Nolo's Essential Guide to Child Custody and Support

Custody and Support: Get the Answers You Need

When you’re getting divorced, you can make a tough time easier for yourself and your children if you work with the other parent to agree on a custody plan and child support. If you can’t resolve these issues, you’ll have to head to court and ask a judge to decide for you.

Either way, Nolo’s Essential Guide to Child Custody & Support can help. You’ll learn how to:

• negotiate and use mediation to keep costs down and improve future dealings with your ex 

• find your state’s child support guidelines

• advocate for the custody arrangements you want

• enforce and change custody and support orders

• anticipate how your case will be handled by a judge  if you go to trial

• recognize the situations where you need a lawyer, and

• work with a lawyer.

You’ll also find information on subjects such as the factors judges consider when they rule on custody arrangements, and what happens when one parent wants to move away with the children.

Emily Doskow is a practicing attorney and mediator who has worked with families in the Bay Area for more than 22 years. She specializes in family law, including adoption, parentage issues, domestic partnership formation and dissolution, and divorce. She is a graduate of Berkeley Law at the University of California. She is the author of Nolo's Essential Guide to Divorce and coauthor of A Legal Guide for Lesbian & Gay Couples.