How fast do family law courts move when it comes to marriage and child custody issues filings?

The answer: it depends. Isaac Wiles Partner Matthew Rinear delves into how long the courts can take to make a decision and why. Read more about why it’s imperative not to let issues snowball until they’re the size of a boulder.

It’s early August and I get an email from a former client. “We need to file something with the Court to change my son’s school placement parent for this upcoming school year. He doesn’t want to go to school in Mom’s district anymore, and it’s in his best interests that he transfer to my school system.”

It’s early December and I speak over the phone with a prospective client. He’s an unmarried father of a minor child (in Ohio, that means he doesn’t have any custodial rights to his child until a court says otherwise.) “The mother of my child agreed to allow me to have little Johnny over Christmas. Now she’s changing her mind, and telling me that she’s taking him out of town. I need to file with the Court so I can have my Christmas parenting time this year with Johnny.”

It’s any time of the year, and another prospective client tells me that his/her spouse left the marital residence a month prior to our call. The spouse that left was the sole income earner, is refusing to provide any support to the prospective client, and is refusing to pay the mortgage/rent/utilities at the residence. “I think I need to file for divorce so that I can get some support and keep my apartment/house.”

Any attorney who has practiced in the domestic relations field has been confronted with each of these scenarios, in some form or another, countless times. Unfortunately, other than in extreme and rare cases, our advice to clients will generally be similar: nothing with the court system will happen quickly.

While you may believe that an issue affecting your life is an emergency that needs to be dealt with immediately, the courts almost always do not feel the same way. There are several steps involved to filing a case and getting your issues before the appropriate decision-maker (a magistrate or a judge), and each one of these steps take a significant amount of time.

The first step involves drafting and filing the appropriate paperwork with the Court. This almost always includes the client filling out several affidavits, which will need to be vetted by the attorney, and the attorney’s drafting of the necessary pleadings. This process can take one or two weeks (but could be more), depending on the client and the attorney’s efficiency.

Next, after your pleadings are filed with the Court, the Court will set a hearing date. Depending on the time of the year and the court’s workload, that hearing could be set anywhere from six weeks to three months after the date of filing. If the opposing party is not properly served prior to the hearing, or if they are unable to obtain counsel prior to the hearing, your hearing date may be continued to another date. Even if the opposing party is served and retains counsel, it is exceedingly rare that a Court would make any binding decision at the first hearing date. Instead, they will most likely either give the parties a date (typically 2-6 weeks from the date of the hearing) to submit their requests in writing for further consideration, or the Court will set another hearing date to discuss the issues more in depth.

Doing the simple math, in most cases it could take several months (or more) before your court is in a position to make any type of decision in your case. Thus, while you may be able to change your child’s school placement, or get an official holiday parenting schedule with your child, or force your estranged spouse into contributing towards climbing marital expenses, it isn’t going to happen tomorrow and it isn’t going to happen next week.

If an issue arises related to your marriage or your children, do not let it snowball until it’s the size of a boulder. In order to ensure the best and most efficient outcome possible, speak to an attorney as soon as possible, and he or she can guide you before it’s too late.