schedule for how holiday custody will work and where the children will be over their break, the sooner you can close this chapter and move forward with actually enjoying the holiday season.

Not everyone can talk through their issues in a reasonable, productive manner. They may have to turn to lawyers or to the Courts for help. Let me assure you of two things:

1) There is emergency Motions Court on December 22^nd which will be filled with almost nothing but last minute motions trying to resolve Christmas custody disputes; and

2) You do not want to be there.

Please make the effort at resolution. If you can’t talk it through between yourselves, perhaps you can try mediating, or having your attorneys negotiate, but I assure you, you do not want to be litigating where your child eats dinner or opens a gift.

Divorce or separation from the parent of your children will be hard. Nobody can make it easy. Talking to the right people, learning the right information, and addressing your outstanding disputes in a timely manner will make it easier.

There is no cure for the hurt, but there are many proactive things you can do to try to minimize how that impacts you and your children and how you navigate the co-parenting relationship moving forward.

In all likelihood, you will share custody of your children. It’s almost a guarantee that you will share custody on the holidays. It will be necessary to make new traditions and work on moving forward. The better you do that, the more positive lessons you teach your children about how to work with others, to manage your emotions and hurt, and to move forward in a responsible manner. As I said above, life will do plenty to eat away at your children’s innocence and hope. Don’t help it. What you’re doing now is teaching them the skills to deal with those upsets that will happen in their own lives.

Teach them well and enjoy the holiday season.

GRANDPARENT CUSTODY - Grandparents Rights: Wrong?

Switching gears in what had been a few decades of continually expanding rights for grandparents in the state of Pennsylvania, on September 9, 2016, in the case of D.P. & B.P., his wife, v. J.P. & A.P., the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an opinion which would now serve to limit the times at which grandparents can seek partial custody of their grandchildren in Pennsylvania.

In D.P., the Court framed the question before them as being whether or not “the parents’ fundamental rights are violated by the conferral of standing based solely on a parental separation lasting at least six (6) months.” Take the legalese out of that, it used to be that any grandparent could sue for partial custody of their grandchild if mom and dad had been separated for six (6) months or more (or never together). There was no need to prove that it was in the best interest of the children for the grandparents to assert their rights--they got to do it anyhow and the resulting custody schedule would then be based on what was in the best interest of the children.

In D.P., the parents of the children had been separated for a few years, but never filed anything with the Court. The parents continued to co-parent and agreed between the two of them that the grandparents should not get to see the children. Approximately two years after the parties separated, the grandparents filed a Complaint for Custody asking for time with the children over the parents’ objections. The grandparents did not tell the Court anything to suggest that mom and dad were unfit or that the children were in any danger with mom and dad.

Under the existing statute, 23 Pa. C.S.A. 5325, this was an acceptable basis for grandparents to sue for custody. Attached is a link to the full text of the statute. After the grandparents sued, the parents indicated that the statute violated their 14th Amendment Rights to Due Process and Equal Protection. The Trial Court in Westmoreland County agreed with the parents, finding that the parents had a fundamental liberty interest in raising their children as they see fit. The trial court determined that the language in the Custody Act was not narrowly tailored enough to survive a strict scrutiny analysis as a matter of constitutional law. They found that the parents had jointly decided the children would have no contact with the grandparents and suggesting they were unfit to make this determination simply because they were separated would be an error. The trial court held that there was not an adequate basis to disturb the ordinary presumption that fit parents act in their children’s best interest.

The Supreme Court summarized the lower court’s opinion as follows: “in as much as the law presumes that married parents living together are able to co-parent their children without judicial interference, there is no constitutionally sound basis to support a classification whereby married parents who are separated should be treated differently.” In this regard, the Court indicated that, “The statute reflects an inappropriate ‘implicit presumption of unfitness’ attached to separated parents solely on account of their separated status.”

The PA Supreme Court’s opinion, linked here, (link) contains an interesting review of the history of grandparents’ rights cases in Pennsylvania, factually distinguishing them from D.P. as involving various cases of either parental unfitness, divorce, or death of a parent.
Counsel for parents further went on to differentiate D.P. as being a case where Court intervention was never sought by the parents, where they were never subject to an Order of Court prior to grandparents filing a Complaint, and where the parents did not disagree with regards to matters of custody or visitation.

