New Year Signals Start of New Child Custody Rules

When the New Year rolls around, significant new rules for child custody cases will apply to new filings. This comes on the heels of major recent child support changes, with which we are all still struggling! Some of what has been enacted is helpful, but the parenting plans are a nightmare.

Changes to child elections of custody have been long overdue. Currently, a child who turns 11 years old has the right to talk to a judge about custody; once the child turns 14 years old, the child has virtually an unfettered and absolute right to choose between the parents.

Closed Courtroom Sought for Quets Custody Hearing

The adoptive parents of twins kidnapped by their birth mother last year are asking that a Wake District Court judge close the courtroom to the public for a custody and visitation hearing being held in two weeks.

Lawyers for Denise and Kevin Needham, an Apex couple, filed a motion asking that a Jan. 2 child custody and visitation hearing in Wake County’s family court be closed to the public because of extensive media coverage in the case.

Family Law

Child custody cases take place in our court system every day. But lately, the process has become a bit more difficult. The problem stems from a new law passed earlier this year. It dictates what the state will pay lawyers who accept these cases, sometimes unwillingly. Now a local judge is speaking out against the new program.

The state legislature changed system for compensating attorneys that represent parents at a child custody hearing this summer. The pay in a case works out to $13.13 an hour. Lawmakers significantly reduced the amount of compensation was and created the Office of Regional Council to help cover the cases.

Custody rules 'exposing children to war zones' - National - theage.com.au

In a finding that challenges the Howard government's changes to child custody laws, new research has found that children aged under 10 can be emotionally harmed by shared-parenting arrangements in many families.

Where parents cannot co-operate and remain hostile towards each other, shared-parenting arrangements can result in a higher-than-normal rate of clinical anxiety in the children, the research found.

Hasselhoff, Ex-wife Agree on Child Custody

David Hasselhoff and ex-wife Pamela Bach have agreed on post-divorce terms that include joint custody of their teenage daughters, Hasselhoff's attorney confirmed.

The former 'Baywatch' star and Bach divorced in August 2006 after more than 16 years of marriage. After months of negotiating custody and financial arrangements, a deal was struck Friday, attorney Melvin Goldsman said Tuesday.

Stuck Together: Inside the Modern Divorce

Martha McCarthy, who has been practising family law for more than 15 years, says "You cannot agree to anything on a temporary basis that you wouldn't be willing to live with in the long term."

And so, she explains, for anyone who seeks some sort of serious child custody arrangement or desires sole custody of children, relinquishing any bit of ground in the household arrangement -- even temporarily -- is simply out of the question.

Grant Gold, another family law lawyer who has a surprising number of clients who continue to live together for increasingly long periods of time, says he tells those who say they cannot stand living in the matrimonial home that "what you lose by getting out is the ability to get back in in a hurry.… I don't want anybody leaving until there are arrangements in place for kids, for money; if you're the dad, I don't want you leaving until we have visitation nailed down."

Only 2.3% of Israeli Divorced Dads Have Custody?!

A new Israeli parliamentary subcommittee is holding hearings on fathers' rights and child custody. It is claimed in the hearing that only 2.3 percent of divorced men in Israel have custody of their children--amazing.

On Your Own in Domestic Court

Annette Morgan, 41, is no stranger to the domestic court system. She can use terms like "remand" and "guardian ad litem," describe how proceedings for child custody work in practice, and discuss eloquently the problem of not having any records kept during domestic court hearings.

But like many involved in domestic court, she is not a lawyer and doesn't even have a college degree. She's learned because she's had to, having struggled for the last two years to change a permanent custody order that bars her from seeing her son.