How Can a Family Attorney Help With Child Custody Modifications?

Whenever a couple divorces, the main priority of the Texas courts is to protect the best interests of the child. This is why the court is reticent to make quick changes to a custody order. That order should already have been based on what the court firmly believes is best for the child, so you will have to prove that your request for modification remains in the child’s best interest. This is something you’ll want a lawyer to help you with.

Your lawyer will understand what the courts are looking for and will be able to help you decide the best modification to ask for and the right way to present it. Your lawyer will also help you with timing. In most cases, you have to wait a year before you can seek a modification to your custody orders, and even then, no change is likely to be granted unless there have been great changes to your life, the life of the other parent, or the child’s life.

These changes have to be “material and substantial,” and your lawyer will be able to tell you if your circumstances are likely to be seen that way by the court. Bear in mind, as well, that these big changes have to have occurred after the orders were made. If you want to request a modification, you can’t use evidence that was used originally, before the first order was put in place. You can only submit new evidence that applies since the order was sent down.

If you want to file a custody order before a year has passed, you will need to prove that the children are in immediate need of a change. This usually only happens if there has been a significant change in their home environment so that their physical or mental health is in real danger. For example, if the other parent responds to the divorce by falling into a depression and becoming an alcoholic, neglecting the children more and more along the way, this might very well be a case where you could request a modification early.

If one of you loses your job or gets remarried, this is probably not going to be a big enough change to warrant revisiting the modification order prior to that one-year deadline. After that one year, however, you can request a modification for things of this nature. It should go without saying that if you believe your children are in immediate danger, you should call the police. Call your lawyer as soon as you have done that. In some cases, your lawyer can help you to get a temporary restraining order as emergency relief from the court in these situations, until there’s time to investigate the matter more thoroughly.

Many parents are not aware that any request for a modification comes with the risk that you could leave the courtroom with an arrangement that you like even less than the one you went in with. In fact, you could not only end up with no change but also end up having to pay the other parent’s attorney fees if the court believes that your request has wasted everyone’s time.

This risk is highest if you have a custody schedule that has already been particularly personalized to your unique family situation. There are standard provisions for child custody that the court is always free to impose, but if parents can come to an agreement or need a special arrangement, the court is usually open to this. But if you go in to request a change to custody orders that have already been tailored to you, the risk is that the court will simply impose the standard terms, and things could get very difficult. This may happen if the court does not believe you have a very good reason to make this request, and one of the important things that your lawyer will do is protect you from making any requests that are likely to go badly for you.

Some custody modification requests are particularly difficult to bring. For example, if the court has put some kind of geographic restriction on the custody order, such as forbidding you to leave a certain county, it can be very difficult to get any change to this order. Texas law assumes that it is in the best interest of the child to maintain regular and consistent interaction with both parents, barring evidence that one of the parents should not be involved in the child’s life.

That means if you want to move out of the county, or out of state, or in any direction that might make it more difficult for the other parent to see the child regularly, it’s unlikely that the court is going to allow this. Just because you have a job offer that will allow you to make more money does not mean the court will automatically think the move is in the child’s best interest. You will really need to be able to show why it is, and a family law attorney is the one best placed to help you prove that.

Most people underestimate the enormous amount of evidence that is required in any case of this nature. You will need to be able to prove not just generally what you’re requesting but absolutely every detail along the way in the chain of an argument that shows why the modification is best. It’s important to listen to your lawyer to discover what evidence will be required, and then help them gather all of it.

Don’t be surprised if your lawyer asks you to start saving every email and text message having anything to do with the situation. You may also need correspondence from your child’s doctor, therapist, or school, and you may also be advised to start keeping a journal and marking things down on the calendar, as well as taking constant pictures. If your request ultimately comes down to your word against that of the other parent, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to get your modification. You’ll need to be able to show details, so listen to your lawyer and keep things organized. Your lawyer will be responsible to put all this evidence together into a cohesive and compelling story to prove exactly why your modification request is reasonable.