Article: If you can afford a family law attorney, you should consider hiring one to help you navigate the custody process. See this article for directions on how to find a good family law attorney. Even if you cannot afford a full-service attorney, many attorneys provide limited services at a reasonable cost. This means you may be able to hire an attorney to prepare your documents, give you limited legal advice, or potentially even teach you about this area of the law, without having to pay the attorney to take on the entire custody process. You will file your petition for custody in the same court you opened your family law case in. Generally, you will open your family law case in the country where your child lives. This is true even if you live in a different county. In order to petition the court for full custody of your child, you will have to fill out a request for an order. This form will require you to divulge information including your request for custody and the facts supporting your request. These facts should indicate why you deserve custody of the child and how your custody request will be in the best interest of the child. Because you are petitioning the court for full custody, you need to make sure you request both legal and physical custody. In California, this is as easy as writing your name under the headings on the form for "legal custody" and "physical custody." Once you have filled out the required forms to request a custody hearing, you will want to review them carefully. These forms are going to be the basis of your custody argument, so you want to make sure they have been filled out accurately and completely. If you will not have the help of an attorney, consider using some of the free legal resources available to you. For example, in California, you can contact a family law facilitator or a self-help center for assistance with these forms. If you are in California, use this link and this link for more information about those resources. Once your forms have been reviewed and you have determined they are ready to file, you will want to go to your local courthouse to file them. At the courthouse, file your forms with the clerk of courts. The clerk of courts will take possession of your forms and will require you to pay a filing fee. Fees will differ from state to state, and even county to county. If you cannot afford the fee, you can always ask for a fee waiver. In order to receive a fee waiver, you will need to show some sort of financial hardship. For example, you could show that you are receiving public benefits or that you do not have enough income to provide for basic necessities and pay the filing fee. When you serve the other party, you will hire someone (the sheriff or another competent adult) to give a copy of your filed documents to the other party to look over and respond to. To serve the other party, the person you hire must provide the required documents to them, either in person or through the mail. If you are serving someone through the mail, it must be sent by certified mail. In Pennsylvania, this process must be completed within 30 days of filing your documents with the court. In some states (e.g., Michigan), your answer must also be served on the other party at least five days before the hearing if you provided service through the mail, and at least three days before the hearing if you have the other party served personally. For more information about serving another party, look here. In addition to serving the other party with the documents you filed with the court, you will also serve the other party with a blank response form and a blank Declaration Under Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. These documents will be used by the other party in order to respond to your filed lawsuit. Once you have successfully served the other party with your petition for full custody, the other party will have an opportunity to respond to your petition. When the other parent answers your petition, they will have the option of agreeing with your requests or denying some or all of your requests. Also, the other parent may fail to file an answer at all. If the other parent declines to file an answer, you could file for a default judgment. A default judgment cannot resolve all issues, however. For example, the court can modify visitation if the child is in your state but the other parent lives out of state. But the court probably cannot modify an order for child support from the out-of-state parent. If the other party filed an answer and you did not get a default judgment, some courts will require you and the other party to take part in mediation before you can go to court. If your court requires mediation, you and the other party should make a good faith effort to agree on the terms of custody there, which will allow you to avoid the trial process. For more information about mediation, look here. If you and the other party took part in mediation, and you came to an agreement allowing you to have full custody of your child or children, get the agreement signed by the court and that will act as your valid custody order. In California, in order to validate a custody agreement, you must first fill out a Stipulation and Order for Custody. Once you fill out this form, you will obtain the judge's signature on your stipulation and you will file it with the clerk of courts.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Consider hiring an attorney. Locate the appropriate court. Complete the necessary forms. Review your forms. File the forms. Serve the other party. Wait for an answer. Take part in mediation. Submit an agreement.
Article: This briefly describes the content of your report and answers the question "What did you do, why did you do it, and what did you learn?" It should not be longer than a half page. You may find it easier to write the abstract after you've finished the body of the paper. However, the abstract will come before the body in the final report. This section will provide some background information about the topic of your report. If you need to include a literature review, it will go here as well. In the introduction, describe the problem or topic your report investigated. This could be a scientific issue, such as the rate of growth of mealworms, or a current affairs topic, such as increased security in airports. Summarize relevant research, but don't let it take over the introduction. The bulk of your report should be your work, not discussion of others'. If you performed an experiment and are writing the report about it, describe your experiment in the introduction. In scientific writing, this is often presented in a section called "Methods." In this section, explain what procedures, materials, etc. you used. You can order your methods chronologically, starting with what you did first. Alternately, you can group them by type, which may work better for humanities research. Use past tense to describe the actions you took. In this section, you present your observations, or the results of your methods. You'll need to describe the experiment or procedure briefly (use less detail than you did in the Methods section) and report the main results. You can present the results in several different ways. You can organize them from most to least important, from simplest to more complex, or by type. Don't interpret your results here. You will do that in the next section. This is the meat of your report. It's where you analyze your results and tell the reader what they mean. Summarize the most important findings at the beginning of the discussion. You can go into further detail in subsequent paragraphs. Explain the relationship between your results and the previous scholarly literature. Note what additional research would help fill in gaps in your research or resolve any problems. Explain the broader relevance of your results. This is called answering the "So what?" question. What do your discoveries mean? Why are they useful and important? In some reports, you may be asked to wrap up with a separate conclusion that reminds the reader of the most important points. For many reports, however, you can conclude your report at the end of the Discussion section.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Start with the abstract. Write the introduction. Present your methods or the focus of your analysis. Present your results. Discuss your data.