Legal Custody and Physical Placement

When parties have children and separate, there needs to be a determination of the legal custody and physical placement arrangements. Legal custody refers to which parent has the right to make major decisions for the child(ren). Major decisions include includes, but are not limited to, decisions regarding consent to marry, consent to enter military service, consent to obtain a motor vehicle operator's license, authorization for non-emergency health care and choice of school and religion. Legal custody can be either sole custody, where one parent makes these decisions, or joint custody, where both parents share this responsibility. In Wisconsin, joint legal custody is generally preferred. Even with joint legal custody, a party can have final decision-making authority over specified major decisions. However, in cases of where a party has engaged in a pattern or serious incident of domestic abuse or child abuse, sole legal custody is typically awarded to the non-abusive parent, with the abusive parent required to provide specific grounds to justify joint legal custody.

Placement, on the other hand, determines the where, when and any conditions which the child(ren) spend time with each parent. This is a separate consideration from custody, meaning that even with joint legal custody, one parent may have primary placement of the child(ren). Absent domestic abuse or child abuse, the court generally look to set a placement schedule that allows the child(ren) to have regularly occurring, meaningful periods of physical placement with each parent and that maximizes the amount of time the child may spend with each parent, taking into account geographic separation and accommodations for different households. There are multiple factors the court considered when making physical placement determinations.