Legal Question in Family Law in California

There is no such thing. Every case is unique, You would have to contact an attorney near your location and go over the specific facts of your case. Some custody cases are very straight forward, and others involve a lot of complications.

BARRY BESSER

www.besserlaw.com

I agree with Barry.

I agree with Mr. Besser and Ms. Kock, and write only to provide a little more information. It is illegal for family law attorneys to take a case on contingency, meaning pay based on results. Therefore all family law matters are handled either flat fee or hourly. Flat fee only works for very simple cases where pretty much all that will be done is paperwork, such as to make an agreement between divorcing spouses legal, or a simple adoption. The most common hourly rate I hear about among my colleagues is $300/hr for a lead attorney, sometimes less when the lead attorney has some of the work done by a junior or contract attorney under them. I charge $300/hr for my time and $195-$300/hr for attorneys working under me. As I think you can see from that information, the total cost will depend on how much the parties want to fight about the custody, how much time the attorneys have to spend to get the dispute resolved, and how sophisticated the legal work needs to be in order to reach that resolution.