Divorces are often messy. Even when you thing the toughest part is done, another obstacle shortly pops up. After assets have been divided, custody has been awarded, and child support has been set up, visitation rights must be decided. Visitation is when the non-custodial parent visits their children. This can be every other weekend, once a month, or any other time period. Arrangements can be made between the parents but cannot be forced unless agreed upon in front of the court or a family law attorney.
Most lawyers and court systems encourage the parents to come to an agreement. If you cannot agree, they may require you to participate in some sort of mediation process to attempt a resolution. A third party such as a social worker may be used to help with the mediation process. When an agreement is not possible through mediation, the court makes the decision on visitation rights and the frequency of visits. The judge may require a mental evaluation to be performed on both of you.
Dragging this process out can be devastating to each contesting party and the children. One result is very high legal fees. The children are emotionally strained and confused. Sometimes a parent will be denied custodial or visitation rights. It is always better to work together and try to determine what is best for the children. If they have a great relationship with the non-custodial parent and they are close more frequent visits are better for the child. Strained relationships might need less frequent or supervised visits.
The child themselves can come between the visitation rights of the non-custodial parent and may refuse to see them. If this is happening, the issue should be discussed between the two of you so the parent with visitation rights knows it is the child’s choice and does not feel like the other parent is denying them their rights. If you automatically side with your child and visitation ceases, visitation rights can be enforced by the court. Even though it may be hard to discuss matters with your ex-spouse, discussing the children openly and dealing with visitation and custody problems together can decrease legal hassles and result in more positive and rewarding relationships between the children and both of their parents.
Any time the parent with primary custody prevents visitation from occurring it is called frustrated visitation rights. This can be innocent such as a sudden emergency during the visitation time. It can range all the way to very severe as in the parent skips state or country with the child. An act like this is considered kidnapping and is a criminal offense. Doing so intentionally can be grounds for the court to drastically modify or terminate the primary parent’s custody rights.
If you are currently dealing with visitation decisions due to a current divorce or are being denied your visitation rights, divorce lawyers can help with any matter relating to visitation. These types of lawyers can be used in cases where the non-custodial parent does not return the child after their visitation period.
By: Sarah Ballentine
While there are many different types of lawyers, attorneys who primarily deal with cases related to the legal relationships among family members are often called family lawyers, who are experts in the branch of civil law called family law. Family law usually varies from state to state and typically governs many aspects of family relationships, including those concerning husbands, wives, parents, children, and domestic partners.
While complications or problems between familial relationships are unfortunate, family members must abide by certain legal regulations and restrictions when trying to work out their problems. Family lawyers understand these regulations and represent clients who are facing family dilemmas or changes in cases concerning issues such as divorce, child support, child custody, and domestic violence. Family lawyers work to help their clients understand the laws that govern family relationships and help them attain a desirable outcome for their case.
A major portion of family law works to protect children. Many family attorneys are well-versed in child protection laws and deal with cases concerning child abuse and neglect as well as cases that deal with visitation rights, paternity, and custody of children. But not all of the services provided by family lawyers stem from negative situations. Family lawyers can also help clients handle legal matters concerning adoption and premarital agreements.
Family attorneys offer a wide array of services that all deal with the laws that govern certain aspects of family relationships. These lawyers can help you understand the family laws in your state and can work with you to resolve legal matters and achieve a positive outcome.
By: Ryan Coisson
Rafael and Marta are attorneys and work together in a law firm that practices family law. Like many lawyers, their practice involves representing individuals who need their services to solve a problem. They specialize in marketing to the Hispanic community. They make a good living but are not creating wealth through their business. Their story is the same as most lawyers. They bill by the hour and their income is therefore limited on a practical basis to the number of hours worked every week. Just as importantly, their income is also dependent on how many hours they work each week. If they don’t work, they don’t make any money. If they work less (or have less work available), they make less money. Likewise if they work more, they make more money.
Most of their clients come to them to solve a single problem and therefore represent a single transaction with little or no repeat business. That circumstance is an offshoot of the type of business that they are pursuing, family law. They focus on divorce work and most of their clients, thankfully are not repeat customers.
A constant challenge in their firm is acquiring new clients. Although both are the primary cogs in generating new business for the firm, they are also the primary cogs in the operation of their client attraction system. Like many other lawyers, they find that when they have time to market, they are able to fill their pipeline with new business. They then are tied up handling that new business and do not have time to market for new business.
They do the same thing that most attorneys in their situation do. They have a large yellow pages ad under the theory that people getting divorced will look to the yellow pages for a lawyer. What a great way to find a lawyer! Their ads look just about the same as every other lawyer’s ad and are just as expensive.
They also get referrals from their friends and other lawyers. They have worked at developing relationships with the people who will come in contact with people at the time they are looking for a divorce lawyer. This system has worked fairly well and they have had a steady clientele for some time. They also have a very good reputation.
They still have a major problem. Being busy with clients all the time still is not getting them any type of financial independence. They do well but they cannot make enough extra money to truly create wealth.
Their business starts all over again every month. They find new clients, service the clients, pay the bills, and then start all over again. Marta has joked that she wished she had become a singer so that she could just cash her royalty checks and occasionally record new songs. There is no passive income in their law firm as it is structured.
Rafael is also concerned about their exit strategy. Although they are only in their early forties, they struggle with saving enough to provide for retirement. He has known far too many lawyers who could never quit. They lived well and had good income, far better than most people, but like most people, most of the income was spent on living well. So retirement is a question mark. He also wonders what will happen to the firm they have built. They have tried to hire new lawyers and train them. What they found was that they then had a third job as trainer, in addition to marketer and worker. As a result, they have not developed other attorneys who might become the purchasers of their practice as an exit strategy. There is another problem with that scenario in that the income of the practice is dependent upon their being at their desks or in court every day. The only thing they really have to sell is the income stream from their billable hours. Unless another lawyer buys the practice to gain access to their clients and billings (and takes over their desks and court appearances), there really is nothing to sell except their jobs. Their law firm, structured as it is, is not a business, it is really just two jobs. The market for selling jobs is very limited and not very lucrative.
They both know Diego who used to practice family law. He now works from his home, having closed his practice. Over lunch the other day, Diego told them that he had started a non-law business as his exit strategy part-time several years ago. He wanted an income stream that was not dependent on the number of hours that he worked and did not require him to fight with people every day. Curious about how that would work, they have scheduled another lunch with Diego to find out how an Hispanic attorney can start their own business and make more than they were making as a lawyer.
By: James Montgomery
