Legal Question in Family Law in New Mexico

Re: can i move to another state if i have sole legal custody of my children and

Your question is two fold: (a) what rights do you have with sole legal custody and (b) what residual rights does dad have? First, sole legal custody means you get to make legal decision as they affect the children; in NM those legal areas are (1) medical health decisions (2) religious education (3) educational decisions (4) day care and (5) recreational decisions. All other decisions about the children are not considered "legal" per se. As you can see two of those other areas are physical custody and visitation.

If you have shared custody and the dad has been seeing the children on a regular basis your moving out of state will adversely affect the relationship between dad and the children. However, if dad has not been visiting or has only occasionally visited then your moving out of state is not going to greatly alter the relationship that he has with the children (or the lack of one). The court clinic -i.e., mediation, is a place to go to explore the visitation relationship/issue. If there is nothing to explore because there has not been a relationship then you need to assert that point. If there has been a relationship then you will need to negotiate with him why moving out of state is better for the children.

You should seriously consider retaining legal counsel. Legal counsel can help you with the negotiation phase you will soon be facing.

Good luck.