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Family Law

Your Trusted Child Custody Attorney in Indiana

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What Happens to Your Children When a Marriage Ends?

Child custody is often the most emotionally charged issue in any divorce or separation. Parents care deeply about their children, and the decisions made during a custody case shape daily life — where children sleep, who attends school events, who makes medical decisions, and how much time each parent gets. Those decisions deserve serious legal attention.

When parents can reach an agreement on custody, Indiana courts generally favor that outcome. A parenting plan both parties support is more stable, less costly, and far less damaging to children than a prolonged court battle. When agreement is not possible, the court applies a specific set of factors to determine what arrangement serves the best interests of the child — and that is where having an experienced family law attorney in Evansville becomes critical.

Ziemer & Ziemer represents parents on both sides of custody disputes across Vanderburgh, Gibson, Posey, and Warrick counties, working to secure outcomes that put children first.

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Our Approach

How Ziemer & Ziemer Handles Child Custody Cases

Understanding the Four Types of Custody in Indiana

Indiana law recognizes four distinct forms of child custody, and most cases involve a combination of more than one. Understanding the difference matters before any custody negotiation or court hearing begins.
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Legal custody refers to the right to make major decisions about a child’s life — education, healthcare, religious upbringing, and extracurricular activities. Legal custody can be awarded solely to one parent or shared jointly between both.
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Physical custody refers to where the child primarily lives and which parent is responsible for day-to-day care. Like legal custody, physical custody can be sole or shared.
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Sole custody means one parent holds primary legal or physical custody. The other parent typically receives parenting time, but one parent carries the decision-making authority or the child primarily resides with one household.

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Joint custody means both parents share legal or physical custody, or both. Joint arrangements require a workable level of communication and cooperation between parents. Indiana courts can order joint custody even when one parent objects, if the evidence supports it as the best arrangement for the child.

What Indiana Courts Consider When Parents Cannot Agree

When custody is contested, Indiana courts apply a best interests standard and weigh a specific set of factors. Ziemer & Ziemer builds the evidentiary record around these factors from the earliest stage of the case:
  • The child’s age and any expressed preferences
  • Which parent assumed primary caregiving responsibility during the marriage
  • Each parent’s work schedule and availability
  • Each parent’s physical and emotional capacity to parent
  • The strength of the child’s emotional bond with each parent
  • Whether either parent is attempting to use the child as leverage against the other
  • Whether either parent is unfit to raise the child
  • Whether either parent is attempting to undermine the child’s relationship with the other parent
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Gathering the right evidence on each of these factors — and presenting it clearly to the court — is what separates a prepared custody case from an unprepared one.
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WHY NOT GO IT ALONE

Can Parents Handle Custody Without an Attorney?

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Some parents attempt to negotiate custody directly or represent themselves in court, especially when the divorce case appears straightforward. Child custody rarely stays simple once emotions run high or one parent becomes uncooperative. Agreements made without legal review may contain terms that are difficult to enforce, fail to account for future changes in circumstance, or inadvertently give up parenting time that could have been protected.

Custody orders, once entered by a court, carry the force of law. Modifying them later requires demonstrating a substantial change in circumstances — a standard that is not easy to meet. Getting the arrangement right the first time is far less costly, financially and emotionally, than returning to court to fix it.

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WHY ZIEMER & ZIEMER

Ziemer & Ziemer: A Legal Team That Treats Children as the Priority

Evidence-Driven Custody Strategy

Child custody disputes are emotionally taxing by nature. Parents are not dealing with property or finances — they are fighting for time with their children. Ziemer & Ziemer approaches every custody case with a clear strategy: identify the factors the court will weigh, gather the evidence that supports the client’s position on each one, and present that evidence in a way that gives the court a clear picture of where the children are best served. Emotion is understood; the legal work is methodical.

Keeping Custody and Finances Separate

One of the most damaging patterns in contested divorces is when financial disagreements bleed into custody proceedings — when a parent withholds cooperation on custody to gain leverage on asset division, or vice versa. Ziemer & Ziemer refuses to allow those issues to become entangled. Children are not financial tools. Custody decisions are made on the merits of parenting, and financial matters are handled on their own terms.

Your Children Deserve an Attorney Who Will Fight for Them

Custody decisions made today affect your children for years. Ziemer & Ziemer gives Evansville parents the experienced, honest legal representation they need to protect their relationship with their children — from the first consultation through final order.
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