How To Modify Your Child Custody and Visitation

Goosmann Law Firm : 0:01

Do complex legal issues hold you back. Let's get energized and bring clarity to your top legal questions. This is Law Talk with the Flock by Goosmann Law Firm.

Jeana Goosmann : 0:30

Hello, I'm your host, Jeana Goosmann CEO, and managing attorney of the Goosmann Law Firm, author and business leader. Here to help navigate you and your life as a leader and your way through the law. I'm excited to have with me today, my guest, Emily, Maurice, who's a Goosmann Law Firm attorney that focuses on family law and employment law. Emily, welcome to the podcast.

Emily Maurice: 0:51

Thank you, Jeana.

Jeana Goosmann : 0:53

We are going to talk about some family law issues today that frequently end up being involved with some of our business owner clients, because at Goosmann, while we focus on business, we also have people behind those businesses and people have families and with families comes legal issues, right? Emily,

Emily Maurice: 1:09

Correct all the time.

Jeana Goosmann : 1:12

And we we'd like to be able to help them as a full service firm. And you provide a great service to those clients, Emily and I wanted to touch base with some of those issues today.

Emily Maurice: 1:22

Okay. That sounds great.

Jeana Goosmann : 1:24

Okay. Let's talk first about when somebody should call their attorney.

Emily Maurice: 1:28

You should call your attorney whenever you feel that there is an issue that needs to be addressed with whatever family law matter might be coming your way, especially when it comes to custody or visitation. If you're having problems, if you feel that there is a reason that you need to change custody or change the visitation schedule if something's come up in your business and you feel that your personal life needs to more closely match your business life, you should definitely pick up the phone and call your attorney.

Jeana Goosmann : 1:58

Very good. So lots of different circumstances can arise. And in particular, when people have kids, what sort of issues arise then?

Emily Maurice: 2:06

Oh my goodness. You can have issues arising from one parent, not being willing to pick the kid up from school or the parent not dropping the kid off. During visitation time, we saw a lot of that during COVID where there were a lot of custody disputes over someone keeping the kid because they believed that they needed the 14 day quarantine. We had a lot of issues come up with that one. Otherwise you see just basically even the run of the mill where you just, you know, mom and dad may not have been married at the time and they want to have something in writing because maybe mom or dad is looking at getting remarried and they want to be able to set a schedule for the child to be able to have both parents involved in their lives. So there's any number of things, um, that can come up in relation to custody and visitation issues.

Jeana Goosmann : 2:59

How about grandparents? Cause some of our business owners are grandparents and then they have issues too with their grandchildren. What can we do in those circumstances?

Emily Maurice: 3:07

So specifically for South Dakota, there's actually a statute that permits grandparents to go to a court and ask for visitation. And a court can grant grandparents visitation and great grandparents visitation. It's not just limited to grandparents in South Dakota, so you can go to the court and you can say, you know, I haven't seen my grandkids in a while. I do really want to see them, you know, can I, can I get something in writing that allows me to visit my grandkids for a certain amount of time every month or every year or whatever works for your schedule? Typically courts will look at if you've actually been denied that time. Because a lot of times, you know, you would hope that parents would want to have grandparents involved in their grandkids lives and you know, just keep all of that communication and all of that learning from generation to generation going. Um, but sometimes you get those disputes and you may have to go to a court and be able to try and get something in writing just to enforce the fact that you really, really want to be a fun grandparent,

Jeana Goosmann : 4:12

Lots of different family dynamics out there. Aren't there. Emily, when you're thinking about the children, how can the legal system, interplay with actually benefiting the kids?

Emily Maurice: 4:23

So whenever you have a custody issue in front of a court, they are always looking at the best interest of the children. A lot of times clients will get the best interests of the children, confused with what they feel as mom or dad is the best thing for the kid. And there comes a lot of conflict and looking at it that way. And that's why you bring the court in to be able to look at what does this child need for emotional support, for stability in their life. When things are not stable, what do they need for financial support? What is this, what does this child need to become a better functioning adult in the future and be able to contribute to society? The court will take into account a number of factors in determining a custody case, but the best interest of the child is always center at what the court is considering.

