Issues related to children can present challenges for your lawyer as well. While your lawyer's loyalty is to you, your lawyer also has an obligation as an officer of the court to keep the best interest of the children in mind, even if that interest is inconsistent with yours. B. Legal and Physical Custody Physical custody is the responsibility of having the children live with you. Day to day decisions include what the children eat and wear, who they play with and when they go to bed. Legal custody is the right to make important long-term decisions affecting your children's welfare.
Many variations are possible.
There can be joint legal custody and sole physical custody, and vice versa. Joint legal custody does not necessarily mean that there is equal time sharing of the children. Usually the parent without physical custody has visitation rights, also called access or secondary physical custody. The terminology is less important than how the arrangement works in practice. There is no one standard joint custody arrangement.