Legal Decision-Making & Parenting Time

Legal decision-making can be sole or joint. Joint legal decision-making means both parents share the right to make major decisions about the child's education, healthcare, and religious upbringing. Sole legal decision-making grants one parent that authority exclusively.

Courts consider each parent's ability to cooperate and communicate with the other, the child's relationship with each parent, and any history of domestic violence or substance abuse, among other factors. Joint legal decision-making is common but not automatic — it requires that the parents be able to work together in the child's interest.

We help clients understand what legal decision-making arrangement is realistic given their circumstances and advocate for the arrangement that best serves their children.

Parenting time schedules vary widely depending on the family's circumstances, the children's ages and needs, each parent's work schedule, and the parents' proximity to one another. Common arrangements include equal parenting time, primary residence with one parent and regular parenting time with the other, and various hybrid schedules.

We help clients develop realistic, workable parenting plans that reflect the children's actual needs and each parent's circumstances. When parents cannot agree, we present your case to the court with the evidence and arguments needed to support the arrangement you are seeking.

Parenting plans must address not only the regular schedule but also holidays, school breaks, vacations, and procedures for handling disputes and schedule changes. A well-drafted parenting plan reduces future conflict by addressing these issues in advance.

When a parent with significant parenting time wants to relocate with the children — whether within Arizona or out of state — Arizona law imposes specific notice requirements and, if the other parent objects, requires court approval. The court considers whether the relocation is in the children's best interests.

Relocation disputes can be among the most contentious in family law. We represent both parents seeking to relocate and parents opposing relocation, with a clear-eyed approach to the legal standards and the evidence that matters.

Custody and parenting time orders can be modified when there has been a substantial and continuing change in circumstances since the last order was entered. The bar for modification is intentionally high — courts want stability for children — but genuine changes in circumstances do warrant revisiting existing orders.

We help clients evaluate whether their situation meets the threshold for modification and build the strongest possible case for the change they are seeking.