Parents everywhere are terrifically concerned about how to best protect their children while at the same time abiding my Court Orders that require them to send the child over to the other parent’s house. What can they do? What must they do? Our attorneys answered one concerned parent’s question presented to us on the Avvo.com platform.

COVID-19: Does my child have to be on a 14-Day Quarantine and Weekend Visitations Out-of-State? Can I withhold my child to protect her?

Question from Avvo.com user:

“I am not sure if an answer exists for this yet, but just in case: Our (minor) child permanently lives in Maryland with me; Father lives in another state (VA). Our current arrangement is that Child visits Father every other weekend, essentially every two weeks, as spelled out in our parenting agreement filed with the courts; we (the parents) have no real contact (a story for another time). Father has stated he will still be continuing with out-of-state visitations so, as of now, Child is scheduled to visit for Easter/Spring Break. I understand visitations are an exception to the stay-at-home orders; the question I have, though, is how might out-of-state visitations work with Maryland’s 14-day/two week quarantine for out-of-state travelers? Essentially, our child would leave our home in MD for Father’s visitation (a long weekend for Spring Break), and return to MD a few days later and immediately enter into a 14-day quarantine – – at the end of which time Child would then return to Father’s for another 2-3 day visit, and then return to MD to enter into quarantine again . . . and so on. I understand this is all uncharted territory – Just hoping for any guidance or insight.”

Answers from MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office (www.mulinazzi.com):

Attorney Michelle Dauksha says:
The Court Order on the child’s schedule remains in effect, unless you and the other parent can come to a different agreement due to the unprecedented situation. Without an articulable and specific threat to your child, you must follow the Court Order. Maryland Law and your Court Order say it is important for your child to spend time with both parents but the law also and foremost wants your child to be safe. So what do you do?

MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office (www.mulinazzi.com) can help you using various dispute resolution tools and methods. I understand in your situation an agreement may not be possible if you and your child’s father do not communicate. If you have a mutual friend or a relative that has a good relationship with him, it might be beneficial to see if they’d be willing to “mediate” or help to see if an alternate schedule can be made temporarily, such as a 4 day weekend once per month to reduce the frequency of transmission and cross-contamination. You could also participate in a virtual mediation session with a trained mediator to help the two of you come to an arrangement that is in your child’s best interests during this difficult time. This is a uniquely different time. You need an attorney who will not incite you to break a Court Order. If you contact our Office (www.mulinazzi.com, 410-290-6270) we are trained to analyze the situation and help you come up with ideas and protocols to both protect your child and to protect your position in Court. Collectively, Mulinazzi Law Office divorce and custody attorneys have 100s of client reviews published on sites such as Avvo.com. We have four Maryland Super Lawyers on staff, and Attorney Mulinazzi is one of the Top 100 Attorneys in Maryland in any/all practice areas. We all are trained and certified by the Court to represent children and make recommendations to the Court.

Attorney Thomas Mulinazzi says:
I agree with Ms. Dauksha. Her advice about using a respect mutual friend to help you mediate or you could use a trained mediator is a very good idea. Mediation can be done with GoToMeeting or Zoom. Given your lack of communication with the other parent it may be best to hire a Retired Judge to mediate this situation since you may need the gravitas that a Judge brings to the mediation, Her Honor may give each and both of you a little push and a little perspective on how a Judge may see our situation. To resolve a dispute there are only two basic routes: mutual agreement or via a Court Order. Mediation can help you come to a mutual agreement – but if you cannot agree you must follow the Court Order or file the proper Motion with the Court to protect yourself.

From our discussions with the Court, the Judges are requiring all parents to be reasonable and put the best interests of the child first. In some very unique situations it may be best to withhold the child in order to keep them safe – but it is nearly impossible to make this objective decision on that when you are so emotional and concerned about your child. That is why it is critical to retain an experienced attorney with good judgment who can see the situation as a Judge would. MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office has attorney several attorneys who’ve worked for Judges and for the Courts. We are respected by Judges for our reasonable child-centered positions and our attorneys are appointed to represent children by Judges throughout Central Maryland. We can tell you that a 14 day quarantine is NOT required absent your child being exposed to someone with COVID. No Judge ever said that a child must be quarantined for 14 days just because the child went out of state – that is not a hard and fast rule. I would NOT advise my client to do that and I do not think I could defend that in Court. Traveling from Maryland to Virginia, while technically out-of-state, is a daily commute for 1,000s of people. We are separated by the Potomac River so a child visiting homes in Northern Virginia and Central Maryland is no different than a child traveling between homes in the Baltimore area and inside the Capital Beltway. What matters more is “how” both houses handle COVID and how each act keep the child and themselves safe.

