Ramsey County Child Custody Attorneys

Ramsey County Child Custody Attorneys

Child custody matters are primary concerns for any parent facing them. When your parental rights are on the line, it’s no time to take things into your own hands. Turn to an experienced Ramsey County child custody attorney for the professional legal guidance you’re looking for. 

Child Custody in Minnesota

In Minnesota, child custody involves parents hammering out a parenting plan between themselves – or looking to the court to do it for them if they are unable to find a middle ground. This includes both legal custody, or decision-making authority, and physical custody, or the parenting time schedule that determines how the parents will divide their overnights with the children. 

Legal Custody

Parenting carries immense responsibilities – not the least of which is making important decisions that set the stage for your children’s futures. Legal custody determines how you and your children’s other parent will address this undertaking. The kinds of decisions that need to be made include all the following:

• Decisions about your children’s schooling or daycare
• Decisions about your children’s extracurricular activities
• Decisions about your children’s religious upbringing
• Decisions about the health care your children receive

You and your ex can make these decisions between yourselves, or one of you can take on sole legal custody. Other options include one of you being granted the authority to break a tie if your attempts to reach a consensus falter or dividing the decisions between the two of you according to the topic. 

Physical Custody

Physical custody sets your parenting time schedule, which determines all of the following:

• Each parent’s scheduled overnights with the children
• Pickups and drop-offs
• The summer break schedule 
• The schedule that applies for vacations, holidays, and birthdays

If you’re not able to devise a schedule that you both can agree to, the court will provide you with one of its standard parenting time schedules. All such schedules, however, fall into one of the following two groups:

• One of you has the children for the majority of overnights and becomes the primary custodial parent.
• You and your ex share your overnights with the kids more evenly. 

Preserving the Best Interests of the Children

When Minnesota courts are called upon to hand down child custody rulings, the children’s best interests always prevail. Toward this end, they take best interest factors like the following into consideration:

• Each child’s needs, including any special needs
• Each parent’s ability to attend to these needs
• Each parent’s unique relationship with each of the children
• Each parent’s willingness to support the other’s ongoing relationship with the children
• Each parent’s willingness to cooperate with the other – in a display of support for the children

Reach Out to an Experienced Ramsey County Child Custody Attorney Today

The compassionate child custody attorneys at Atticus Family Law in Ramsey County have an impressive reputation for skillfully guiding challenging cases like yours toward optimal outcomes that support our client’s rights, and we’re here for you, too. For more information about how we can help, please don’t put off contacting us today.