Greenville Child Visitation Attorney

How Visitation Rights Are Established

Once the judge determines what child custody will look like, either the parents or the court will need to establish a visitation schedule for the non-custodial parent. Courts will usually award sole custody to one parent and reasonable visitation to the other.

Regardless, all custody and visitation decisions must be made with the child’s best interests in mind.

The Visitation Attorney’s Role in Establishing and Modifying a Visitation Order

Your lawyer plays a critical part in establishing a visitation order and modifying that order where changed circumstances have taken place since the prior order was entered. These are just a few services your lawyer will provide:

Explaining the Factors the Court May Use

A parent’s visitation rights in South Carolina are subject to the above-mentioned best interests of the child. To determine what sort of visitation is best for your child, the court will examine such factors as:

• The child’s needs and the visiting parent’s ability to meet them
• The child’s educational, social, and extracurricular interests
• Whether the visiting parent has recently relocated
• Any evidence of abuse or domestic violence
• Efforts of either parent to interfere with the other parent’s relationship with the child
• Other siblings and how visitation and custody may affect them
• The child’s preferences, as appropriate

If you are seeking modification, your lawyer will address the above matters but also ask about what has happened since the previous order. There must be evidence of a material change in circumstances before a modification will be granted.

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Obtaining the Evidence Needed to Make Your Case

Naturally, you will want a visitation schedule that gives you as much time as possible with your child. So you need evidence to show that you are a fit parent, that you can make your proposed schedule work, and that visitation with the child is in his or her best interests.

Attorney Angela Frazier investigates custody and visitation cases to acquire evidence to bolster her client’s positions and refute the opposing party’s arguments. She also uses the discovery process during litigation to compel the opposing party to turn over relevant evidence.

The evidence will touch on matters such as:

• The best interests of the child as detailed above
• The parents’ current and likely future work schedules (which impact how much time they can both spend with the child)
• Parental fitness, meaning the visiting parent’s ability to responsibly care for the child
• Any requests for supervised visitation or conditions placed on visitation
• The likelihood of reasonable communication between the visiting parent and child, when the child spends time with the custodial parent
• Whether one parent has attempted to prevent the child from seeing the other parent
• Other matters as necessary

Mediation and Litigation

Mediation is required in most South Carolina visitation and custody cases before a judge will hear them. This gives the parents a unique opportunity to craft a personalized and creative visitation schedule that a judge may not be inclined to order.

Attorney Angela Frazier represents parties during mediation and can help them reach a negotiated settlement that best advances the rights of visiting parents.

However, sometimes litigation is required. This may be because the other parent is being unreasonable or simply because the two parties cannot agree on the visitation details. In this scenario, we will take your case before the judge and seek maximum visitation time for you.

Where circumstances allow, we will also seek an order requiring the other parent to pay some or all of your attorney’s fees and court costs.