Instead, of fighting over this and trying to establish which house is the safer alternative, can you agree on a shared procedure to decrease the chance of infecting both households. I know that this type of conversation is intrusive to what happens inside your own house but to protect your child you could both agree on some minimum safety procedures. For example, your child cannot play with neighborhood kids, social distancing when out of the house and wearing facemasks (not N-95 masks if you are not a health care worker), a lot of hand washing, disinfecting hard surfaces that are touched a lot, and changing clothes before the child enters your house from the last house and showering so as not to track in COVID. Doing so can significantly improve the safety of everyone. The CDC (www.cdc.gov) says these precautions save lives but these are just ideas, I am not an infectious disease expert, but you can both access guidelines on the internet. If one of you is being patently unsafe, or if the child has at-risk conditions then maybe you consider altering the arrangement and in extreme situations you may have to consider breaking the Court Order to protect your child. If you truly think that this is your situation then I strongly suggest that you consult an experienced attorney with reasonable judgment not a win-at-all costs litigator. Our attorneys at MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office (www.mulinazzi.com) has six experienced and award-winning custody attorneys who are respected by the Bench. We can assist you come up with a solution and/or protect yourself and the child in a way that comports with the Law and how the Judges want you to handle this horrible situation.

If you need help, we are here for you and we can assist. Call us at 410-290-6270, www.mulinazzi.com. Our Office is practicing socially distancing but there is always one attorney in our office which we disinfect each day. If you get a voicemail please leave a message because we will call you right back, we can to a video consultation, and if there is an emergent situation and the weather cooperates we can meet you in person – from ten feet away – and outside.

Good luck and please be safe. This too shall pass …

What is a guardianship and do I need to get one for my loved one?

There are two types of adult guardianships in Maryland: guardians of the person and guardians of the property. A guardian of the person covers authority of medical, contractual, and day-to-day decisions for another adult. A guardian of the property covers authority over money and assets including, but not limited to, financial accounts, real estate and land, vehicles, and tangible personal property.

A guardianship may be in order where a person is unable to manage his or her physical needs, health care, assets, or finances. This person is called an “alleged disabled person.” A guardian can be appointed for an alleged disabled person if lesser restrictive alternatives are not possible, or if someone does not already have the authority to make decisions on the alleged disabled person’s behalf (e.g. power of attorney).

Guardianships of Minors.

Sometimes, people want to file for guardianship of a minor in order to care for the child. This can be done for the same reasons; however, with a child you can also file for custody and a Custody Order may be a much better option (faster, less contentious, and no subsequent reporting requirements). There are some critical differences. To find out which option is best for you, call our Office at 410-290-6270 to schedule an appointment/consultation.

Someone, usually a family member, files a petition with the court to become the guardian. The court will consider whether the person asking to be appointed (‘the petitioner”) is the person best suited to make decisions on behalf of the alleged disabled person. The alleged disabled person will have an attorney appointed by the court to represent him/her and to confirm, with the direction of at least two medical/mental health professionals, whether the alleged disabled person is incapacitated and whether his/her condition will improve or worsen.

Once a guardian is appointed, the guardian must complete specific trainings, and file paperwork with the court to certify the guardian’s completion of the training, and inventories and accountings for any property of the disabled person. This must happen every year.

Mulinazzi Law Office assists by:

Discussing options and alternatives with you
Representing petitioners and interested parties in guardianship actions
Representing guardians and assisting guardians with filing the required paperwork after appointment
Preparing Advanced Medical Directives and Power of Attorney documents for adults, prior to incapacity, to avoid costly guardianship litigation which can take several weeks absent an emergency
Serving as a mediator or part of a mediation tandem to resolve guardianships disputes and keep the case out of court

Adoption is the legal process by which an adult takes a child into his/her own family, treating that child as his/her own child, and giving that child all the rights and duties of his own child. Of course, before this process happens a loving familial bond is already established and the would-be adoptee is already a loved member of the family. Still, it remains important to make sure the child is formally adopted in order to give the child legal rights and in order to give the parents legal authority. At MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office, we are personally aware and understand the emotional dynamic of this situation. As practitioners we also know the legal process and the court staff and procedure that can make the process go smoothly.

Adopting an adult.

Did you know that under Maryland Law you can adopt an adult into your family? The same procedure, albeit easier, applies to adopting an adult. Our Office has experience in helping clients adopt children and adults and we are here to help you with this. In fact, this is perhaps our favorite area of the law because we can help bring loving people together as a legal family.

Any adult can file a petition for adoption over a minor or an adult. The most common form of adoptions are “step-parent” adoptions where a step-parent becomes a legal parent and custodian of a minor or adult child.

Mulinazzi Law Office assists by:

Guiding and representing adoption petitioners not only in initiating the legal process, and advising the petitioner through the date of a hearing Representing guardians and assisting guardians with filing the required paperwork after appointment
Serving as court-appointed attorneys to represent children over the age of 10 in adoption actions
Helping parents update a child’s birth certificate and other government issued documentation after the completion of the adoption process.

