Be a part of your child's life

We help parents take legal action to establish their custody and visitation rights

Talk to a lawyer and learn about your custody and visitation rights

Marlana Caruso, partner and award winning family law attorney

case stages

File

Mediation

Hearing

Court Order

File

Your initial motion filed with the court details how you believe visitation, custody, and decision making authority should be divided and what you want if you win.

common legal issues

legal standards

best interest of the child

Colorado uses the "best interest of the child" standard to determine custody and visitation (called parenting time in Colorado) as well as decision making responsibility. The standard consists of 11 factors that the court will use to guide its determination to what extent both or one parent can make decision for the child concerning education, religious, extracurricular, and medical matters.

contentious legal issues

sole custody

When deciding whether to award full custody, the court must consider (1) credible evidence of the ability of the parties to cooperate; (2) the past pattern of involvement of the parties with the child; (3) whether mutual decision-making responsibility will promote more frequent or continuing contact between the child and each parent; (4) whether one of the parties has committed child abuse or neglect; and (5) whether one of the parties has been a perpetrator of spouse abuse.

modifications

custody modification

Motions to modify custody can include expanding your parenting time or limiting the other parent's parental custody. In order to make a change, a court must find that there has been a “substantial and continuing” change since the last order. The standard for modifying parenting time is high, so it is critical to introduce evidence that gives the court the right facts to make a decision in your favor.

contentious legal issues

relocations

Relocation can't be opposed based on the fact that it is better for the child to have both parents nearby. Each parent must provide evidence of what the child's life would be like, and how that life would be better for the child than that offered by the other parent. Our attorneys can help.

legal standards

joint custody

Courts use the "best interest of the child standard" and consider factors including the parents' wishes, the child's wishes, the emotional bonds between parents, and how difficult it would be to adjust to a new neighborhood or school.

legal standards

child support

Under Colorado law, each parent must pay child support taking into account each parent's income, parenting time, education health care expenses, and other factors. Child support obligations continue until the child is 18 and out of high school, or if the child is 19 and a full time student.

Our Attorneys Get Results in Custody Cases

Past results afford no guarantee of future results; each matter is different and must be judged on its own merits.

obtained sole custody

Judge awarded our client sole custody after our lawyers proved that the other parent was not a cooperative co-parent as he took the child without notice and refused to allow our client to communicate with her daughter.

no retroactive child support

Our attorneys successfully defended a court order for retroactive child support after the mother filed a motion for increased child support payments

granted access to school records

The child’s mother had prevented our client from obtaining the child’s school and medical records. Our family law attorneys were able to get the custody order’s provision for school registration and medical records changed to our client's control.

Obtained temporary custody orders

Our client, a service member, had two minor children with her husband. Our family law team successfully negotiated a temporary parenting plan allowing her peace of mind that her husband cannot refuse to allow her to see the children.

successfully defended a motion to restrict parenting time

A father hired our custody attorneys to help him maintain parenting time with his children after the children’s mother tried to get sole custody. Our client was facing only supervised visitation if the other party’s case prevailed. Our attorney prevailed in court and and even secured some financial support for him from the children’s mother.

received back child support

A mother hired our custody lawyers because her ex was substantially behind on their child support. We successfully obtained an income withholding order so our client could begin to recover more than $20,000 in unpaid child support.

gained Unsupervised visitation

In this case, our client had made some personal strides and was prepared to take on a more active role in their son’s life. Unfortunately, the other parent was not on board with this plan. Our family law attorneys convinced the court to award him unsupervised visits with his son.