TAMPA CHILD CUSTODY ATTORNEYS
Tampa Child Custody Lawyers for Florida Parenting Plans and Time-Sharing Disputes
Florida law does not ordinarily award “custody” and “visitation” in the way those terms are commonly used. A Florida family court establishes a parenting plan governing parental responsibility, decision-making, time-sharing, communication, transportation, school matters, health care, activities, and the other practical details of raising a child in two households.
Those details matter. A vague agreement may sound cooperative at mediation and become unworkable the first time the parents disagree about school, therapy, travel, sports, holidays, or an exchange. A strong parenting plan should protect the child, define each parent’s rights, anticipate predictable disputes, and remain practical enough to follow in real life.
Mockler Leiner Law, P.A. represents mothers and fathers in contested and negotiated child-custody cases throughout Tampa, Hillsborough County, the Tampa Bay area, and Florida. We handle initial parenting determinations, temporary-relief hearings, paternity cases, equal time-sharing disputes, parental-responsibility trials, relocation proceedings, enforcement actions, modifications, emergency matters, and family-law appeals.
What Does a Florida Child-Custody Case Decide?
In practical terms, a Florida child-custody case usually decides four related issues:
The parenting plan establishes the rules governing the parents’ relationship with the child and with each other concerning the child.
Parental responsibility determines how major decisions about education, health care, mental-health treatment, activities, and other important subjects will be made.
Time-sharing establishes when the child will be with each parent during ordinary weeks, holidays, school breaks, vacations, and other periods.
Child support addresses the parents’ financial responsibilities and is calculated separately, even though the number of overnights may affect the calculation.
Parents facing divorce should consider these issues as part of the entire Florida divorce process. Unmarried parents may need to establish legal parentage and obtain an enforceable plan through a Florida paternity proceeding.
What Is a Florida Parenting Plan?
Section 61.046, Florida Statutes, defines a parenting plan as a document governing the relationship between parents concerning decisions that must be made about their minor child. The plan must contain a time-sharing schedule. It may be negotiated by the parents and approved by the court or established by the judge when the parents cannot agree.
Under section 61.13, an approved parenting plan must, at a minimum:
Describe in adequate detail how the parents will share and perform the daily tasks involved in raising the child;
Specify the time the child will spend with each parent;
Allocate responsibility for health care, school matters, the address used for school-boundary determination and registration, and other activities;
Explain how the parents will communicate with the child; and
Unless the parents agree otherwise in writing, identify authorized exchange locations.
These are minimum requirements, not a complete drafting checklist. The Fourth District explained in Scudder v. Scudder, 296 So. 3d 426 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), that a plan omitting the statutory requirements is legally insufficient.
A comprehensive plan may also address transportation, punctuality, holiday priority, summer vacations, international travel, passports, electronic communication, childcare, medication, extracurricular activities, access to records, notice of emergencies, schedule changes, school events, makeup time, and dispute-resolution procedures.
Our more detailed discussion of Florida parenting-plan drafting and litigation explains how these provisions work together.
Equal Time-Sharing Is Presumed, but It Is Not Automatic
Section 61.13 currently creates a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing is in a child’s best interests unless the parents agree to another arrangement or another statutory provision applies.
A rebuttable presumption is a starting point, not an unavoidable result. A parent seeking a different schedule must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that equal time-sharing is not in the particular child’s best interests. The issue is not whether one parent deserves to “win.” The issue is whether the proposed schedule will safely and successfully meet the child’s needs.
Equal time-sharing may work well when the parents live near each other, can reliably transport the child, support the same school routine, and can each meet the child’s developmental needs. It may be inappropriate or unworkable when the evidence establishes serious safety concerns, substantial geographic distance, chronic instability, untreated substance abuse, domestic violence, significant educational or medical needs, persistent interference, or another circumstance affecting the child.
When the parents do not agree, the court must evaluate the statutory best-interest factors and make specific written findings when creating or modifying the time-sharing schedule.
Parents confronting this issue may benefit from our comprehensive guide to overcoming Florida’s equal time-sharing presumption.
Florida’s Best-Interest Factors
The child’s best interests are the primary consideration under section 61.13. The court evaluates the child and family actually before it—not an abstract theory about which parent should prevail.
