A divorce or the end of a relationship is an emotionally challenging time. This is compounded when children are present. Both parents want to maintain a relationship with their children. However, the best outcome many times is a shared custodial arrangement between the parents.
A skilled family law attorney helps people make agreements about child custody, visitation, and child support when a couple’s relationship ends by agreement or divorce. A Manassas family lawyer also helps people draft prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements. Family lawyers can also assist parties with adoptions and issues surrounding reproductive rights.
Family attorneys can also represent people in trials. Contentious child custody proceedings are civil trials where the final parenting plans dictating when a parent will visit with their child are made by a judge. To learn about family law in your state, contact an experienced lawyer.
Family Law Matters
Each state has its own laws regarding the family. There are a variety of matters that a Manassas family attorney can assist with, including, but not limited to:
Child Support
Both parents have a legal obligation to financially support their children. The non-custodial parent often pays the custodial parent child support until the child reaches the age of maturity according to a schedule or formula. A lawyer can assist in determining an appropriate financial payment schedule for a family.
Pre-Nuptial and Post-Nuptial Agreements
Couples often choose to make decisions about the parameters that will govern how to divide marital property, allow marital debt, and handle other financial issues prior to marriage or soon thereafter. An attorney drafts and negotiates prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements.
Reproductive Rights
In the last several decades, science has contributed greatly in the field of contraception and reproductive rights. Treatments like IVF, frozen embryos, and having a surrogate carry a fetus have enabled people who were unable to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term to have a family, regardless of sex. An attorney can help with all considerations involving reproductive rights.
Visitation of Children by Third Parties
The loss of a job, drug addiction, or death of a parent has led to children being raised by grandparents or aunts and uncles.
When one of the parents can resume parental duties, what rights do grandparents or other family members have to see the children? How is the term caregiver defined in the law?
What rights does a caregiver have when a parent interferes? Answers to these difficult and emotionally charged situations are available when consulting with a family attorney in Manassas.
Contact a Manassas Family Attorney
A Manassas family lawyer provides information to parents about the different types of custody and factors that can affect custody determinations, the basics of how child custody decisions are made in the family courts, and the rights to custody of unmarried fathers, among other topics.
If you are contemplating separating from your partner, thinking about a divorce, or seeking to modify a custody agreement, contact a family attorney to schedule a consultation today.
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