the law in that area is very interesting

as well and they’re called either

relocation cases or move away cases and

it could happen in a situation where

parents

share 50 50 custody

or one parent has 70 percent custody and

the other parent has 30 percent custody

but let’s assume that the custodial

parent or one parent wants to relocate

well the court’s going to first

determine is that parent moving for

good reasons or are they moving just to

interfere

with the relationship so assuming

there’s a good faith reason for the move

then the court addresses all the factors

that bear on a child’s best interest in

relocating or not so in a relocation or

a move away case the court has to assume

that dad is living in one geographical

area and mother is living in another

geographical area and then a decision

has to be made

based upon lots of different factors

such as the child’s age their

developmental needs their relationship

with each parent the parents

relationship

with each child and with one another the

child’s relationship to the community

they’re living in where they’re moving

to

the distance whether if they’re moving

out of the country

is there going to be a cultural

difference in a language difference so

there is a whole host of factors that

the court needs to address and weigh

very carefully in deciding what’s in a

child’s best interest so those cases can

be extraordinarily heart-wrenching

because a parent even if they have

30 percent custody if a parent is going

to move to another country it’s going to

dramatically change that relationship

but sometimes a parent needs to move

because of a

new marriage or new relationship or a

new job or for the support of their

family so all those things have to be

balanced and with respect to

the non-custodial parent and the parent

that is left behind the court needs to

accommodate that parent so the parent

can maintain

a relationship with the child

so the one piece of advice i can give to

parents that do seek to move away

is

if you want to move away have a very

good reason to want to move and make

sure that you were able to demonstrate

to the court that you will facilitate

the relationship with the non-custodial

parent

if you are successful in moving away the

worst thing you could do is to go to

court and to bad mouth that parent

especially if there’s not good

justification to do that because that is

going to significantly reduce your

chances of getting custody

but with that being said those are one

of my favorite cases to try because

they’re factually intensive and they’re

interesting and you really get a lot of

insight into

the family and the dynamics of the

family