The statutory analysis includes each parent’s demonstrated capacity and disposition to:
Encourage the child’s close and continuing relationship with the other parent;
Honor the schedule and respond reasonably when changes are necessary;
Put the child’s needs ahead of personal anger, convenience, or litigation goals;
Provide stability, routine, supervision, discipline, and developmentally appropriate care;
Remain informed about the child’s teachers, friends, health-care providers, activities, and daily life;
Communicate important information and present a reasonably unified front on major issues;
Participate in school and extracurricular activities;
Maintain a home environment free from substance abuse; and
Protect the child from pleadings, adult accusations, disparagement, and the emotional pressure of the litigation.
The court also considers the child’s home, school, and community record; the parents’ mental and physical health; the parenting tasks historically performed by each parent; the involvement of third-party caregivers; geographic feasibility; domestic violence; sexual violence; abuse; neglect; abandonment; knowingly false safety allegations; and the child’s developmental needs.
The statute permits consideration of any other factor relevant to the particular parenting plan. That flexibility is important. A factor that carries little weight in one family may decide another case.
The Parenting History Matters More Than Litigation Promises
Parents frequently arrive at trial with ambitious descriptions of what they intend to do after the case ends. Courts are also permitted to examine what each parent has actually done.
Relevant questions include:
Who scheduled medical appointments? Who communicated with teachers? Who attended conferences, therapy, practices, and school events? Who knew the child’s medications, friends, routines, fears, and educational needs? Who stayed home when the child was sick? Who arranged childcare? Who consistently exercised available parenting time?
Historical involvement does not permanently lock a family into its old division of labor. A parent may have worked long hours, served in the military, traveled for employment, or relied on the other parent during the marriage. Circumstances can change. The court nevertheless has to distinguish a realistic future plan from promises made for litigation.
Using appropriate childcare does not make someone an inferior parent. The more useful question is whether the proposed division of responsibilities is honest, feasible, and consistent with the child’s welfare.
Parental Responsibility Is Different From Time-Sharing
Time-sharing answers when the child is with each parent. Parental responsibility answers how major decisions will be made.
A parent may have less than half of the overnights while sharing major decision-making equally. Parents may have equal time-sharing while one parent holds ultimate authority over a specific subject. The legal concepts are related, but they are not interchangeable.
Florida recognizes three principal structures.
Shared parental responsibility
Shared parental responsibility ordinarily requires both parents to retain their parental rights and responsibilities and confer so that major decisions are made jointly.
Consultation must be genuine. It does not mean that one parent makes a decision, announces it, and gives the other parent a few hours to object. At the same time, shared responsibility does not require a conference about every meal, bedtime, ordinary purchase, or daily activity. Each parent generally controls routine care during that parent’s time, subject to the parenting plan and the child’s safety.
Shared parental responsibility with ultimate authority
A court may preserve shared responsibility while granting one parent ultimate authority over a specifically identified area, such as education or nonemergency health care. This structure can resolve recurring deadlocks without eliminating the other parent’s right to receive information, participate in discussions, and make decisions in other areas.
The authority must be defined. In Neville v. McKibben, 227 So. 3d 1270 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017), the court explained that a blanket, nonspecific award of ultimate responsibility is inconsistent with shared parental responsibility. Similarly, Meyers v. Meyers, 295 So. 3d 1207 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020), distinguished ultimate responsibility over a specific subject from an award of “sole parental responsibility” over that subject.
Sole parental responsibility
A court may award sole parental responsibility, with or without time-sharing for the other parent, when the statutory standard is satisfied. Shared parental responsibility is ordinarily required unless the court finds that it would be detrimental to the child.
Sole responsibility is not merely a remedy for parents who communicate poorly or dislike each other. The evidence must justify removing a parent from major decision-making. Relevant proof may involve domestic violence, abuse, neglect, dangerous instability, severe untreated substance abuse, persistent obstruction of necessary medical or educational care, or other conduct demonstrating detriment.
Our page addressing parental responsibility and decision-making authority discusses school, medical care, therapy, religion, activities, discipline, driving, and other recurring disputes in greater depth.
School, Medical Care, Therapy, and Major Decisions
A carefully drafted plan should distinguish major decisions from routine ones.
School selection is ordinarily a major decision because it affects education, transportation, peer relationships, activities, and frequently the time-sharing schedule itself. The plan should identify who has educational responsibility, which address controls school registration, and what happens if the parents reach an impasse.