The parents went on to suggest that, “Many couples who live together lead dysfunctional homes and make poor parenting decisions, all of which evidences the arbitrariness of §5325’s implicit assumption that separated parents are less fit as parents than those who live under the same roof. Consequently, parents proposed that the legislative classification which rests on that assumption does little to advance the state’s interest in protecting children or promoting their welfare.”
In its analysis, the Supreme Court recognized that grandparent visitation and custody statutes inherently authorize state action and are subject to constitutional limitations. It further went on to state that it is clearly undisputed that §5325 “burdens the right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children; that such right is a fundamental one.”

After an analysis of the arguments set forth by the parents and grandparents, the Court acknowledged that, very broadly speaking, the state does have the power to safe-guard children from various kinds of physical and emotional harm as well as promoting their well-being, but that right alone would not, in this case, extend to allow the Court to intervene in a family who never sought the Court’s involvement, stating, “As this case shows, when parents separate they do not always initiate divorce proceedings or otherwise request court involvement in their family affairs.” “Although separation may involve a disruption of the nuclear family unit, the children are often shielded from having to participate in court proceedings and are, likewise, free from having to assimilate the knowledge that the government is now involved in their family life.”

The Court also noted that the grandparents failed to present to the Court empirical data which would suggest the separation has the same deleterious effects on children as divorce. As this type of information was presented in prior grandparent cases, the court did not change the part of the statute that allows grandparents to seek custody when the parents are divorced or deceased.

The Court did note that parents who were involved in divorce proceedings or who were divorced could potentially agree to limit their children’s contact with third parties but declined to address that issue in its opinion, as the only issue before it was whether or not the parents could do so when merely separated. The Court noted that they found court-mandated association with third parties more intrusive to parents’ constitutional rights when they had not themselves sought the Court’s oversight relative to custody or marital dissolution.

After its analysis, the Court found that the language of §5325 relative to grandparents’ standing in the event of a six (6) month separation was “not narrowly tailored in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” (meaning it was not structured with precision and that the legislature could have chosen a less drastic means of effectuating objectives).

The Court finally noted that in confronting a constitutional flaw in a statute, they are to provide a limited solution affecting only those unconstitutional portions of same. As such, the Court only removed the second portion of Paragraph 2 with regard to six (6) months separation to be invalidated.

However, it appears from the language of the Court’s main opinion, as well as the dissenting opinions entered by Justices Baer and Wecht, there are still concerns regarding the constitutionality of the remaining provisions of 23 Pa. C.S.A. 5325.

Does this affect your rights with regards to custody? If you think it might, you should speak with an attorney.

If you found this interesting or helpful, please like and share!

www.uncouplingpittsburgh.com

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm…

http://law.justia.com/…/supreme-cou…/2016/25-wap-2015-0.html

CHILD CUSTODY - What the Heck is Generations - Part 2

So, if the parties end up in Court, and aren't able to work out a custody schedule/parenting plan in their mediation session, there is still a long (and expensive ) road ahead of them:

A Generation’s Conciliation where the parties come with their attorneys and meet with a generation’s conciliator:

A judicial conciliation where the parties come with their attorneys and meet with the judge. There may be more than one of these if perhaps the judge wants the parties to go to the Impact program (drug and alcohol testing), psychological evaluations, or other treatment or testing. Typically, the judges will have a second conciliation to review the results of any testing;

And, if the parents are still unable to resolve matters, they proceed to trial.

I will be doing a separate post about some of these later steps, along with want to expect and how to prepare over the next few months.

I want to emphasize for anyone reading this that the custody system is not set up for you to get your day in court. It is directly set up to remind you that your day in court may well be something you don’t want, that is bad for you, that is bad for children, and will cost a whole lot of money and headache. The system is designed to give you enough information that you should understand settlement and reason are preferable over litigation and naked emotion. It is very easy to be angry in a situation where you are deciding custody of your children. Often this can come on the heels of very difficult and tumultuous time in your life while you and your significant other have decided to no longer reside together as a couple. The pain and anguish the parties feel going through this process as well as the custody process creates a lot of very strong emotions, many of them focused towards anger, hurt, and heartache.

