I want to give you a tip about reading your minutes from your child custody court hearing very carefully. The minutes from court are like minutes from a meeting. If you were ever in student council as a kid there's a secretary who would take minutes.

In the courtroom there is usually some sort of assistant who takes down the minutes. In Arizona that person is called a judicial assistant and he or she takes minutes of everything that is happening in the courtroom. Then after a court hearing, usually within a few days we will get those minutes from the court.

These minutes in my jurisdiction are called minute entries, although in some jurisdictions they may just call them minutes. Your minute entries are going to contain information that is very important to your case. They will contain deadlines that you are going to have to meet, future court dates, requirements for getting your case ready for court and other miscellaneous requirements. I bring this up because in a recent case...

Timing in your case is everything especially when it comes to deciding when you're going to file it.   This comes up because late last year I had a case with a former client.  She came to me and she was worried because her ex-husband was threatening to actually remove the children from school.  This was because he was in the process of buying a new home that was 30 minutes away from my clients home and from the girl's current school and from his current home.  Because the parties reached an agreement many years ago that father would have the final say when it came to educational decisions, he has the power to remove the kids from school.

And by the way the parties agreement also was that she would have final say when it came to the kids’ medical major decisions.   So I guess they kind of thought it was fair but my client didn't foresee when she entered into that agreement that her ex might actually change the school and move it to a place...