Navigating Oklahoma’s Child Visitation Advisory Guidelines
What is Oklahoma Standard Visitation Schedules and Advisory Guidelines? I’m Tulsa attorney James Wirth, and that is the question that we have. And what that is, it’s this thick document right here, and essentially it lays out recommendations regarding schedules for visitations in the state of Oklahoma.
So in 2004, the legislation passed a new law, and it is Title 43, Section 111.1A. What it says is that the Administrative Director of Courts is to complete a report and come up with advisory guidelines and recommendations for visitation in the state of Oklahoma. So essentially, prior to that time, different judges had certain schedules they liked, different counties had certain schedules they liked, and it was very different from county to county to judge to judge.
Understanding the Purpose of the Guidelines
Meanwhile, we’ve got the child support guidelines that pretty much lay it all out on exactly how things are gonna be based on the inputs that you put in, like the party’s income. So there was some desire to have some uniformity from judge to judge and county to county so that determinations could be made, generally speaking, on what’s best for kids and come up with schedules that fit those circumstances and then maybe provide that more widely so there’s uniformity among the counties. So that was the idea.
The result of that is that we have the advisory guidelines, standard visitation schedule, with recommended forms. And they broke it down into different parts. And it’s important to note that these are advisory, they are guidelines. So when you go to court in the state of Oklahoma for a determination regarding visitation, they don’t have to follow this.
Seeking Legal Advice for Your Specific Circumstances
Ultimately, there’s a lot of different factors that are gonna be applicable to any particular case that may be very different from the next case. So it’s very much handling it, deciding it on the best interest of the children on a case-by-case basis. However, this is a framework of kind of where to start from. And if you are going before the court and something is in the guidelines that works for what you’re wanting, then that’s a good persuasive argument to push on it and say, here’s this, it’s the guidelines, it’s determined to be the best interest of the children, as recommended by the guidelines under these circumstances.
Schedule a Low-Cost Initial Strategy Session
But, you know, like I said, not any one particular schedule is gonna fit any one particular circumstance. So they do have it divided up based on age, and they’ve got special schedules, or a special schedule if it’s long-distance-type visitation, and there’s other factors involved. So certainly if you’re dealing with a case in Oklahoma related to custody visitation, you’re probably gonna wanna know about those advisory schedules, review them, find out what you like and what you don’t like when deciding what kind of schedule you want in your case. But if you’re dealing with this right now, you’re not gonna want just information from me through this video, or even just the information through the advisory guidelines.
To get an appointment scheduled with a Tula child custody attorney at Wirth Law Office, you can go online to MakeLawEasy.com or call us at 918-879-1681 for a low-cost initial strategy session.