Health-care provisions should address routine care, specialists, emergencies, insurance, access to portals and records, medication, notice, and nonemergency procedures. When the parents share responsibility over health-care decisions, section 61.13 generally allows either parent to consent to the child’s mental-health treatment unless the parenting plan states otherwise.
Therapy disputes deserve particular attention. The plan may need to address provider selection, access to treatment information, confidentiality, transportation, payment, attendance, and whether both parents may communicate with the provider. The child should not be placed in the role of carrying therapeutic information between hostile parents.
Activities can fall on either side of the line. A casual activity occurring only during one parent’s time may be a routine decision. A year-round travel team requiring substantial fees, interstate trips, and practices during both parents’ time is different. The plan should explain when mutual consent is required and how cost, transportation, and scheduling will be handled.
Building a Time-Sharing Schedule That Works
A time-sharing schedule should be understandable without requiring the parents to renegotiate it every week.
Possible schedules include alternating weeks, shorter rotations, school-week and weekend arrangements, extended weekends, long-distance schedules, and plans tailored to irregular employment. The best structure depends on the child’s age, school, activities, health, temperament, relationship with each parent, distance between homes, and the parents’ actual availability.
A complete schedule should address:
Ordinary school weeks and non-school weeks;
Weekends, weekdays, and exchange times;
Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break, religious holidays, birthdays, and other important days;
Summer vacations and notice deadlines;
Teacher workdays, school closures, and three-day weekends;
Transportation, exchange locations, authorized adults, delays, and travel costs;
Priority when holiday, vacation, and regular schedules conflict; and
Procedures for requesting temporary changes and preserving makeup time.
“Reasonable time-sharing as agreed by the parents” may work for genuinely cooperative families. In a high-conflict case, it can amount to no enforceable schedule at all.
Florida appellate decisions repeatedly demonstrate why precision matters. A parent cannot reliably enforce a right that the order never defines. In Ford v. Ford, 153 So. 3d 315 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014), the court’s analysis illustrated the difference between enforceable commands and broad aspirational language.
Exchanges, Transportation, and Communication
Exchanges are often treated as minor drafting details. They can become the most frequent source of conflict.
The plan should identify times, locations, transportation duties, authorized adults, car-seat requirements where appropriate, and what happens if a parent is late. School or daycare exchanges can reduce direct conflict. Other families may need a public location, curbside exchange, or a protected setting.
Current section 61.13 permits a court to require a neutral safe exchange location or an authorized supervised-visitation location when the required findings concerning risk, safety, and the child’s best interests are made.
The plan must also address how parents communicate with the child. That may include telephone, video, text, or another age-appropriate method. Communication should be meaningful without becoming surveillance of the other household. Provisions should account for the child’s age, homework, activities, bedtime, privacy, and the practical realities of travel.
Communication between parents may occur through email, text, a parenting application, or another defined method. A communication protocol can reduce conflict, but it should not prevent urgent information from reaching the other parent.
Records and Direct Access to Providers
Section 61.13 generally protects each parent’s access to the child’s medical, dental, and school records. Unless a court order specifically restricts those rights, each parent is entitled to the same form, substance, and manner of access available to the other parent, including direct communication with providers.
A parent should not have to depend on an adversarial former spouse for every report card, appointment summary, prescription, or school notice. Whenever possible, both parents should obtain separate portal access and register directly for institutional notices.
Direct access reduces opportunities for gatekeeping and creates a reliable record of each parent’s involvement.
A Child Does Not Choose the Parenting Plan
Florida does not establish an age at which a child may simply choose where to live.
The court may consider a child’s reasonable preference if the judge finds that the child has sufficient intelligence, understanding, and experience to express one. Maturity and the reasons for the preference matter. So do pressure, coaching, fear, convenience, discipline, loyalty conflicts, and the child’s understanding of the consequences.
In Perez v. Perez, 767 So. 2d 513 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), the court recognized that a sufficiently mature child’s preference may receive weight but cannot, standing alone, replace the full legal analysis.
Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.407 generally requires a court order based on good cause before a child may be brought to court to testify. Parents should not rehearse testimony, promise that the child will decide, or force the child to select between households.
In appropriate cases, information about the child’s experience may be developed through a guardian ad litem, social investigation, qualified evaluator, or another lawful process that reduces the child’s direct exposure to the litigation.
