Two secrets to winning a child custody trial in Pennsylvania
Hi, I’m Tom Petrelli. I wanna talk to you about the two secrets to winning a child custody trial in Pennsylvania. What I’m about to tell you is based upon my 20 plus years of experience trial child custody cases of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I told you in the video before the judges were custody to the parent that they feel that they can trust to raise and care for the child properly, but here’s the secret to winning one of these cases. And there really is a secret that goes beyond trust. I really think there are two secrets that are awfully important to know. So I’ll tell you about them both. The first one is this, and it seems trivial, but it’s not. It’s like going to court in a child custody case, while for you it’s going to be one of the most interesting things you’ve ever had to live through for a judge who does this day in and day out, it’s, excruciatingly boring. There’s testimony about who brushes their teeth. Kids’ teeth, who talks to child night, who reads bedtime stories, and how many soccer games mom went to versus dad. And how many dental appointments dad went to versus mom and on and on and on and on. Anything you do to make this case more interesting. Do it. Anything you do to help that judge to keep paying attention. Do it. It will make all the difference. And so I will suggest to you that you find anything tangible that you can show to the judge. Anything that will make this case a little more interesting than you just talking about it. Pictures, videos, things from school, cards, letters, anything at all, any kind of evidence, pull it together and put it somewhere and protect it so that you’ll have it available to show to the judge.
I suggest that you take all this stuff and put it somewhere safe, like a lawyer’s office or your friend’s house, locked it up, put it away. Don’t hide things in your own house. If you’re saving them for a custody trial, if you do that, it’s going to be found out. And if it’s only gonna make things worse, not better, if the things don’t disappear, so gather stuff up, put it away because the more you can do to make your case interesting, the better it will help this judge to be able to really focus on what’s going on when your side is presenting their evidence. That’s secret number on., Secret number two, the other one to winning one of these cases relates to this, I guess, a sober riddle. So hear me out. You’ve all heard this, is the one where if a tree falls in the forest, there was no one there to hear it. Does it really make a sound? Well, if you take that and you analogize it to a custody case, it becomes this question. If you’re a great parent and no one knows you’re a great parent, are you really a great parent? And I will tell you having tried lots of these custody cases that have no one knows that you’re a great parent. As far as that judge is concerned, you’re not a great parent, because here’s what happens in a custody trial. Mom comes in, and she says, “I’m a great parent dad’s not.” Dad comes in, he says, “I’m a great parent, mom’s not” The judge is not going to believe, the judge has no idea when mom and dad are directly… they have no idea if mom or dad are telling the truth because they’re drifting conflict with her testimony. So who’s really telling the truth.
There’s only one way to tell the difference in this, and that’s through other people. So the people that make a difference, the people that really will impact the uploader case, are the people that are senior parent. You’ve seen you parent your children, the daycare center person that can say, “When this parent cries up, that child’s eyes light up. You can see the love in that child’s eyes. As she runs across the yard and jumps into her parents’ arms,” or the nurse in the doctor’s office that can testify and say, “Whenever that child’s sick, this parent takes time off from work and brings the child in and makes sure that child is taken care of and then stays at home with that child to make sure they get well.” That makes a difference. How about the neighbor they can say, “I see that parent out in the yard every afternoon playing catch with that child,” all of these people, all those friends or relatives, all the people who know about your parenting, those are the people that make a difference to this judge into your child custody case.
So you don’t want to be an invisible parent. If no one knows you’re a great parent, then frankly you’re not, you need to be visible. And that really means, well, that’s really good news right now because you can become visible. All you need to do is get out there and do it. A custody case is not about a moment in time. It’s about a lot of moments in time. It’s about all the time you get to know your child and do it in public. And if you’re thinking about the idea of being in court one day with no on a child custody case, you’ve got a lot of time between now and that day. The custody cases drag on forever. They literally can go on for 18 years. The court date will be a long time in most people’s future. You might have six months from the day you filed before you get into court.
You might have a year. You might have a year and a half. It takes a long time to get ready and try a custody case. And so is that time goes by. You can be a great parent and document it. You can be more visible while you’re being a great parent. You can be involved in Cub Scouts or in brownies. You can be involved in busy the school or volunteering to chaperone a field trip. There’s so many things you can do that will make you not just a better parent, but will help you when your custody case goes, you’re increasing your visibility. You’re developing more witnesses, and frankly, you’re just developing more time with your child. So these are my ideas about how to win child custody case. I’ve seen this day in, day out, there’s lots and lots of information about custody on our website. I encourage you to take a look at it, go to petrellilaw.com. There’s also information about on this website about other issues that you may be dealing with. Take a look at that. And we got tons of information, but most importantly, okay, this issue child custody, you really ought to be talking about your situation directly with a lawyer. You need to get that independent objective feedback so that you can make the best decisions. Good luck. I’m Tom Petrelli for Petrelli Previtera, LLC.