Jeana Goosmann : 5:17

And you mentioned earlier, South Dakota law and family law really is state specific, isn't it?

Emily Maurice: 5:22

Oh yes, it is. It can vary from South Dakota to Iowa, to Nebraska, you know exactly where the Goosmann Law Firm is. We have different statutes and different case law to follow in every single state.

Jeana Goosmann : 5:35

And how about if somebody wants to move from one location to the other parent wants to relocate what happens then?

Emily Maurice: 5:43

So it's, you know, the quintessential law school answer. It depends if you already have, if you already have a stipulation in place, a lot of times there'll be certain steps that you have to follow for filing a notice of and saying where you're moving, why you're moving there, why you think it's in the best interest of the child to move there. But other times you may not have that stipulation in place. So you don't always quite know what to do. That's the best time to reach out to an attorney and say, Hey, I'm relocating for this job. Do I need to provide, notice? What do I need to do? And a lot of times you can even just reach out to the other side and say, I'm planning to move. Are you, do you have a problem with this? Do we need to bring this before court? And sometimes parents have a problem with it. And sometimes they don't. It often depends on how far away you're moving and how much that impacts the visitation schedule that you either have through the court or that you have agreed just verbally too.

Jeana Goosmann : 6:42

Lots of things to keep in mind as you're dealing with these different family dynamics and how can you help them?

Emily Maurice: 6:49

I can help them with all of this. I can help them from the beginning of just saying, what's your starting point? What do you already have in place all the way through getting the stipulation drafted, going through the custody evaluation, to the point where you already have a stipulation in place you've already been to trial, you've already done all of that. And now you think that something's not quite right and we may need to fix it. Or if you're a grandparent and you haven't seen your grandkids and you want to be able to see them, We take on a whole host of family law matters here. And we can do everything from very simple, not as uncontested to court battles. That'll take two years to finalize

Jeana Goosmann : 7:32

You bet in some of those court battles take longer to when they have other assets in play and businesses that might need to get separated in a divorce proceeding or something like that.

Emily Maurice: 7:41

Oh yes, of course. And a lot of people take into account, you know, the, the child support that's going to be paid into it. And then how does that affect the business function? Um, and then the visitation time and how does that affect what I can contribute to my business for this, what I can contribute. You know, as strictly parenting time.

Jeana Goosmann : 8:00

Lots of things to keep in mind as trying to go forward and raise those kids in these different dynamics. And especially in 2020, when we get lots of other things thrown at us too. How have you seen COVID impact family law?

Emily Maurice: 8:14

Um, well, like I mentioned before, we saw a lot of the, my kid needs to be quarantined for 14 days and, you know, mom or dad's not dropping them off for visitation. You know, so we've seen, we've kind of seen the two extremes. We've seen either the quarantine for 14 days and the other parents not seeing the kid or we see the, Hey, we need to be overly communicative. Now we need to talk about everything. We need to know where the kid's going. Does the kid have enough masks? Are they, you know, having proper hygiene, you know, at, at each place. Um, and now what we're getting into is school and this, our kids actually going to school? Are they distance learning? If they're are distance and we're 50 50, and one parent has a job, how has that parent with the job supposed to homeschool during that week time period that they have their child? Um, so there's a lot of different dynamics going on with the COVID situation. And it's pretty much kind of like how the States are operating. We just don't know day-to-day, what's going to be the next best step. And we just, you know, we try and keep in mind what is best for these children and raising them into great adults in the future. And as attorneys, we just look to see how we can help our clients achieve that goal with them.

Jeana Goosmann : 9:31

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Emily, for sharing your insight into these child support and modification and family law issues. We really appreciate your, your wisdom and your sharing with everybody today on those topics.

Emily Maurice: 9:44

Great. Thank you, Gina. I appreciate it.

Jeana Goosmann : 9:46

Excellent for our listeners out there. Go make it worth it.

Goosmann Law Firm : 9:51

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