Domestic Violence, Abuse, Neglect, and Unsafe Parenting
Domestic violence and child-safety evidence can affect parental responsibility, equal time-sharing, supervision, exchanges, and the structure of the entire parenting plan.
A qualifying conviction for a first-degree misdemeanor or higher involving domestic violence creates a rebuttable presumption that shared parental responsibility is detrimental. Even without a conviction or injunction, the court must consider relevant evidence of domestic violence or child abuse.
In Wallace v. Wallace, 418 So. 3d 148 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), the court reversed the parenting plan in its entirety where the judgment failed to demonstrate consideration of a domestic-violence conviction and the statutory presumption while awarding shared responsibility and equal time-sharing.
Depending on the evidence, protective provisions may include supervised time-sharing, protected exchanges, restrictions on transportation, testing, sole parental responsibility, limits on direct communication, or other narrowly tailored safeguards.
Safety allegations also require a serious defense when they are false, exaggerated, outdated, or disconnected from parenting. Section 61.13 expressly permits consideration of knowingly false information concerning domestic violence, sexual violence, abuse, abandonment, or neglect.
Mockler Leiner Law, P.A. represents clients both seeking and defending protective relief. Learn more about the relationship between parenting litigation and Florida domestic-violence proceedings.
Substance Abuse, Mental Health, and Supervised Time-Sharing
A diagnosis, prescription, past mistake, or history of treatment does not automatically establish parental unfitness. The relevant question is how the condition affects judgment, consistency, supervision, transportation, decision-making, or the child’s safety.
Evidence may include testing, treatment records when lawfully discoverable, police reports, impaired-driving incidents, missed parenting time, medication compliance, witness observations, communications, and proof of recovery or relapse.
The requested remedy should match the demonstrated risk. A court may consider supervision, daytime contact, a step-up schedule, neutral exchanges, testing, treatment-related conditions, transportation restrictions, or another protective structure. Restrictions should be specific enough to follow and review.
Our attorneys handle cases involving psychological evaluations in Florida custody litigation and disputes over whether supervision or another limitation is necessary.
Parental Alienation, Interference, and Children Resisting Contact
A parent’s willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other parent is a statutory factor. Repeated withholding, blocked communication, concealment of school or medical information, disparagement, manufactured scheduling conflicts, and involving the child in litigation can materially affect the case.
Not every child who resists contact has been alienated. Resistance may arise from abuse, frightening conduct, untreated addiction, broken promises, poor parenting, developmental issues, or conflict created by both adults. The case must distinguish manipulation from justified estrangement.
The strongest evidence is usually conduct-specific. Instead of relying only on labels, counsel should identify what was said or done, when it occurred, who witnessed it, how the child reacted, whether the conduct formed a pattern, and what remedy will actually improve the situation.
Potential remedies include makeup time, clearer communication provisions, parenting coordination, therapy, reunification work, a social investigation, a guardian ad litem, modification, or contempt when the existing order is sufficiently clear.
Guardians Ad Litem, Social Investigations, and Parenting Coordinators
Professionals can help the court understand a complicated family, but the decision remains the judge’s.
A guardian ad litem may investigate and advocate concerning the child’s best interests. A social investigation under section 61.20 may address the parents, child, home environments, records, collateral witnesses, and proposed schedule. A qualified mental-health professional may perform an evaluation when legally authorized and supported by the required showing.
A parenting coordinator may assist parents in implementing an existing order, improving communication, and resolving limited disputes within the governing statute and referral order. A parenting coordinator is not a substitute judge and cannot simply rewrite substantive rights.
In Merlihan v. Skinner, 382 So. 3d 735 (Fla. 4th DCA 2024), the court addressed the improper delegation of judicial authority in connection with a parenting plan. Expert recommendations may be persuasive, but the court must independently decide the parenting issues.
Professional involvement also creates strategic questions about scope, privilege, cost, record access, methodology, collateral contacts, expert testimony, and cross-examination. An appointment should serve a defined purpose.
Temporary Parenting Plans and Emergency Relief
A final trial may be months away. Either parent may request temporary relief establishing parental responsibility, time-sharing, school arrangements, communication, or safety provisions while the case is pending.