Hiring a lawyer is expensive. Divorce and custody cases can turn into battles that cost a lot of money. But it does not have cost you as much as it does and that is because, in part, other law offices charge you for actions that they do not have to take, take unreasonable positions that cost you more, and/or have unfavorable billing practices. At the Mulinazzi Law Office (www.mulinazzi.com), we don’t do any of this. As a result, we earn our client’s loyalty and we win awards for client satisfaction to include winning Best of Howard County Family Law Office four times and counting.

MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office staff constantly think about how to be more efficient with client funds. We consider everything as a cost-benefit analysis for our client (not for the Office). We do this because it is more important for us to have an outstanding reputation as being fair and honest attorneys and to earn referral business with our reputation than for us to nickel and dime our existing clients to make more in the short term. Every time we watch our client’s bottom line, our clients save a little or a lot of money and it quickly adds up.

The information below is only one example of how Mulinazzi Law Office reduces costs to our clients. Please look for other blog posts as the information below is part of a series called “How to keep your Attorney’s Fees down in a Divorce or Custody Case“.

How does MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office charge less than other law offices?

We get bills from other attorneys and law firms all the time as part of “discovery.” Discovery is the process by which each side is able to ask questions and to request documents in order to gather evidence for each of our respective cases. Last week we got a bill from a well-known local law office which had two examples of typical over charging.

(1) The other law office charges a “minimum” charge for an action item that in reality takes almost no time at all. Specifically, this office charged for a paralegal’s time at a minimum of 12 minutes (0.2 hours) to file something electronically. Of course, we also file things electronically and therefore we know how long it should take to complete this. But to be sure, we timed this action and it took about 105 seconds or less than 2 minutes. More worrisome was that the other office charged their client 12 minutes for each electronic filing on the same day and in doing so the paralegal billed for 36 minutes (0.6 hr.). The reality is that when you electronically file pleadings usually you file more than one thing at the same time by simply adding additional filings under the same “envelope number” or filing. Since that is the way to do it, it takes LESS time to add the 2nd and 3rd document than it does to input the 1st document. To be clear, it should take about 6-9 minutes. This is how much our office charges- 6 minutes – not 36 minutes. So we charge up to 6x less than the other office for the same exact thing.

So, in a side by side comparison:

The other law office charges 0.60 hours to file electronically but MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office charges 0.10 – 0.15 hours to request and get the transcript.

= In this instance, MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office charges 4-6 times LESS than the other law office.

(2) Another example for the same bill, is that the other law office charged 1.00 hour of time to drive to the court house to drop off a request for a transcript. This cost their client $100. The reality is that the request can and is done over the internet and that takes our paralegal about 12 minutes. To add more charges to their client, the other Law Office then charged their client 36 minutes to drive back to the courthouse to pick up the transcript (another $60 to the their client). This other law office is 10 minutes away from the courthouse so it’s inexplicable why it would take more than an hour round trip. That being said, when our Law Office needs to drop off or pick something up from the courthouse we look at the attorney schedules and if an attorney will be there in the next day or two, then we add it to our action items and pick it up FREE OF CHARGE. Or, we have someone pick it up on the way home or on the way to work and that takes the staff member about a total of 15 minutes out of his or her way.

So, in a side by side comparison:

The other law office charges 1.60 hours to request and get the transcript but MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office charges 0.15 – 0.30 hours to request and get the transcript.

= In this instance, MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office charges 5-6 times LESS than the other law office.

If you or someone you care about needs an affordable attorney – who happens to also be rated the BEST FAMILY LAW OFFICE – refer them to MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office and call 410-290-6270 or contact us at www.mulinazzi.com. But first, have them vet us on-line by reviewing our 100s of client reviews and our awards to see that our clients agree that we focus on their needs and keep them as the priority. See www.avvo.com, www.mulinazzi.com, Facebook, Google for Business, Yelp, etc.

Maryland law now requires parents involved in custody cases and divorce cases involving minor children to work towards finalizing a Parenting Plan. If an agreement cannot be reached, the new tools provided by the Maryland Legislature require parents to submit, in advance of a trial, a joint statement outlining the points on the proposed Parenting Plan with which they disagree.

Attorney Thomas Mulinazzi is trained in Collaborative Law, a specific alternative legal process allowing couples who have decided to divorce to resolve issues including custody, child support, alimony / spousal support, property, counsel fees, and other issues, by working with a small group of highly qualified professionals in order to avoid uncertain outcomes of litigation and to achieve a mutually agreeable resolution that best meets the specific needs of their family.

Whether or not you choose to utilize the voluntary collaborative process, the divorce attorneys at MLO/Mulinazzi Law Office expertly draft agreements, including Parenting Plans, in a way that does not destroy the rebuilding of trust and which creates a strong foundation for co-parenting and communication in even the most contentious divorces. Contact us today to fight out your rights.

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