Denver Child Custody Lawyer

best denver child custody lawyer

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Denver, CO Child Custody & Allocation of Parental Responsibility Attorney

Prioritizing the health and safety of a child is the most important thing to a parent. Fortunately, the law does too. If you are separating from your child’s other parent, it’s important to know your options as well as the priorities of the judicial system. A Denver child custody lawyer can help you navigate this process.

Child custody & allocation of parental responsibility agreements are very serious. The legal system uses a significant amount of effort to create and enforce them, so it’s important that you view the process with the appropriate mindset. It’s also important to understand what’s at stake for your family if you’re moving into an allocation of parental responsibility arrangement.

Hire a Child Custody Lawyer

Having an experienced family law attorney on your side is key to ensuring that you can spend time with your children. Without an attorney, you risk losing access to your kids or putting them into a situation that would be detrimental to their health. The court can’t understand the whole picture unless you have an attorney to represent you.

Kinnett & Cordes: Your Denver Child Custody & Allocation of Parental Responsibility Attorney

Here at Kinnett & Cordes, we prioritize families. We practice only family law to give our clients more reliable and comprehensive access to family law professionals. Our experience in this field makes us renowned in the Denver area. We have a strong record of winning cases for our clients and ensuring that the children in their families are safe, happy, and well cared for.

By focusing only on family law, we can give you the niche knowledge and skill that you need for your child custody and parenting time case. No other area firm can provide the level of reliable legal counsel that our team at Kinnett & Cordes can.

What Are Child Custody and Parenting Time Arrangements?

In 2025, Colorado courts received 31,231 domestic-related cases, including child custody cases. The law states that both of a child’s parents should contribute to the child’s upbringing and care. When parents are married or live together, this is often the natural order of things. However, if a child’s parents are divorced, separated, or not involved with one another, equal contribution becomes more difficult.

Child custody and parenting time arrangements outline the amount of time that each parent will care for their child. These agreements vary greatly depending on the circumstances of the family at hand.

Because these arrangements are legally binding, parents can better enforce them. If one parent is supposed to care for a child and regularly doesn’t do so, the custodial parent can bring them to court to fix the issue. These agreements hold both parents accountable and ensure that parents are contributing to their child’s well-being.

Child Custody Arrangements

Child custody arrangements deal with a child’s living situation. Though parents may not have the children with them all of the time, they have a regular and ongoing responsibility to provide safe and healthy long-term housing when the children are in their care.

Parenting time can be arranged several ways to meet your family’s unique circumstances. This is easier to achieve when both parents can agree and create a schedule outside of court. Otherwise, a judge will decide the schedule and it likely will not be as tailored to your situation as you might like. Some common schedules include one week with one parent and one week with the other, weekdays with one parent and weekends, etc.

Decision-Making

As a part of the allocation of parental responsibilities process, decision-making for your children will also be decided upon. Decision-making is distinct from the parenting time schedule. Typically, decision-making refers to the major decisions parents make for their children with respect to medical, educational, religious, and extracurricular decisions.

In general, decision-making does not relate to day-to-day decision-making. Typically, day-to-day decision-making is left to the party that has the children.

Generally, even if one parent has majority time, decision-making is awarded to both parents unless the Court finds that awarding one parent decision-making will be determinantal to the child’s upbringing and wellbeing. If parents are unwilling or unable to work with the other parent on decisions for the child, the Court may award decision-making authority to one parent over the other. The standard for the initial determination of decision-making responsibility is “best interests of the child.”

Parenting Time

In 2024, over 31.4% of households in Denver County with children were single-parent homes. Parenting time determines when a child will be in each parent’s care. A detailed parenting plan may establish a regular weekly schedule and address holidays, school vacations, birthdays, transportation, exchanges, and communication with the child while they are with the other parent.

Colorado courts consider each family’s individual circumstances rather than automatically applying one standard schedule. Relevant factors may include the child’s relationship with each parent, adjustment to home and school, physical and emotional needs, and the ability of each parent to encourage a positive relationship with the other. The Court may also consider the parents’ proximity to one another, their ability to place the child’s needs first, and the wishes of a child when appropriate.

Parenting time is separate from decision-making authority. A parent may have substantial parenting time without having equal authority over major educational, medical, religious, or extracurricular decisions. Regardless of the schedule, each parent generally handles routine, day-to-day matters while the child is in their care.

In some scenarios, a parent is not fit to care for their children. This can happen for many reasons, including:

Untreated drug or alcohol abuse
Unstable housing
Inability to appropriately care for the child
Domestic violence

These scenarios may simply indicate that one parent is not capable of properly maintaining ongoing custody at the present time and are not necessarily qualifying judgments on the love or devotion of the parent to the child.

When safety concerns exist, a court may impose conditions such as supervised visits, protected exchanges, substance testing, or participation in treatment. However, Colorado courts generally may restrict parenting time only after finding that it would endanger the child’s physical health or significantly impair the child’s emotional development.

Modifications

It’s important to understand that modifications can be made to your allocation of parental responsibility order; they do not need to be permanent. If something significant changes, the court or the other parent may agree to make changes to your parenting arrangements. For example, if a parent is seeking to move to a new state, they may seek modification.

Other reasons for requesting a modification may include a new work or school schedule, changes in the child’s needs, a parent’s failure to follow the existing plan, or concerns about the child’s safety. As children grow, a schedule that once worked well may no longer support their education, activities, or relationships with both parents.

Parents can agree to adjust their arrangements, but they should submit the revised plan to the Court for approval. Until a judge enters a new order, the existing order generally remains enforceable. Informal arrangements can create problems if the parents later disagree about what they approved, as there may be limited legal options for the Court to interfere.

The requirements for obtaining a modification depend on the change being requested. A court may approve many parenting time adjustments when they serve the child’s best interests. A substantial change that also changes which parent the child has most of the time is subject to stricter requirements. Modifying responsibility for major educational, medical, religious, or extracurricular decisions also involves a separate legal standard.

Colorado child custody laws generally limit how frequently a parent may file another motion seeking a substantial parenting time change that would switch the child’s primary residence. Such motions ordinarily cannot be filed within two years after the previous motion was resolved unless the child may be endangered or the majority-time parent plans to relocate in a way that substantially changes the child’s geographical ties.

Modification standards vary, so guidance from a Denver child custody attorney is essential. The team at Kinnett & Cordes can offer dedicated assistance for your child custody case, assisting with modifications to parenting time, allocation of parental responsibilities, and other concerns.