Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: costody

The first thing I would want to know is what state's court entered your Parenting Plan (custody orders)? If it was an Idaho court, then you need to relist your question as one pertaining to Idaho law, since an Idaho attorney would need to represent you.

If on the other hand the Parenting Plan was issued by a Washington state court, then here are my comments. First, you would need to file an action to modify your Parenting Plan. In the course of filing this, you should expect to have to hire and at least split the costs of a guardian ad litem ("GAL"), who will speak for your sons in court.

Before the case gets very far though, there will first be an adequate cause hearing, where the court asks if there is adequate cause to modify the Parenting Plan- you will bear the burden of proving the answer to this question is "yes." If the answer is "no," then the matter ends right there. If the answer is yes, then the case proceeds, and this will require use of the GAL to act as the court's eyes and ears in terms of what your sons want. the GAL is also responsible for submitting a report with the GALs findings and recommendations. Most of the time, the court will follow those recommendations.

What is going to control in your case will be your sons' reasons for wanting to come live with you, and the GAL finding those reasons credible. In general, you should know that courts tend to not want to change Parenting Plans because the disruption to the children is usually seen as more harmful than helpful.

If you would like to discuss your case with an attorney, I offer a free telephone consultation, that would allow you to at least get a better idea of what you are looking at. Whether it be myself or another attorney, I highly recommend that you hire an attorney to represent you, because what you want is far more difficult than initialing obtaining custody, which your ex currently has.

You can either e-mail me or click on my name as it appears below for our phone number. Best of luck!