How To Make Family Court As Painless As Possible

Posted on July 24, 2013 by About The Children LLC — Leave a comment

Make It Easy On Yourself

A lot of people who have gone through the family court process can tell you that you really get put through the ringer during a child custody or divorce case. The task ahead of a single parent going through family court can seem daunting and near impossible to deal with if you’re an average American with a job, or maybe two, a car payment, social obligations and the myriad other things that occupy our time as busy 21^st century people besides being a parent on top of all of that. If you’re like most people, you don’t have the time or can’t afford to take time off of work to deal with stuff like this. Obviously your family issue needs to be handled and you can’t just walk away from the problem. Not showing up to your court date for whatever reason, not filing on time or not exploiting the right resources to get what you need can affect the outcome of your case in a way that could be less than pleasant and not reflect what you think is best for the child. Here are some ways to make things more manageable for you and your family.

Can’t We All Just Get Along? Not all family issues need to transcend the legal barrier; meaning that not all custody or visitation issues need to go through the legal system. This can take the form of mediation or just you and your ex grabbing a cup of coffee and hammering out the details like a couple of adults. In most cases, this is a sensible option because it not only promotes positive and constructive communication between you and the other parent but it also saves a lot of time and money that would otherwise be spent in attorney’s offices, court rooms and such. Every choice has its negative consequence though. Settling out of court, while great if you guys can just talk about it and figure it out (this also helps to not get your child in the middle of all this and upset them), leaves things wide open to happen all over again. Essentially, without a court order signed by a judge, there’s no guarantee that the issue of custody or visitation won’t keep coming up; some ex wives or husbands are harder to deal with than others, some of you may be saying that that’s the understatement of the century.

Get The Right Kind Of Help. A good way to bog down your case and endanger the amount of custody you get if the judge is presiding over this issue is to not fill things out correctly and/or represent yourself inadequately. Don’t make the mistake of forgoing getting assistance with stuff because of some misplaced notion of pride; everyone needs help sometime or another and court documents can easily be misread of not prepared properly, especially if you’ve never done this before. It’s easy to say to yourself, “how hard could it be right?”. It’s important to not underestimate the gravity of the situation you are in especially if you’re fighting another parent that you believe is not properly representing the child’s best interests and leaning more towards their own interests. Take some time and think about the best court of action. There are tons of services for parents going through this kind of thing. The internet is a great resource to find service, organizations and legal professionals that can help you with your family legal issue.

Get started at –> www.AboutTheChildren.org

1 (800) 787-4981