Child Custody

Facing child custody decisions can feel overwhelming, but understanding the legal factors involved is crucial to protecting your rights and your child’s well-being. Oklahoma courts focus on the best interests of the child, including stability, parental fitness, and the child’s emotional needs. To navigate this complex process, you need clear, reliable information from trusted sources. Learning about custody laws and your options will empower you to make informed choices. For guidance tailored to your situation, consider consulting a Tulsa child custody attorney.

When custody matters arise, having a skilled advocate can make a significant difference. The Tulsa attorney team at Wirth Law Office understands the emotional and legal challenges involved in custody disputes. They are prepared to help you develop a strategy focused on your child’s best interests and your parental rights. If you need legal help, call Wirth Law Office at (918) 879-1681 to discuss your case with an experienced professional.

Is It Legal to Question a Minor Without a Parent Present in Oklahoma?
No information gained from custodial interrogation of a youthful offender under 16 years of age or a child, nor any evidence subsequently obtained as a result of such interrogation shall be admissible into evidence against the youthful offender or child unless parent or guardian essentially are present for that interrogation. Read more »
OCCA Uses Incredible Intellectual Gymnastics to Redefine Custody in Order to Save a Conviction
Judge Kuehn's opinion makes it pretty clear we're talking about somebody who has been previously convicted as a youthful offender in court. Read more »
What is Joint Custody in Oklahoma?
Generally speaking, when you have joint custody, it means that you have a joint legal say in the big decisions for the child. Read more »
Six Things a Child's Legal Custodian Must Decide in Oklahoma
It's primarily what school's the child going to attend. That's the first one. The second one is summer camps, church camps, things like that. Read more »
What is Primary Custody in Oklahoma Family Law?
The term primary custody was not located anywhere in Oklahoma statute, was not cited in any case law. But typically, it was used in order to designate for two particular purposes. One, sometimes you've got two parents going through a divorce or through a custody battle. And one party as part of negotiations wants to be designated the primary just to have that title. Read more »
What is Standard Visitation in Oklahoma Custody Cases?
Standard visitation generally means that the non-custodial parent or the secondary custodial parent has every other weekend and alternating holidays. And that every other weekend is typically from Friday after school and then returning sometime Sunday evening every other weekend. And that's the typical standard visitation, but it's important to note that many people don't call that standard visitation. Read more »
What is Extended Standard Visitation in Oklahoma Family Law?
Extended standard visitation, that means instead of being from Friday after school to Sunday evening every other weekend, it is from Friday after school, all the way till Monday back to school every other weekend and that's the extended part. Instead of returning the child on Sunday evening, you returned the child on Monday morning by taking the child to school. Read more »
50/50 Visitation Schedules in Oklahoma Family Law
The two most common 50/50 schedules are going to be a week on/week off and the 2-2-3 schedule. Read more »
What Is Week on/Week off Visitation Schedule in Oklahoma Family Law?
A 50/50 schedule is where each parent gets an equal amount of time and the kids are transitioned once per week. Read more »
What is a 2/2/3 Visitation Schedule in Oklahoma Family Law?
In Oklahoma, the 2-2-3 schedule is a 50/50 plan, meaning that each parent gets an equal amount of time with the kids. Read more »
What is Sole Custody in Oklahoma?
Sole Custody means that that person has the legal authority to make the big decisions for that child or those children. Read more »
How Does One Win Back Custody in Oklahoma?
Tulsa Child Custody Attorney James Wirth answers, How does one win back custody of a child in Oklahoma? Read more »
How Do You Prepare for a Child Custody Mediation in Oklahoma?
The first thing is when you're going to mediation, if you want it to be successful, you've got to be prepared in that you know all of the relevant facts and circumstances. You have your case prepared and presented, you've done a discovery. So what that means is, is that if you're talking about child custody, all the factors that go into that in your best interest, you've got all of your evidence together. Any concerns you have about the other parent, you've got all the evidence that you present to the judge ready to go. Read more »
How Do I Get Full Custody of My Child in Oklahoma?
How do I get full custody? Well, you got to ask for it. You got to file for it and then you got to go to court and either get agreement, or get a judge to decide that that's what's in the best interest of the child, but it depends a little bit on where you start off. So if you are married, then you and your spouse ha defacto kind of have joint custody. You don't have any legal document. You don't have any legal determination, but neither one of you has superior rights to the other. So if you want those superior rights, you need to file with the court. And if you file the divorce action requested for custody, or if you don't want a divorce, you can file a legal separation requesting for custody. Read more »
Do I Have to let the Father See My Child (Oklahoma Law)?
In Oklahoma do I have to allow the father to see my child, or our child? And that answer to that depends. What are the circumstances? If there is a court order in place, then you've got to file that court order unless you believe doing so would put the child in eminent danger of irreparable harm, in which case you need to file an emergency to get that changed. You've got a duty to protect the child, but you also have a duty to follow a court order. Read more »
Who Has More Rights to a Child in Oklahoma?
Who has more rights to a child? Well, it depends. If there's a court order in place, then it's obviously going to be decided by that court order. If there is no court order in place, then you're going to look at, are the parents married or not married? If it's a child born outside of a marriage, mom has all the rights. Dad has no rights until he establishes them in court. If the parties are married and there's no order in place, the parties are on equal footing. Neither party has superior rights. The Oklahoma statute says that. The mother doesn't automatically have more rights than dad. They start off on equal footing until they get into the court, and the court determines that. In relation to everybody else, the parents have the rights. Other people are not on equal footing. They're way behind because parents, under Oklahoma law and under US Constitution, they've got a constitutional right to the care and comfort of their kids. If a third party is going to try to come in and take custody away from the parents, it's going to take a much higher standard than what's in the best interest. It's going to have to show that the parents are unfit or something like that. Read more »
