Reply to 50/50 not the norm nationwide

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "50/50 not the norm nationwide"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The reason the judge let her move the kids to a new school district is because she's moving closer to extended family, who will help her as a newly single mother. [/quote]

This is a silly reason as she's not exactly a single mother as there is a father involved who can share responsibility.  Reality is the court is bias to mom's via child support and giving mom full custody or more than 50-50 is about her income.[/quote]

But the judge did not award full custody. They have as close to a 50-50 split as you can get when the parents live in different school districts. OP has the kids every single weekend plus the majority of the holidays and 50% of the summer. Sounds like the judge worked really hard to come up with a plan that ensured the kids were doign to spend as much time with OP as with his ex. He has them for full days on weekend and holidays. On school days she won't even be with them most of the day. I don't see how you can argue that the custody award is particularly biased.

OP is upset about the kids being moved to the school district his ex chose and I get that -- I wouldn't be happy about that either. But she also fought harder for it. She got a lawyer and made an argument in court about WHY the kids should be in the other district based on family support. Did OP make an argument? What was it? OP could have at a minimum hired a lawyer to stand up for him in court and articulate the argument. He chose not to. That's going to bias the judge because they can only make a decision based on what arguments are presented.

If OP think this only happens to men in family court he is wrong. I clerked for a family court judge for 2 years. I saw many awards go in the dad's favor because he showed up to court with an attorney or a better attorney who made a better argument. It sucks because yes you need to understand the system and how to make the argument in a way the judge can justify in their decision. I also worked for a free legal clinic for a time and this is something we did with people who came in -- helped them understand how to frame their arguments in a way that gave the judge a *legal* reason to rule in their favor. Laypeople often go into court and think it's about convincing the judge who is the best person or parent or trying to litigate their entire marriage. None of that is useful to the judge and if you do it the judge is likely to get frustrated because it's a waste of their time. Only certain facts and arguments are relevant to their decision and you have to know how to just present those in a dispassionate way that makes it clear you are cooperative and focused on the child's interests. Unfortunately this is much easier for a lawyer to do. So people with lawyers are always better off in an adversarial family court hearing unless the facts are very obviously against them. Usually both sides have facts in their favor though and it's not obvious who is in the right.[/quote]

great post. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics