Child Custody

Roseville, Minnesota Child Custody Lawyer

Child custody is one of the most contested areas of divorce. According to Minnesota law, the best interests of the child should be used in deciding child custody. But very often, the parents don't agree on who should have custody to meet the child's best interests.

Custody Factors

If we have two reasonable people who disagree about parenting, we will propose mediation to resolve child custody. Reaching a settlement with your spouse out of court will save you the high cost of a full-fledged custody fight. An alternative to joint custody in Minnesota is to develop a parenting plan. We can help you develop a parenting plan that will detail each parent's role in how to raise the child without the stigmatizing language of a custody agreement. Parenting plans are a more cooperative way to raise children and are effective if the parents are able to work together.

If there is a bad history with the other parent such as abuse or if the custody issue can't be resolved between the parents, we will tell you what your options are and what it will cost to fight for your child's custody in court.  If we represent you in a custody dispute, we will consider all the factors - background information about your family, special needs of the children, parenting abilities of each parent, any history of domestic violence or substance abuse that could affect the best interests of the children. Then we will formulate a strategy to help you win custody based on what we think the issues are in the case.

We have a long history of vigorously fighting for our client's custody rights. Tom Lee is also an experienced family law mediator / expediter. His broad experience has taught him when to be a tough litigator and when to be a collaborative, problem-solving counselor. It is important to remember that custody cases aren't to be treated like contract cases, or some other area of civil law, and the way the legal strategy is charted by the divorce attorney and the client has a direct impact on the children.