Nothing in your divorce will matter more to you than your children, and custody is where preparation matters most. California courts decide legal custody, meaning who makes decisions about health, education, and welfare, and physical custody, meaning where the kids actually live, and both run through the best interest standard in Family Code §3011, which centers the child's health, safety, and welfare. In LA County, no judge will hear a contested custody dispute until the parents have been through mandatory mediation with Family Court Services, which is free, and how you present in that room matters enormously. We prepare you for every stage, starting with a risk-free consultation where you can ask us anything.
Legal custody, physical custody, and what judges actually weigh.
California separates legal custody, the authority to make decisions about your child's schooling, medical care, and general welfare, from physical custody, which determines where your child lives and how time is shared. Judges start from the best interest of the child under Family Code §3011, looking at health, safety, and welfare, each parent's history of caregiving, stability, and any documented domestic violence, which triggers the rebuttable presumption against custody in Family Code §3044. What wins these cases is a consistent, provable record of involved parenting, and we help you build one before anyone stands in front of a judge.
Mandatory Family Court Services mediation in LA County.
Before any Los Angeles judge hears a contested custody dispute, LA County requires you to attend mediation with Family Court Services, a free session where a court-connected mediator tries to help parents reach a parenting plan. Parents who walk in unprepared often agree to schedules they regret, or present themselves in ways that undercut them later, so we prepare you thoroughly, covering what to raise, what to hold for the courtroom, and how to propose a plan that actually serves your child. If mediation produces agreement, we make sure the written order says what you think it says before anyone signs.
Emergency orders, evaluations, and custody trials.
Some custody situations cannot wait for the normal calendar, and when a child's safety is at risk we seek emergency orders immediately, at any hour, because we are genuinely available 24/7. In harder cases the court may appoint a custody evaluator or counsel for the child, and how you engage with that process can determine the outcome, so we coach you through every interview and home visit. When trial is unavoidable, you will have lawyers who try cases, led by a firm whose managing partner, Todd Spodek, is the trial attorney Netflix dramatized in Inventing Anna, and we present your parenting with evidence and detail.
