Child Custody and Visitation Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota

What are the biggest challenges you face in handling a custody dispute?

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00:04
the biggest challenge is the conflict
00:06
between the parents
00:07
and the more adversarial the parents are
00:10
the more difficult
00:12
child custody cases are to resolve the
00:15
more controversial there are the more
00:17
resistant one of the parents is to
00:19
coming up with
00:21
a parenting plan and parenting time in
00:24
custody in the best interests of both
00:25
the children the more likely that
00:27
there’s going to be a trial
00:31
it’s more likely that you’re going to be
00:33
doing discovery
00:35
and
00:35
when that
00:37
kind of
00:38
course of action when that kind of case
00:40
management pattern comes up
00:43
there are other tools that we often have
00:45
to engage that can be very expensive for
00:47
instance
00:49
we have custody and parenting time
00:51
evaluations
00:53
and these are
00:55
studies done by a consulting sociologist
00:58
or psychologist
00:59
who will
01:01
do extensive research they will observe
01:04
the children with both parents in both
01:06
parents care they will visit
01:09
each a parent’s home they will speak to
01:11
the teachers they will speak to the
01:13
doctors if there are psychologists
01:15
involved they’ll speak to them
01:16
they will do exhaustive research talking
01:19
to to friends of the family even and
01:21
other family members to try to drill
01:23
down and see what the real circumstances
01:26
and facts are regarding um
01:28
the history of the each parent’s
01:30
involvement in the child and and their
01:32
ability to parent
01:34
sometimes there there might even be a
01:37
custody and parenting time evaluator
01:39
might order a psychological evaluation
01:41
of one or both of the parents if there’s
01:43
a suspicion of chemical dependency they
01:46
will order
01:48
what’s called a rule 25 chemical
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dependency assessment
01:51
and
01:53
they will also order uh hair follicle
01:55
tests and fingernail tests to see if
01:58
that parent is is using
02:00
so
02:01
those types of
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of consulting arrangements come into
02:05
play they’re very expensive and they
02:08
take time if your child custody case
02:12
is very contentious it could take
02:15
a very long time to get a final
02:17
resolution
02:18
now fortunately
02:20
there are temporary emotions
02:23
so i’ll give you an example of a case i
02:25
just had uh there was um
02:27
a couple of
02:28
parents
02:30
uh they had a child between them they
02:32
were never married the existing
02:34
parenting time was
02:37
equal parenting time
02:39
all of a sudden
02:40
the mother who was not my client decided
02:43
that father really shouldn’t be seeing
02:45
the child that much and started
02:47
withholding parenting time we went to
02:49
mediation
02:51
uh mediation didn’t resolve it the
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opposing counsel advised her client not
02:56
to accept the the agreements that were
02:58
proposed
03:00
and so we had to file a temporary motion
03:03
we filed a temporary motion and within
03:05
two months of the mediation we were
03:07
before a judge and the judge
03:09
looked at all the facts looked at all
03:11
the allegations of
03:13
of
03:14
interference with medical care medical
03:17
treatment issues with the father’s house
03:20
my client’s house
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and
03:22
we filed very detailed pleadings
03:26
and after a brief conversation with the
03:27
judge the judge
03:29
ordered equal parenting time
03:31
so even though we don’t have a final
03:33
disposition within two or three months
03:35
this father is back to ground one ground
03:38
zero where he started out having equal
03:40
parenting time with his son and i’m very
03:42
confident that if this case goes to
03:45
trial which now in light of that ruling
03:47
it may not
03:48
we’ll be able to keep that order in
03:51
place
03:52
and of course
03:54
the court ordered one of those custom
03:56
custody and parenting time evaluations
03:58
that i talked about before and so that’s
04:00
going to be the next step of the process
04:02
but meanwhile there is a way to get to
04:04
see your children pretty early on in a
04:06
case if somebody is keeping them away
04:09
from you

Minneapolis, MN family law attorney Michael Fink talks about the biggest challenges faced in handling a custody dispute.

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