What Does a Judge Consider When Making Custody Decisions at Temporary Orders?

Written By Chris Merritt

Welcome to Merritt Law’s Q&A style videos. These are answers to some of the more common questions that we receive at Merritt Law. We hope that they help to provide some clarity and assurance in your family law matters.

“What Does a Judge Consider When Making Custody Decisions at Temporary Orders?”

Chris Merritt, Board Certified lawyer at Merritt Law. A common question is – I have a temporary orders hearing tomorrow, what’s the judge going to look at to determine custody?

Generally what the judge looks at is, one, what’s the status quo. That is, what have you all been doing in the past? Maybe not the last week or so after the petition was filed, but what were you doing recently before that.

Who takes the child to school?

Who picks up the child from school?

Who gets the child ready in the morning?

Who does the homework with the child?

Those are some of the factors that the judge is going to look at in a normal day-to-day life and keep as much of that the same during the temporary orders as humanly possible.

So it’s important if you’re involved in these things that you provide the documentation and the evidence to the court so that they understand that you, in fact, may be the primary caregiver or the involvement that you have in that.

I hope this has been helpful and if you have any other questions that you’d like, please submit them in the comments section below.