Suffolk County Supreme Court Gives Divorced Parents Joint Residential Custody

Friedman & Friedman, Attorneys at Law prides itself on taking on the cases and struggles of clients that some firms would give up on. Most recently, we pursued a case for a result that was a not necessarily an easy win but one that we believed in. Going against the traditional case law concerning the Child Support Standard Act, the Supreme Court of Suffolk County voted to implement a more equitable distribution of support than is conventionally instituted in similar cases.

Our client was the father of three children who was involved in a divorce with his former wife. Both parents were asking for sole and residential custody as well as sole decision making regarding major aspects of the children's lives. As the current policies stands, CSSA pushes for progressive system for child support, meaning that the parent with greater income pays the other parent 29% of their income regardless of the custody situation.

As the case stood, our client would have been ordered by the lower court to pay his former wife 29% of his net income, even if they shared custody. Because the two parents were both pushing for full custody, the court decided to deviate from several legal trends when it decided to award joint residential custody of the children to the two parents as well as reduce our client's required child support award from 29% to 17%. Lastly, our client was given final decision making authority concerning the medical care, discipline, social activities and attendance of family functions for the three children.

At TFriedman & Friedman, Attorneys at Law, we believe in upholding the integrity and fairness of the laws. With the situation of our client, the trends of legal decision making in the area of divorce would have presumed him a non-custodial parent far before a court decision was made. We are proud that our attorneys were able to convince the court to make a bold stance in favor of equal parenting rights.