Legal battles over child custody are often extremely difficult. If you’re entering one, a good lawyer can help you resolve it.
Getting divorced is one of the most difficult things that you may have to undertake in your life. In addition to the emotional component of losing your partner and closest confidant, new divorcees also have to deal with numerous legal and logistical concerns. Sorting out property ownership is one such example.
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Custody battles can get especially messy, and they often require legal counsel. Perhaps the toughest part of all is making decisions about the custody of your children.
Unlike a house or a car, a child is a living thing with their own thoughts, feelings and emotional attachments. For this reason, custody battles can get especially messy, and it often requires legal counsel to resolve one.
If you’re going through this ordeal yourself, you already know that it’s not easy. The good news is that finding the right legal representation can be a huge step toward overcoming the difficulties you’re facing.
The difficulty of finding agreement
When you’re going through a divorce, there’s always a complicated process for sorting through all of your old marital assets and deciding who gets what. When disagreements arise along the way, you might have to bring in a property lawyer to resolve them.
But where children are concerned, it’s a little more complicated than that. Your children’s well-being depends on where they live and who’s looking after them, so it’s important to find a solution that’s best for their needs. Ideally, you and your ex-spouse would be able to sit down and agree upon a strategy that suits your children. If you can’t reach such an agreement on your own, however, the law may have to intervene.
According to the Family Court of Australia, what you may need is a parenting order – a court-mandated arrangement for parenting your kids that spells out the specific terms for what will happen. Such an order will include where the kids live, whom they live with, how much time they spend with any other legal guardians and what responsibilities each parent has. Plan A is always to decide these things on your own, but if that doesn’t work, the courts are a reliable backup plan.
Gearing up for a custody battle
If you do have to go to court and fight for custody of your children, it might be a messy situation. Just as with battling for enduring powers of attorney, getting child custody is a matter of proving you’re competent and up to the challenge of raising a child.
Legal battles over custody can get contentious. In a court of law, these debates tend to centre around the key indicators of a parent’s competence – their disposition, relationships with the kids, employment situation, physical health, mental health and so on. If one parent is significantly better off in these areas than the other, they’re sure to have the legal upper hand.
It’s unwise to go into this legal battle unprepared. If you’re getting ready to fight for custody, you may need a lawyer to help document your case and present it in court.
Work with our children’s issues legal team
No one ever wants to get into a bitter dispute over child custody, but if you do, you should probably find a family lawyer in Brisbane who’s well versed in children’s issues and can help you draw up a strategy for addressing them.
At McCarthy Durie Lawyers, we have a whole department of such lawyers. Our children’s issues team is equipped to handle a wide variety of issues including custody, visitation rights, child support and other parenting arrangements. Our goal is to make sure the needs of parent and child are met, and we’ll do everything we can legally to make that happen.
To discuss your individual situation with our Family Law team, contact McCarthy Durie Lawyers
on 07 3370 5100 or fill out the contact form here.
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