On Jan. 24, 2011, the Pennsylvania Child Custody Act went into effect and made sweeping changes to the existing child custody laws, including mandatory factors that courts must consider in making custody determinations. Yet, more than three years later, some lawyers and judges still fail to follow the mandates of the act.
Before the effective date of the act, a determination of custody was made based on only the “best interests” of the child, but little guidance was given as to what that meant. The act articulates 16 specific factors that a court must consider in awarding custody. The intent behind the factors was to promote some consistency in custody orders and restrict, to a degree, the arbitrary nature of determining child custody.
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