Joint Legal Custody Question

Wait? Wait! Wait!
Your last court date was 7 months ago. And your next date is tomorrow. So? That means you had 7 months to get a family law attorney? And you're now asking for legal advice from a place that has NO LEGAL EXPERTS that can legally provide law advice to you here. See the site's Terms of Service you had to claim to have read prior to starting your account here.



This is worse than waiting to write a 25 page paper for a college class and waiting to start on Midnight of the day it is due.

You really should have lawyer. This is pretty important. Sometimes you can get a lawyer to advise you without representing you. You have to pay per hour (the cheapest is $100/hour) but it wouldn't be that many hours to get much needed advice.

To answer the question about health insurance... It doesn't make sense for both parents to buy health insurance for the child (a child only needs to be covered once). In my case I provide the health insurance. This is part of our parenting agreement.

Is the court working with you? If you ask for help with parenting resources, it might help.

I am curious... why are you focusing on the "legal custody" (you don't need to answer this if it is too personal)?

Legal custody is the least important issue in my experience. Other than deciding where my daughter will go to school (which ended up being something we agreed about), and an brief disagreement about vaccinations (where I drew the line and her mother backed down)... legal custody isn't very important.

Far more important is the amount of time you can spend being a father to your daughter. You don't have many years to build this bond. Once they become teenagers... the issue of custody becomes less and less important (my daughter now decides for herself what she wants to do with which parent).

Make sure you can have as much quality time with your daughter as you can. During this time be a father, focus on your daughter, care for her, help her, do things that she likes to do.

There isn't that much time you get raising a child. Make sure whatever happens with legal custody that you make the most of this time.