Experienced Child Custody Attorney in Wichita Asserts Your Parental Rights

Parenting plans that protect your relationship with your children

If you’re going through a divorce, the paramount issue is likely to be child custody. How often will you see your children? How much control will you have over their upbringing? Will your ex do anything to undermine your relationship? These questions and more add anxiety to the divorce process. But when you retain David A. Hawley, P.A., you get a strong advocate who is fiercely determined to protect your parental rights and your children’s welfare. I have more than 25 years of experience in contentious child custody disputes, during and after divorce. I can help you develop a parenting plan that wins court approval and help you enforce that plan as needed in the future.

Various custody and visitation scenarios in Kansas

Kansas courts make custody decisions based on the best interests of the child. Parenting plans can call for:

• Joint custody — Each parent provides a residence for the child to live part time (residential or physical custody). Parents also share decision-making authority (legal custody).
• Sole custody — One parent maintains a residence for the child. Decision-making authority can still be shared. The noncustodial parent has visitation rights unless the court decides visitation would have an adverse impact on the child.
• Divided custody — This is an exceptional case where the court gives sole residential custody of one child to one parent and sole residential custody of another child to the other parent.
• Visitation — Also called parenting time, visitation is the right of the noncustodial parent to spend time with their children. A parenting plan can fix a schedule for meetings. In some cases, parents are instructed to pick up and drop off children in neutral settings. The court may also order supervised visitation if there is a question about a parent’s fitness or possible danger to the child.

Custody issues require an attorney with the sensitivity to handle them while advocating strongly for your parental rights. And even though Kansas law is gender-neutral, fathers may feel they get the short end of any custody dispute. Although I am not exclusively a fathers’ rights divorce attorney, I understand the urgency many fathers feel that their rights will be upheld. I fight to give all my clients the full benefit of the law.

Modification of custody and visitation orders in Kansas

Either parent can petition the court to modify a custody order when a material change in circumstances occurs. A court will modify a plan when a change is in the best interest of the child, as when:

• A parent is implicated in drug or alcohol abuse, a criminal or immoral lifestyle, or abuse of the child.
• A parent plans to move with the child out of state or at a great distance that burdens the other parent’s custody and visitation rights.
• A parent violates the existing parenting plan.
• One parent attempts to alienate the affections of the child from the other parent.

In ordering a new parenting plan, the court could strip a parent of custody or visitation rights or order enforcement of the existing plan. An approved parenting plan is a court order with the force of the law behind it, so a judge can order sanctions for violations.

Assistance with grandparent visitation in Wichita

After a divorce or the death of a parent, grandparents sometimes find themselves cut off from their grandchildren. Under Kansas law, grandparents have certain limited rights of visitation with their grandchildren if they have an established relationship and if continued visitation is in the child’s best interest. I represent parents and grandparents in visitation disputes.

Concerned counsel for Child in Need of Care cases

An important part of our family law practice is representation of juveniles in Kansas Child in Need of Care (CINC) cases involving:

• Truancy
• Allegations of abuse or neglect
• Runaway issues

Because the court has tremendous authority to issue orders in the best interest of the child, parents and their children need experienced and effective representation. If there is a risk the child might be harmed, the court must hear CINC cases within 72 hours. This tight scheduling often makes it difficult to find a trustworthy attorney, but you can have confidence in my services as guardian ad litem for children or legal counsel for parents in CINC cases.

Contact an aggressive Kansas lawyer to protect your rights in child custody disputes

David A. Hawley, P.A. helps parents throughout Wichita maintain loving relationships with their children with appropriate parenting plans that uphold their parental rights. Call me today at 316-469-6809 or contact me online to arrange a consultation. My office is in the Hayford East Building at 129 East 2nd Street, in the heart of Old Wichita.