Can a Person Sit in on a Child Custody Proceeding in Oklahoma?
Oklahoma family law matters are open to the public, and you can come in and you can watch those proceedings. The exception to that is going to be guardianships, those are private. Adoptions are going to be private, deprived child actions are going to be private. If it's not one of those, for the most part, it's open to the general public, you can sit in and watch. Now, another exception, if you're a potential witness to the case, either one of the parties can invoke the rule of sequestration and then kick everybody out of the courtroom that may be testifying. And that is to make sure that those people testifying don't get to see prior witness testimony in order to try to conform with it. So those people can be excluded so that they don't get to watch the trial until after they have testified. Read more »
Can You Relinquish Custody of a Biological Child in Oklahoma?
If we're talking about relinquishing custody, then certainly that is something that you could do. You could give the other parent custody just by signing over custody, and then maybe you could request visitation rights, or maybe you don't even request visitation rights. And then that person would have custody, but it does not terminate your parental rights. Same thing with a third party. If the other parent is not available to step in or the other parent is unfit and you're wanting to relinquish, then you could give up guardianship to a third party and say right now it's in the best interest of my child for somebody else to care for that person. Get a guardianship in place, and guardianship's are temporary by nature. So they're indefinite and they stay in effect until they're terminated, but you could file at any time to terminate that and get your custody back. So that deals with relinquishing or giving up custody. But most of the time when we talk about relinquishment we're not dealing with just custody, we're dealing with parental rights, and that's different. Read more »
How Much Does It Cost to Go to Court for Child Custody in Oklahoma?
It depends on how much work goes into it because these attorneys are billing hourly, and there could be additional costs. If you have to do a deposition, you got to pay a court reporter, if you need more evidence, you need a PI, you need a private investigator helping out. If you go to mediation, which mediation in Tulsa County is required before you get a trial date, you've got to pay the mediator's fee. If you need a custody evaluation, then you need to pay a custody evaluator. If you need to appraise the value of a house, then you need an appraiser to handle that for you. You might need a parenting coordinator. You might need a guardian ad litem. There's all kinds of different costs could go into that in addition to the filing fee and the attorney fee. Depending on how litigated it is, the cost can vary as far as the total cost based on the total number of hours that the attorney puts into the case. Read more »
Who Gets Custody of the Children During a Divorce in Oklahoma?
Oklahoma law regarding children is almost always the same thing. We almost always look at the same thing and that is best interest of the child. So we have to determine what is in the best interest of the child. And when we've got a standard that broad, there's a lot of different information that may be relevant to that for a judge to hear, to determine what's in the best interest of the child. Read more »
Tips for Utilizing a Parenting Coordinator in Oklahoma
Statements made to a Parenting Coordinator are not confidential. This is not an attorney client relationship that you have. So anything you tell the Parenting Coordinator, you better expect that it could be made in a report that's published in the court file which could be open to the general public. So that's got to be known. Read more »
Where to Get an Order Appointing Parenting Coordinator Form for Oklahoma?
Most people may not know that if they haven't been in litigation, judges generally do not draft their own orders. Usually the parties are ordered to come up with the orders based on the judge's decision. So where do you get an order appointing? For the most part, the court just doesn't have standard forms ready to go. But in Tulsa County at the website for the Tulsa County District Court, there actually is a form available and I've got a copy of that. I'll make a link to it in this article, and it is a pretty detailed order appointing a parenting coordinator. So if you want a parenting coordinator appointed, this is a good place to start and either use this form or use a lot of ideas from this form. Read more »
Examples of Issues to Bring to a Parenting Coordinator
If you've got an order in place that says that the visitation exchange is supposed to occur at a particular location, but now it doesn't make sense to do it there. And that could be either because that location is closed down and it's no longer available for the public to use, or it could be because one of the parties has moved not far enough to be a relocation, but far enough to where the old spot is no longer a halfway point. So if you're in that scenario, you want to talk to the other parent, see if an agreement can be reached on a new place. Read more »
Removing a Parenting Coordinator in Oklahoma
If you're in a family law case and a parenting coordinator is appointed, first off, a lot of times that appointment order will specify for how long the person is going to be the parenting coordinator. And that is something you can put in the order, if it's an agreement or the judge will determine if it's not an agreement. Now that can be for 12 months, two years, three years, four years. That's typically within that range that it would be done. Read more »
How to Stop the Appointment of a Parenting Coordinator in an Oklahoma Custody Case
If you've got the other party requesting the appointment of parenting coordinator or the judge requesting it, you do have the right to object. What you want to do is you want to look at the statute on the requirements for a parenting coordinator. There's two initial things that are required if there's an objection, and one is that the case is high conflict. Read more »