Child Custody & Time-Sharing

Two separate questions get decided in every Florida case involving children, and parents routinely conflate them.

Parental responsibility is decision-making: school, non-emergency medical care, religion. Florida presumes shared parental responsibility, meaning both parents confer and decide together, unless shared responsibility would be detrimental to the child.

Time-sharing is the schedule — where the child physically is, overnight by overnight, including holidays, school breaks and summer. Since 2023 Florida law presumes equal time-sharing is in the child's best interests, but that presumption can be rebutted by evidence.

The parenting plan

Every Florida case with a minor child requires a written parenting plan approved by the court. A good one is specific enough that nobody has to negotiate at a school gate: exchange times and locations, holiday rotation, how the parents communicate, who books the pediatrician, what happens when a parent wants to travel out of state.

A vague parenting plan is the single most common reason parents end up back in front of a judge. We write them tightly.

Best interests of the child

Florida Statutes §61.13 sets out the factors a court weighs — the capacity of each parent to put the child's needs first, the division of parental responsibilities before the case, the child's home, school and community record, the moral fitness and mental and physical health of each parent, and any evidence of domestic violence, abuse or neglect. It is a long list, and a judge does not get to pick a favorite parent; the judge has to work the statute.