Posts Tagged ‘Child Custody Modification’

Common misconceptions about multi-state custody jurisdiction

At least a few times each month I receive a phone call or email from someone involved in a multi-state child custody case.  Since I deliberately restrict my practice to South Carolina, generally these folks get referred elsewhere.  However in communicating with these multi-state custody litigants, I perceive that they are frequently receiving inaccurate information, [...]

When to file a contested marital dissolution action before negotiating and when not to request a temporary hearing when filing a contested family court case

It is my experience that most family law attorneys in South Carolina reflexively file a motion for temporary relief when filing a contested family court action or fail to file a marital dissolution action when they hope to negotiate a separation agreement.  Yet I know of two good reasons (there may be others) to file [...]

New Frequently Asked Questions

The ability to easily add pages to my web site combined with the increasing understanding that many clients and potential clients ask me similar questions that cannot easily be explained orally and can best be convincingly explained in writing and with hypertext links has inspired a flurry of Frequently Asked Question drafting.  Basically, when I [...]

Easy clients/hard clients

A spouse or parent walks into an attorney’s office with a “relationship” problem: he isn’t getting along with his wife and wants out of the marriage; she and the child’s father disagree over how much time he should spend with that child.  Such problems don’t have an obvious or correct solution; rather, to resolve them [...]

New Frequently Asked Question on Relocation

It’s very basic but any attorney or parent seeking a simple explanation of South Carolina law on custodial parent relocation is directed to this new FAQ: How Does the Family Court Decide Whether to Allow a Custodial Parent to Relocate with the Children?

Finding my religion

It does not take a cynic to note a high correlation between people becoming involved in custody cases and “finding religion.” So long as judges confuse religion with morality and morality [the duties we owe God] with ethics [the duties we owe each other], there are advantages to be had in family court by claiming newly-found [...]

Small small victory

An appeal I handled for a local colleague, Douglas Barker, resulted in a published opinion today (July 29, 2009) from the Court of Appeals in Spreeuw v. Barker, 385 S.C. 45, 682 S.E.2d 843 (Ct. App. 2009).  It represents a small, perhaps Pyrrhic, victory.  Ms. Spreeuw did not prevail in a single issue in her [...]

Court of Appeals renders first published post-Latimer decision on relocation

Our [South Carolina] Court of Appeals rarely prohibited a parent from relocating with a child (at least in the opinions it published) when our Supreme Court had a presumption against relocation.  So it’s not surprising that, in its first reported relocation decision since the Supreme Court removed the presumption against relocation in Latimer v. Farmer, [...]