Child Custody
Representing Metropolitan New Orleans and the Northshore in Family Law
Experienced Child Custody Lawyers
Frank P. Tranchina provides compassionate legal advice and counsel with regard to child custody matters, understanding that child custody is often one of the most difficult issues to resolve.
Child Custody Laws – Legal & Physical Custody
Child custody laws in Louisiana distinguish between legal and physical custody of a child. Legal custody refers to the responsibility to make major life decisions for a child, and physical custody refers to where a child will primarily reside.
When determining the type of custody arrangement that is in a child’s best interests, courts look at many factors, such as:
- Which parent has been the child’s primary caretaker.
- The quality of each parent’s home environment.
- The parenting skills of each parent, their strengths and weaknesses, and their ability to provide for the child’s special needs, if any.
- The mental and physical health of the parents, including whether either parent drinks or uses drugs.
- Whether there has been domestic violence in the family.
- The work schedules and child care plans of each parent.
- The child’s relationships with brothers, sisters, and members of the rest of the family.
- If the child is old enough, which parent the child wants to live with.
- Each parent’s ability to cooperate with the other parent and to encourage a relationship with the other parent, when it is safe to do so.
Frank P. Tranchina can help
An experienced lawyer from Frank P. Tranchina is here to help divorcing parents achieve fair and beneficial child custody arrangements, often through the processes of mediation, which avoids the stress and uncertainty of trial. Should litigation become necessary to protect our clients’ rights, however, we will go to court and zealously advocate on behalf of our clients’ interests.
Child Custody Law – Sole & Joint Custody
Both legal and physical custody may be sole or joint. In joint legal custody, the parents make major decisions about the child together, such as decisions regarding education, health, and religion, while the smaller, day-to-day decisions are made by the parent who is physically caring for the child at the time. In sole legal custody, only one parent has the right to make major decisions about the child.
Child Custody – Visitation
If one parent is awarded sole physical custody, the other parent is almost always given visitation access to the child, which allows for “frequent and meaningful” parenting time with the child. Under Louisiana child custody laws, visitation may be unsupervised, supervised, or therapeutically supervised.
A lawyer from our firm can also help clients modify a custody or visitation order if there is a material change of circumstances that affects the child’s best interests. Please see our modification and enforcement page for more information about changing a custody or visitation order.