Child custody and child support carry the highest emotional stakes and the most stringent verification requirements in family law. They are also the areas where AI-generated information is most dangerous if transmitted to clients without verification and attorney review.
The governing standard for child custody in every state is the best interests of the child. The general principle is nationally consistent. The specific factors courts consider are state-specific and vary meaningfully. Common factors across most states include:
The quality of each parent's relationship with the child · each parent's ability to provide stability and continuity · the child's adjustment to home, school, and community · mental and physical health of all parties · the child's own preferences, weighted by age and maturity · each parent's willingness to support the child's relationship with the other parent · history of domestic violence or abuse · proximity of the parents' homes.
Your state's statute may include additional factors, weight factors differently, or use different terminology. Verify the specific list in your state's current statute — do not rely on AI-generated lists.
Select all that apply.
A parenting plan that fails to address a category of future decision is a parenting plan that will generate future litigation over that category. The paralegal's review is structural: does this plan address every category where disputes typically arise? Module 5 drilled the gap-check. In this module, the same discipline applies to post-decree modification support — when parents come back to the firm over a gap the original plan left open.
Child support calculations in most jurisdictions are governed by statutory guidelines that produce a presumptive support amount from specified inputs. The paralegal's role: gather the income and expense information, apply the jurisdiction's current guidelines under attorney supervision, and present the calculation to the attorney for review. The attorney makes strategic decisions about the support position.
AI-generated child support calculations are not reliable. They may reflect the wrong state's guidelines, an outdated version of your state's guidelines, or an incorrect application of the guideline methodology. Child support figures given to clients — even as preliminary estimates — shape the client's expectations and decisions. Every child support figure that reaches a client must be calculated using your jurisdiction's current guidelines and reviewed by the attorney. No exceptions.