Child Custody, Visitation, & Support

• Child Custody, Visitation, & Support
• Marital Property & Debt
• High Income & Complex Divorces
• Military Divorces

For child custody, the court must act in the best interests of the child.  If the child is 12 years of age or older, their opinion on who they would like to live with must be heard by the judge and if the judge rules against the wishes of the child, there must be a clear reason why.  Parents can do shared parenting which usually splits the time between the two parents, or a party can be awarded standard visitation which is a minimum amount of time a parent can have custody of the minor child.  There are countless other ways to structure child custody and visitation, but only in rare cases will a court not allow, at least, standard visitation.

For child support, this is relatively simple.  Oklahoma uses child support guidelines to compute how much one party must pay another.  Child support is not dischargerable in bankruptcy.  Also, failure to pay child support can have wide-ranging repercussions including garnishment, loss of driving privileges, loss of hunting licenses and inability to get a passport.  A party can also get cited for contempt for failure to pay, and could conceivably be put in jail for up to six months (although courts are reluctant to do this because a party in jail cannot pay child support).

If you have an Oklahoma custody, Oklahoma visitation, or an Oklahoma support related case, call our office today for a free consultation.