Even Miranda Priestly had to go to think about the best option to get custody of her twins so why wouldn’t you? Different costs and benefits exist in a decision to start the dissolution of your family unit in family court versus supreme in a New York Custody battle.
As I mentioned in a prior post, you cannot get a divorce in family court. However, you can get custody in family court and then go to supreme court to finnish off the financial aspects of the divorce. The benefit is that family court has zero filing fees and can be a relatively quicker process than supreme court. As a result your attorney fees could potentially be less if you started the dissolution of your family unit in family court. Also, your children would not be in limbo about what the final custody arrangement ends up being. The order from the family court would be introduced to the supreme court when the divorce action commences as proof that this aspect of the divorce was resolved.
The benefit of starting the action in supreme court is that the entire proceeding is before the same justice. That justice would get to know the family dynamics of your case that would necessarily impact your finances. You would not have to get used to the particular habits of two different judges. Your divorce lawyer, who would handle the supreme court matter may have more interaction with the supreme court judges than the family court judges. The atmosphere of the family court is more pro se friendly. Family Court judges are more used to dealing with self represented litigants. Although not recommended, this is important if you only have finances to hire a divorce attorney to resolve your financial issues in supreme court.
If you are considering whether to pursue a custody order in family court or commencing a divorce in supreme court which involves custody issues, call Diana Mohyi Attorney at Law P.C. Two heads are better than one.