The entire Generations process and similar processes in other counties are designed to try to help you get past those basic emotions and move forward to a more enlightened position--focusing on co-parenting and working together rather than driving each other further apart.

In addition to the court system that will provide you with some background as well as bring you to a mediation session, the parties are free to and should regularly consult with their attorneys to get a perspective as to how the law would be applicable in their individual case. Custody is remarkably fact specific; we have over a dozen factors that the court can look at to determine what is in the best interest of your child and no two cases are exactly alike. Receiving input from an attorney will help you address how to best move forward through the system to reach a resolution that addresses the best interests of the children.

At all times throughout the process, the parties are free to engage in discussions directly with one another or through their attorneys to try and reach a resolution. You are not required to go to court if you can work out an arrangement that the two of you find to be acceptable under the circumstances. Seeing as how this is the goal of the court, it should be your goal as well. Anyone who is facing potential custody litigation, or has already found themselves in same, should consult with an attorney to get more information about the specifics of their case. Also, please speak with a counselor who can help you address the often difficult feelings that come as part of the custody process.

If you found this post to be helpful or if you have any questions, please feel free to comment, post, share, like, etc. and visit www.uncouplingpittsburgh.com or call me at 412-261-9900 to schedule a consultation.

CHILD CUSTODY - What the Heck is Generations - Or, How a Custody Action gets started

As I have mentioned before, one of the very common issues that comes up as part of the uncoupling process is how to address custodial arrangements for any children born of the parties’ relationship.  To be honest, that statement doesn’t actually cover all of the possible custody actions in Pennsylvania.  Obviously, children don’t necessarily have to arise out of relationships that would come with other uncoupling issues.  Further, there can be custody actions brought by “non-parents” like step-parents, grandparents and anyone who stands “in loco parentis” (which basically means that they discharge the duties of a parent regardless of their actual biological relationship to the child). 

In any case, to the extent the parties are able to do so, it is considered preferable to be able to work out a custody schedule between themselves.  While they will need an attorney or the court system to confirm the schedule by way of a written Agreement or Order that gets filed with the court, working through it together not only saves on time, expense and frustration, but also helps to start a healthy co-parenting relationship from the very beginning. 

However, not everyone is so fortunate, and they must proceed through what in Allegheny County is called the “Generations” process.

In Allegheny County and across the state, the entire custody system is set up with the fundamental goal of being able to reach settlement of the parties’ outstanding issues without the need for a trial.  Your custody action may go on for a very long time before you are entitled to a final hearing.  This is by intentional design in hopes that providing the parties with some education and compelling them to attempt to work through their issues, there will not be a need for a formal hearing. 

Here in Allegheny County, the process in place is called the Generations Program.  In Westmoreland County it is the CHILD Program.  Different counties have different names, but for the most part they all boil down to two components.

Once you file a Complaint for Custody you will receive, from your respective court, a “Scheduling Order.”  This Scheduling Order directs that each of the parties (and, in some cases, the children) must participate in the court’s custody process. This process typically includes an education session as the first step.   It has always been my strong belief that a little information can go a long way in forming the parties’ expectations and their ability to work through issues together. It seems that the court system shares in this belief.

This court-ordered education session lasts for several hours.  In Allegheny County, it includes the parents as well as children between the ages of 5 and 15.  The requirement for children to be involved varies from county to county.  You should always consult your local rules before making assumptions as to whether or not the children will be involved in this process.  However, across the board, the idea is that the education session provides the parties with information regarding how physical and legal custody work, the types of decisions that they need to make together, and that they must share input and information  with regards to their child. In general, it reinforces the idea that while you may no longer be an intact family, you must still function as an intact parenting unit and work with each other for the betterment of your children. 

It is generally understood that it is in the best interest of children that their parents be able to cooperate with one another and to share custody, both physically and legally. 

In addition to being scheduled for the education session where they get some of this co-parenting background, the parties will also be scheduled to appear for a mediation session.  In some counties, the first session includes the attorneys, but here in Allegheny County, it is only the parties that appear for the mediation session.  They come unrepresented and meet with a mediator who assists in trying to engage in dialogue to help them resolve their outstanding custody issues.  They will have the opportunity to present what schedule they would like to see, why they are opposed to the other side’s schedule, what issues can be worked through to try to resolve these differences, etc. 

