How do the courts determine custody of children when custody is in dispute?
This is probably the most difficult and most complicated question of divorce law that can be asked, and is the most difficult to answer. No answer given here can be taken as specific advice or as a specific projection as to how this issue will be resolved in a specific case. Some guidelines however, in my opinion, are: A. Basically, physical custody is where the children are going to live, and with which parent. The concept of legal custody has more to do with how the parents are going to handle the decision making process. B. Legal custody invokes the right to be involved in joint decision making, the right to be notified concerning educational, religious, and health care issues, and how much decision making input the non-physical custodian is going to have. For example, if a mother and father agree that the mother will have physical custody, but that they will share joint legal custody, the question is, what will the mothers obligation be to the father in terms of keeping him informe
