What is the difference between legal custody and physical custody, and what is joint custody?
Legal custody involves the right and obligation to make long range decisions about education, religious training, discipline, medical care, and other matters of major significance concerning the child’s life and welfare. The parent not granted legal custody ordinarily retains authority to make day-to-day decisions regarding the child’s welfare while the child is in that parent’s physical care, whether pursuant to an award of visitation or an allocation of physical custody. This authority would include the right to consent to emergency medical care where there is insufficient time to contact the parent having legal custody, and matters of discipline. “Joint” legal custody means that both parents have an equal voice in making those decisions, and neither parent’s rights are superior to the other parent’s rights. However, sometimes the Court provides for a “tie-breaker” authority in anticipation of post-divorce parental disputes. The inclusion of a “tie-breaker” is an example of one of th
