How to obtain legal guardianship of a child in the United States
In the US, every State has distinct child custody laws that
are supposed to be followed during custody application procedure those
laws will therefore guide you as you endeavor to understand the process
of obtaining legal guardianship over a child within that location.
In some States, there may be presumed assumption that parents have
joint custody whereas in some other States this presumption may not be
there. Generally, in some other States expectations for single mothers
by the law to file custody are more especially in cases where they are
unmarried. Either way, in some other States where the parents may not
be married, the custodianship is directly connected with the mother,
whether the father is involved or not. Therefore, if you really want to
gain the guardianship authority of a child in the United States, you
need to know what governs child custody in that given location or State.
Usually there are few steps involved in this lengthy process:
1. Your guardianship over a child must
come from the court. Therefore, you should visit to your local court
clerk’s office and ask for required forms to be filled out.
2. Then you will need to prepare the
guardianship petition forms and file at the clerk’s office. This
document is the official beginning of the process that you’re asking
for the grant of guardianship. In case of Massachusetts, the form “MPC
140 - Petition for Appointment of Guardian of Minor” will be used. Each
local state has its own document per their guideline.
3. Once the document is completed and
signed, then you need to file to the appropriate court clerk's office.
Usually it will be probate court or family court depending on the
state. There will be filing fees charged upon the receipt of file, and
the hearing day will be assigned. It is usually 14 days before the
actual hearing occurs.
4. Hearing notice will be delivered in
hand by the sheriff, constable or other person approved by the court.
Then attend the hearing and the judge will collect all the evidence and
decide if it is appropriate to grant you a guardianship for the child.
Understand the State
Custody Laws
In order to become eligible for custody, you need to understand what is
required of you from that State before you obtain the anticipated
custody. This is very important whether you have a lawyer guiding you
through the entire process or not. This means that general knowledge on
child laws in your state and sometimes in most of the states is
important in case you decided to move or if your company posts you to a
different State. You can find a lot of information on the internet
about child custodian or guardianship laws in accordance to the
requirements set by every state. You will find that those laws from one
state are particularly different from those laws from another State.
When you have already researched and found out about the guardianship
laws from that given State, you will be able to come up with a
questionnaire that now you can use with your attorney in order to
obtain the guardianship required. Either way, make sure that you have
all the required details in place before you make decisions or approach
the authorities with those arguments in mind. Sometimes you may decide
to represent yourself in court, it is important that you discuss those
custody laws with a qualified attorney, and if you do not have money to
pay an attorney, you can obtain free legal help, which is available for
all citizens as long as they qualify.
You can start by contacting for legal aid from that given state when
the going gets tough on your side, which is open to all that qualify
according to the screening process. You can also make contact to law
schools around where you could also get that legal aid from as well as
if you were a victim of domestic violence, you could contact local
shelter aid and get more on legal assistance. For whatever direction
you decide to take, help will always be there.
While in a difficult
child custody battle
There are times that you can’t proceed anymore with your petition or
other steps of process, including conflict and other difficult
situation. The first thing you need to do is to find a lawyer that you
believe in. If you need to win, you need to understand not only the
laws but also feel comfortable with the lawyer that represents you by
believing in fairness throughout the proceedings. Don’t leave
everything to the lawyer; you also need to know that your efforts will
count a lot at the end.