Grandparent’s Visitation and Custodial Rights: A Practitioner’s Tool Kit

Alphonse F. Provinziano

Alphonse Provinziano is a well known Beverly Hills Divorce and Family Law attorney. Mr. Provinziano is a Certified Family Law Specialist by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization. A graduate of UC Berkeley and Hastings Law School, he is the principal of Provinziano & Associates. For more information visit: http://www.Provinziano.com

Let’s be honest – child custody can one of the most daunting areas in the practice of family law. Why would anyone want to take on an even more challenging area of the law – grandparent’s rights? The answer is that grandparents are important parts of children’s lives. The Legislature has recognized this in grandparent visitation legislation – as well as the courts upholding this legislation – since many grandparents play an important role in children’s rights. Anecdotally, in my practice, I have seen multi-generational families living under one roof, often with significant and meaningful relationships between grandchildren and grandparents, who in these cases become a part of the child’s daily life. In the eye of the child, these grandparents can often take on parent-like roles. A problem arises when grandparents are shut out of being a part of their grandchild’s life. There is a rapidly evolving area of law developing around seeking rights for grandparents.

Thus, the practitioner of grandparent’s rights serves an important role – they are helping to secure access by a grandchild to their grandparent, when one of the parents is in opposition of the relationship of a child to the grandparent. The resources in this area are slight, and in colloquial practice, they are not seen on a routine basis in trial courts in the same volume and magnitude as a child custody case.