Pinal County, AZ Custody Attorneys

Overview

Pinal County has grown fast, and a lot of families here moved out from the Phoenix metro for space and a mortgage that worked. When those families separate, the geography that made sense as a couple can stop making sense as two households.

Our Pinal County custody attorneys keep caseloads low so your case gets real preparation. Call for a free consultation and we will give you a candid view of what is workable.

Arizona custody law

How Arizona Decides Legal Decision-Making and Parenting Time

Legal decision-making is authority over school, medical care and religious upbringing. Parenting time is the schedule. Arizona decides them separately.

Under A.R.S. § 25-403, the court applies the child’s best interests to both and weighs all relevant factors, including each child’s relationship with each parent, adjustment to home and school, the mental and physical health of everyone involved, and which parent is more likely to support the child’s relationship with the other parent.

The statute is statewide. Pinal County applies the same law as Maricopa, which means the substance of your case does not change because of where you live.

Florence, and the drive

Pinal County Cases Are Heard in Florence

The Superior Court of Pinal County sits at 971 N. Jason Lopez Circle, Building A, in Florence, the county seat.

Pinal County is the third most populous county in Arizona and covers more than five thousand square miles, and its largest town is San Tan Valley rather than Florence. For a great many Pinal families, going to court means a genuine drive rather than a trip across town, and that has consequences worth planning around.

It affects parenting plans directly. Exchange points, mid-week parenting time and whether a parent can realistically make a weekday hearing all depend on distance in a way they do not in a dense metro. A schedule that looks even on paper can be unworkable if one parent is absorbing ninety minutes of driving that the other is not.

We build Pinal County plans with the driving written into them. Named exchange locations, an honest allocation of who travels, and a schedule that survives a parent working in the Phoenix metro rather than assuming they do not.

When someone moves

Moving Toward the Metro Can Trigger the Relocation Statute

Under A.R.S. § 25-408, when both parents have joint legal decision-making or parenting time and both live in Arizona, a parent must give at least 45 days advance written notice before moving the child out of state or more than 100 miles within Arizona. Notice goes by certified mail with return receipt requested, or as the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure allow.

Pinal County is large enough that a move within Arizona, and in some cases within the wider region, can approach or cross that 100 mile line. Whether a specific move does is a question of actual distance, and it is worth getting checked rather than assumed, because guessing wrong in either direction is expensive.

The other parent has 30 days from notice to petition to prevent the move, and after that window only good cause will do. The burden of showing the move serves the child rests on the parent proposing it, and the court weighs the A.R.S. § 25-403 factors alongside the relocation factors in the statute.

Come to us before notice goes out. That is the point at which the options are widest.