A divorce is something that nobody wants to happen but when it does, many are eager to move on with their lives. It’s a fact of life that some people are not compatible and eventually have to go their separate ways for one reason or another. When there are children involved, however, things get very complicated. Before you can move on you have to sort out the custody of the child.
If you want to have full custody then you have to do things to make sure that you can convince the judge that this is the best option for your child. It takes the right strategy to have this happen so you can then truly move on in a way that is best for you and your child. In this article, we will go over several tips to help you refine your strategy to be able to get full custody in a divorce.
1 – Keep detailed records
When you go for a consultation with your family law attorney Utah, it is helpful to have a lot of information that they will use to build a case for full custody. The more that you give them the more solid a case they can bring before the judge.
You should be keeping detailed records from before you even filed for divorce so that you have all your bases covered. The types of records you should be collecting are logs of every phone call from your soon-to-be ex-spouse. Text messages are also important as email. This will build up a story about what the relationship was like and can often contradict things that they may say before the judge that will hurt their case.
There should also be records of all the times that it was you who had to do things to take care of the child and not your ex. This should include every time you had to bring your child to the doctor or pick them up early from school when they were sick.
There are times when you have records that show that your ex did things that were not in the interest of your child or were actually harmful such as illegal activity or neglectful behavior.
All of these things will show the judge that you are the one responsible for the well-being of your child and it makes sense for you to have full custody.
2 – Have your finances in order
Your finances are going to be important on two different fronts. The first is that you will need to pay the costly fees for lawyers and associated expenses for the divorce and custody hearings. It is important that you can either move some funds around or have a way to get some to make sure that you can pay the bills.
The other front is that you will need to show the judge that you are financially capable of taking care of your child on your own. If you get full custody, there will certainly be an award of child support payments from your ex. However, you should show that you can handle the care of your child on your own in case they fail to fulfill their obligation.