Temporary hearings can have lasting practical consequences. The schedule may influence the child’s routine, the parents’ negotiating positions, and the evidence ultimately presented at trial. A parent should not treat temporary relief as an informal proceeding merely because the order is not final.
Emergency relief requires more than urgency in the parent’s mind. The motion should identify the immediate danger, provide admissible supporting evidence, and request relief tailored to the risk. Depending on jurisdiction and circumstances, relief may involve temporary supervision, restrictions on removal, protected exchanges, emergency jurisdiction, or an expedited evidentiary hearing.
Overstated emergencies can damage credibility. Understated dangers can leave a child unprotected. The pleading, evidence, and requested remedy should match.
Relocation and Long-Distance Parenting Plans
A parent generally cannot relocate a child first and seek permission later.
Section 61.13001 governs qualifying relocations, generally involving a change of at least 50 miles for at least 60 consecutive days, subject to the statutory definitions and exceptions. A relocating parent may need a written agreement satisfying the statute or court approval.
Relocation cases require evidence addressing the reason for the move, the child’s relationships, school and community, employment or family support, good faith, transportation, travel costs, communication, and the feasibility of preserving the other parent’s relationship.
An unauthorized move can result in an order returning the child, modification, attorney’s fees, or other relief. Parents considering a move—or opposing one—should review our discussion of Florida parental relocation litigation before changing the child’s residence.
Long-distance plans should be unusually specific. They may require extended summer and holiday periods, flight procedures, passport provisions, transportation allocations, video contact, missed-flight rules, and notice deadlines.
Military Parenting Plans, Deployment, and PCS Orders
Military families may face deployment, temporary duty, training, activation, irregular schedules, overseas assignments, or permanent-change-of-station orders.
Florida’s Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act, sections 61.703 through 61.773, provides a specific framework for deployment-related agreements and temporary orders. Deployment should not be used as a shortcut to a permanent loss of parental rights.
A military parenting plan may need provisions for advance notice of orders, temporary caretaking authority, contact during deployment, pre-deployment and post-deployment time, automatic resumption of the prior schedule, travel, and future PCS relocation.
Richard Mockler is a former United States Marine, and the firm regularly handles military family-law issues. Our military practice provides additional guidance concerning Florida military child custody, deployment, and parenting plans.
Jurisdiction When Parents Live in Different States or Countries
The court that can grant a divorce is not necessarily the court with authority to make the initial parenting determination.
Florida applies the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. Jurisdiction may depend on the child’s home state, the child’s residence during the six months before filing, prior orders, another state’s continuing jurisdiction, and whether emergency jurisdiction is necessary.
A parent should not assume that filing first automatically creates jurisdiction. International cases may also involve treaties, federal law, foreign orders, passport issues, and substantial enforcement risks.
Jurisdiction should be analyzed before requesting substantive custody relief, relocating the child, or agreeing to an order that may be difficult to enforce elsewhere.
Enforcement, Remedies, Attorney’s Fees, and Damages
Child support and time-sharing are separate obligations. A parent ordinarily may not withhold the child because support was not paid. A parent required to pay support may not stop paying because time-sharing was denied.
When a parent improperly refuses to honor the schedule, section 61.13 requires makeup time consistent with the child’s best interests and permits other remedies. Depending on the violation and the relief requested, the court may award attorney’s fees and costs, order a parenting course, allocate transportation burdens, impose community service, modify the plan when the legal requirements are met, hold a party in contempt, or impose another reasonable sanction.
Contempt ordinarily requires a clear order, a proven violation, and evidence that the noncompliance was willful. A parent accused of violating the plan may defend by showing compliance, ambiguity, impossibility, consent, waiver concerning a particular occurrence, a genuine safety emergency, or another legally sufficient justification.
A custody proceeding is generally not a tort action. The ordinary remedies are parenting relief, enforcement, makeup time, modification, contempt, costs, and attorney’s fees when authorized—not emotional-distress or punitive damages. Separate conduct may support an independent civil or criminal proceeding, but those remedies do not arise merely because the parents disagree.
Our attorneys prosecute and defend parenting-plan and time-sharing enforcement proceedings.
Modifying an Existing Parenting Plan
A parenting plan does not change itself when a child gets older, a parent moves, work schedules change, conflict increases, or the parents begin following an informal arrangement.