If the parties are able to reach an agreement through mediation, this agreement can be memorialized and executed by both of the parties as a final agreement as to custody.  If they don’t reach an agreement, they will continue to move through the custody process which I will discuss in my next post.

If you found this post to be helpful or if you have any questions, please feel free to comment, post, share, like, etc. and visit www.uncouplingpittsburgh.com

CHILD CUSTODY - Vacation (custody) All I ever Wanted

I am sure that if you haven’t already, at some point this summer just about all of you have had a conversation with a friend or relative about their plans for their big summer vacation this year: where they are taking the kids, what they are doing, how much those ride-all-day passes cost at the amusement park, etc.

What they probably didn’t share with you is whether or not their attorney had to go to court to make that happen. Seems kind of crazy, doesn’t it? That somewhere between airfare, hotel rooms, and tickets to Wally World, your friend or relative may have also been paying someone $300 per hour to go to Motion’s Court to ask for permission for a relatively mundane thing like a vacation with their children.

Unfortunately, I can assure you that this is an issue that arises in family cases and which has me spending a couple of days every summer standing in Motion’s Court along with numerous other attorneys (also billing their clients) to fight about the right of someone to take their children to the beach.

Maybe some of you reading this had to do exactly that.

Maybe some of you reading this are the reason someone else had to do exactly that.

In either case, it seems like a timely topic and a good opportunity to provide some advice:

1. You aren’t stopping a vacation request.

Are you co-parenting with Charles Manson?

If the answer to that question is no, then the answer to their vacation request is yes.

Even people who have minimal custody time throughout the year are going to have some entitlement to summer vacation. Yes, there are exceptions.

Family court is ruled by exceptions, not governed by rules.

Certainly, if there has been a history of abuse, substance abuse, etc., this may raise more questions about vacation time than your average case, but even in these situations, chances are the other side is getting a vacation with their kids. They may have to take a supervisor. That supervisor might be a parent, sibling, or some other relative/agreed upon third party. People on Megan’s List have taken their children on vacation. I am aware of more than one.

Saying that the court recognizes a very strong right to be able to take your children out of town for a week would be a gross understatement. While there may be whistles and bells and stipulations, chances are the vacation is happening. As always, the particular facts and circumstances will dictate whether or not there should be strings attached, and if so, what strings, but chances are you are losing your anti-vacation argument, or at least compromising your position considerably.

2. No, there is not an absolute right to throw your child in the car and drive towards the sunset. Much like any other issue that involves co-parenting, there has to be a sharing of information. Both parties are entitled to know where their kids are, on vacation or otherwise. This is true whether they are in town or out of town. It is particularly true when crossing state lines, international boundaries, etc.

At a bare minimum, the other side should know where you are going, how you are getting there, and how you can be reached once you have arrived. Depending upon how much the parties trust each other, there could be more or less information that needs to be exchanged, like how often you will communicate with the children via phone, if there is to be Skyping, exactly what family members will be there, whether or not alcohol can be consumed, etc. Itineraries for flights should be exchanged, hotel address and phone number should be provided, and agreeing to send a text to confirm you arrived safely isn’t going to kill anyone.

3. Vacations are generally also a “good for the goose, good for the gander” situation. You would like to take a week’s vacation to the beach and you want to tell the other side that they can’t? Again, unless you are sharing custody with Charles Manson, they are getting the same vacation rights you are.

You will probably get the same vacation rights every year so long as you are sharing custody of your children. Some people need these to be memorialized and go into painstaking details in a formal agreement as to who gets to select their vacation dates first in odd years versus even years, how many days’ notice you must provide, how detailed your itinerary has to be, etc. But, again, you are going on vacation.

Quite frankly, in more than a decade of practice, I don’t know that I have ever seen a vacation request denied. Certainly not in a situation where someone has provided reasonable notice, has a reasonable plan and is willing to reasonably accommodate the concerns of the other side.

Noticing a theme about reasonableness here? It is the golden rule in custody arrangements between parties. Make reasonable requests, grant a reasonable permission, don’t pay $300 per hour to go have a judge decide whether or not your kid should get to go to Disney World. They probably already think that they do.

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