In light of an October 26, 2015, Today Parents article about actress Kelly Rutherford’s international child-custody dispute, attorney Jessica H. Ressler, of Westchester Matrimonial LLC, discusses how to deal with child-custody cases when the parents live far apart.

WHITE PLAINS, NY (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 16, 2015

“First and foremost, it is imperative that the parent seeking custody stay as involved as possible with the child through alternative means, such as phone, facetime, text, etc.,” said Ressler. “It is also important to negotiate for additional time with the child on holidays, vacations and in the summer.”
Ressler further states that if children live with the other parent in another country (such as, according to the Today Parents article, those of American actress Kelly Rutherford whose children live in Monaco with their father), the parents would need to negotiate a visitation schedule. However, Ressler states, a non-custodial parent is usually entitled to see the child in his or her home country and in the the other parent’s country, and to share vacations and holidays with the child. Ressler notes that transportation of the child to spend time with the parents is often the trickiest area to negotiate in terms of who will pay for the flights.

When the parents live in different countries, the laws of the country where the action was filed take precedence, but there has to be jurisdiction in that country before the action can be filed. For example, in New York a person would need to have lived there for a minimum of two years (or one year if certain other factors are also true) before that person can file a case in New York state. Jurisdictional rules vary by state and country. Westchester Matrimonial also sees cases where the client’s child is living in another country with a family member and the parents are both in New York without their child.

“I just finished a case where my client moved from New York to Venezuela where the child had been residing with the client’s mother,” said Ressler. “The father resides in Connecticut and we negotiated that he can take the child to New York twice a year for up to two weeks and he can fly to Venezuela whenever he would like, upon a certain amount of notice, to see the child.”

About Westchester Matrimonial LLC
Westchester Matrimonial divorce lawyers devote their practice exclusively to matrimonial and family law. The firm’s family law attorneys have, in the aggregate, been instrumental in the litigation or settlement proceedings of thousands of matrimonial and family court issues in New York state. Westchester Matrimonial attorneys are uniquely qualified to handle legal matters concerning child custody, child support, divorce negotiation and litigation, Jewish Orthodox divorces, mediation and collaborative law, paternity, visitation and much more. For more information, please call (914) 361-5500. Westchester Matrimonial LLC is located at 445 Hamilton Ave., Suite 607, White Plains, NY 10601.

This article was originally published on PRWeb and can be read here.