Section 61.13 currently requires a substantial and material change in circumstances and a determination that modification is in the child’s best interests. The present statute does not retain the former requirement that the change also be unanticipated.
Potential grounds may include significant changes involving safety, domestic violence, substance abuse, persistent interference, geographic distance, school needs, medical needs, repeated failure to exercise time-sharing, or a major change in parental availability. If parents previously lived more than 50 miles apart and one moves within 50 miles of the other, that move may qualify for consideration under the statute when modification is in the child’s best interests.
A parent seeking modification should file proper pleadings and identify the requested new plan. A parent defending the existing order may challenge whether the alleged change is substantial, whether it is supported by admissible evidence, whether it has already been resolved, or whether the proposed schedule would actually benefit the child.
An oral agreement or informal schedule may become difficult to prove and may not protect either parent if the relationship deteriorates. Learn more about post-judgment modification of Florida parenting plans.
Evidence and Trial Strategy in a Florida Custody Case
Custody trials are decided through evidence, credibility, statutory findings, and a workable proposed plan.
Preparation may include:
A clear chronology of parenting events and disputed incidents;
Calendars documenting actual time-sharing, missed exchanges, school attendance, appointments, and activities;
School, medical, childcare, travel, employment, police, court, and other admissible records;
Properly preserved communications, photographs, videos, and electronic evidence;
Witnesses with firsthand knowledge rather than family members repeating what they were told;
Discovery directed to disputed safety, parenting, scheduling, and decision-making issues; and
A proposed parenting plan that gives the judge a legally sound and practical alternative.
Volume is not the same as proof. Five hundred hostile text messages may establish mutual conflict without proving which schedule serves the child. A focused set of authenticated communications tied to specific statutory factors may be far more persuasive.
Credibility can decide the case. Parents should avoid violating temporary orders, discussing litigation with the child, coaching the child, posting about the case, deleting evidence, making reckless accusations, or using access to information as leverage.
The requested remedy also matters. A parent who proves a manageable communication problem may not justify sole parental responsibility. A parent who establishes a serious safety threat should not request a plan that leaves the threat unaddressed. The relief should be proportionate, specific, and supported by the record.
Negotiation and Mediation Without Giving Away the Case
Many parenting cases should settle. Children often benefit when their parents—not a judge with limited exposure to the family—design the schedule.
Settlement does not mean accepting vague language or splitting every disputed issue in half. Effective negotiation identifies the decisions most likely to create future conflict and resolves them in writing.
A negotiated plan may include procedures a court would be reluctant or unable to invent without agreement, such as a carefully designed right of first refusal, detailed vacation-selection rules, expense caps for activities, response deadlines, or a defined method for choosing a neutral professional.
Mediation works best when the parent understands the governing law, the available evidence, the likely trial risks, and the language needed to make the agreement enforceable. Mockler Leiner Law, P.A. represents clients throughout Florida family-law mediation while preparing contested cases for trial if settlement fails.
Child Support and the Parenting Plan
Equal time-sharing does not automatically eliminate child support. The calculation depends on both parents’ incomes, the number of overnights, health insurance, childcare, uncovered medical expenses, and other statutory factors.
The schedule should reflect the time the parents realistically expect to exercise. A paper schedule created solely to influence support may generate future enforcement and modification disputes.
Parents should also address health insurance, uncovered expenses, reimbursement procedures, childcare, and extraordinary child-related costs. For additional information, review our page concerning Florida child-support calculations and litigation.
Why the Final Order and Appellate Record Matter
A favorable oral ruling is not enough if the written order is incomplete, inconsistent, or unsupported by the required findings.
The parenting plan should accurately reflect the court’s ruling and satisfy the statutory requirements. Counsel should preserve objections, ensure admitted evidence is included in the record, request required findings, and timely address material omissions or inconsistencies.
Custody appeals are frequently shaped by work performed before and during trial. A party cannot assume that an appellate court will reconstruct missing evidence, resolve an ambiguous plan, or accept factual assertions that do not appear in the record.
Richard Mockler, Angela Leiner, and Mockler Leiner Law, P.A.
Richard J. Mockler and Angela L. Leiner are Florida trial lawyers who handle serious family-law disputes involving children, credibility, safety, mental health, substance abuse, finances, experts, and complicated evidence.
