Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland

Custody Not Yet Established

I would establish custody formally and lay to rest any suspicion that you may have.

If you intuition says this is the prudent action, follow it. There may be an agenda.

I would not leave things to happenstance. Given the summary of facts described, you should, AT THIS TIME, have

no problem with acquiring full custody. You cannot stop him from filing for visitation; he

could also file for custody after things change (i.e., he becomes more active with his child) and

this could complicate things. As you describe things now, the matter would be relatively uncomplicated.

An easy way to view this is "do not give away what you have today for you cannot tell what tomorrow brings."

There are a couple of legal alternatives to accomplish the objectives stated above.

If you would like to pursue the matter, please feel free to contact me at (410) 799-9002 or leave a message.

Please refer to the particulars of your case.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this correspondence is intended to be legal advice; consequently,

nothing herein should be contrued as legal advice. When dealing with legal matters, an attorney

should be contacted.

Re: No custody established in 11yrs.

This is a very touchy situation. Without a court order he has just as much of a right to access and time with the child as you do. If you believe he is reasonable and you don't think he'll run off with the child, then I would say you should try giving him some visitation and see how it goes. If it becomes a problem you could always petition the court then.

However, if you do not go to court right now, before increasing his visitation, then you run the risk that he will acquire a history of more visitation and the court may grant him more visitation than if you had petitioned now.

I could write pages and pages of the pros and cons of going to court now or going to court later. At the end of the day you have to make a decision after being informed of all the pros and cons as to which risks you are willing to take and which you are not. If you'd like I'd be happy to walk you through the pros and cons. Feel free to call me at 301-652-0663 or 703-968-3974.

Re: No custody established in 11yrs.

If there is any controversy about visitation, you can shield your son from it best by establishing a schedule for visitation and then insisting that the schedule be firmly enforced except when there is a good and reasonable cause to make exceptions (illness, weddings, funerals, etc.). You can establish a schedule either by going to court and asking a judge to do it or by negotiating an agreement, which can be done with the help of lawyers for a lot less money than it would cost to go to court. I recommend the out of court agreement if you can do it, and you should know that threats by your ex-husband of filing for custody are empty threats unless you aare a terrible mother, which you probably are not. A parent who has raised the chid for eleven years while the other parent saw the child one or two times per year is normally not in serious danger of losing custody to the late blooming parent. I would suggest one more thing: you should insist that any agreement about visitation would include penalties if the father gets the child accustomed to frequent visitation and then drifts off again. If he does this, the visitation should be curtailed until he again demonstrates that he is committed to maintaining a regular schedule and a strong relationship with his child. Otherwise, the child suffers again. The father should have no hesitation about agreeing to the commitment if he really means it.