Richard’s litigation, financial, and military background is particularly valuable when a parenting case overlaps with business ownership, substantial income, interstate issues, military service, deployment, or relocation.
Angela brings extensive family-law trial and appellate experience to contested parenting cases. Her work includes cases involving equal and majority time-sharing, sole parental responsibility, supervision, alienation allegations, psychological issues, substance abuse, and enforcement.
Mockler Leiner Law, P.A. prepares parenting cases with the end in mind. That means identifying the governing legal standard, developing admissible proof, testing the opposing narrative, presenting a workable plan, and building an order that can be enforced and reviewed.
No responsible lawyer can guarantee a particular parenting result. What experienced trial counsel can do is identify the issues early, protect the evidentiary record, expose unsupported allegations, and present the strongest lawful case for the child and parent.
Frequently Asked Questions About Florida Child Custody
What is child custody called in Florida?
Florida courts generally use the terms parenting plan, parental responsibility, and time-sharing. “Child custody” remains a common search term, but the court ordinarily enters a parenting plan rather than labeling one parent the custodian and the other a visitor.
Is 50/50 time-sharing mandatory in Florida?
No. Equal time-sharing is rebuttably presumed to be in the child’s best interests unless the parents agree otherwise or another statutory provision applies. A different schedule may be ordered when the evidence proves that equal time-sharing is not best for the particular child.
Does equal time-sharing mean no child support?
No. A parent may owe child support even with equal time-sharing. Income differences, childcare, insurance, uncovered medical expenses, and other statutory factors affect the calculation.
Can a parent receive sole parental responsibility?
Yes. A court may award sole parental responsibility, with or without time-sharing for the other parent, when the statutory standard is satisfied. Poor communication alone does not necessarily establish that shared responsibility would be detrimental.
Can one parent have final authority over school or medical decisions?
Yes. A court may order shared parental responsibility while granting one parent ultimate authority over a specifically identified subject when the evidence and child’s best interests support that structure.
Can a child decide which parent to live with?
No fixed age allows a child to choose the parenting plan. The court may consider a sufficiently mature child’s reasonable preference, but the preference is only part of the best-interest analysis.
Can one parent change the child’s school without permission?
Not ordinarily when the parents share educational responsibility. The answer depends on the existing plan. If the parents reach a genuine impasse, they may need a court ruling unless the plan grants one parent ultimate educational authority.
Can either parent obtain school and medical records?
Generally, yes. Section 61.13 protects both parents’ access unless a court order specifically restricts those rights.
Can a parent withhold time-sharing because child support was not paid?
Generally, no. Support and time-sharing are separate obligations. The parent should pursue lawful support-enforcement remedies rather than violate the parenting plan.
What can the court do when a parent withholds the child?
Depending on the circumstances, the court may award makeup time, attorney’s fees and costs, impose sanctions, order a parenting course, hold the offending parent in contempt, or modify the plan when the legal standard is met.
Can time-sharing be supervised?
Yes. Supervision may be ordered when supported by the evidence and necessary to protect the child. The order should identify the supervisor, schedule, location, costs, rules, and any lawful conditions for later review.
Do unmarried parents need a parenting plan?
An unmarried parent may need a paternity proceeding or another appropriate action to establish enforceable parental responsibility and time-sharing. A biological relationship or support payment does not, by itself, create a detailed schedule that can be enforced.
Can a parenting plan be changed later?
Yes, but not merely because one parent prefers another schedule. Modification ordinarily requires a substantial and material change in circumstances and proof that the requested change is in the child’s best interests.
Can a parent move with the child?
A qualifying relocation may require the other parent’s written consent or court approval under section 61.13001. Moving first can result in serious legal consequences.
Should parents settle or go to trial?
That depends on the evidence, safety issues, disputed terms, and each parent’s willingness to accept an enforceable plan. Settlement can give parents greater control. Trial may be necessary when a parent conceals evidence, demands an unsafe arrangement, refuses meaningful compromise, or uses the child as leverage.
Speak With a Florida Child Custody Attorney
A parenting plan can govern years of school, holidays, health care, travel, activities, communication, and parent-child relationships. It should be built with the same care the court will expect when enforcing it.
For a Florida child-custody, parenting-plan, parental-responsibility, or time-sharing dispute, call Mockler Leiner Law, P.A. at (813) 331-5699 or contact us online to schedule a consultation.