Lehigh Valley Child Custody Lawyers

Which kind of custody case is this?

Most custody questions fall into one of these situations:

• There is no custody order yet, and you need a set schedule, a clear arrangement for making decisions, or both.
• There is an order, but life has changed: a new job, a new school, a safety problem.
• One parent wants to move, and the move could cut into someone else's custodial time. See Moving with a child.
• There are allegations of abuse, drugs or violence. See When safety is the issue.
• The other parent isn't following the order, or something can't wait. See Emergencies, contempt and changing an order.
• You are a grandparent or other relative who is raising the child or wants time with the child. See Grandparents and other relatives.

Each one calls for a different filing with its own rules, so it pays to know which one you are in before anything gets filed.

How a custody case moves

1. Make sure it's the right court

Pennsylvania can usually make a first custody decision if the child has lived here with a parent, or someone acting as a parent, for the six months right before the case is filed. For a baby six months old or younger, the test is whether the baby has lived here since birth, and temporary absences count toward that time. If Pennsylvania was the child's home state within six months before the case is filed, the child has left, and a parent or someone acting as a parent still lives here, Pennsylvania can usually still make the first custody decision. Inside the state, the case generally belongs in the child's home county, or in the county that was the child's home county within the last six months if a parent still lives there. Families in Bethlehem should check which county applies before filing. Grandparents and other nonparents also need standing, meaning the legal right to bring the case. (23 Pa.C.S. §§ 5402, 5421; Pa.R.C.P. 1915.2.)

2. File the right papers

A new case starts with a verified custody complaint, one you sign under penalty for false statements. If there is already an order, you file a petition to modify it, or a petition for contempt if it is being ignored. Both sides also fill out a form disclosing any criminal record or abuse history. Within 30 days after it receives a complaint, a petition to modify or a petition to intervene, the court must send every named party a copy of the custody-factor statute. Read it, because it is the list the judge will use. (Pa.R.C.P. 1915.3, 1915.3-2; 23 Pa.C.S. § 5328(d).)

3. Go to the first conference

Your first court date has to be scheduled to take place within 45 days of filing. In both counties it is a conference rather than a trial, a chance to settle with a court officer's help, and both counties require a co-parenting class in most cases. (Pa.R.C.P. 1915.4(a).)

4. If you don't agree

In Northampton County, whatever is left goes to a judge. In Lehigh County, partial custody goes to a hearing officer, while legal custody and primary or shared physical custody go to a judge. The county sections below explain each court.

5. Trial, decision and appeal

If 180 days pass after the complaint is filed, the case hasn't been scheduled for trial, and no one has asked for one, the court has to dismiss it. The parties first get notice and a chance to object, and the case goes on if someone was granted an extension or dismissal wouldn't be in the child's best interest. Under the rules, trial must start within 90 days after it is scheduled, and the judge must rule within 15 days after it ends (45 at most with an extension) and explain why. In practice, continuances, evaluations and busy calendars often stretch those numbers. Custody cases have no post-trial motions. A final custody order can be appealed to the Superior Court within 30 days after it is entered, and the statement of errors must be filed along with the notice of appeal. (Pa.R.C.P. 1915.4(b)–(d), 1915.10(d); 23 Pa.C.S. § 5323(d); Pa.R.A.P. 903, 905.)

6. Live with the order

Follow it, even if you disagree with it. If it stops working, or the other parent stops following it, the law has specific tools: modification, contempt, relocation and emergency relief.

How a lawyer helps

A judge needs to know what happened, when, who saw it, and what schedule or safety measure you are asking for. Much of a lawyer's work is turning a parent's concerns into that kind of case. In practice, a lawyer works out the right court and filing and organizes the evidence around the factors the judge has to weigh. A lawyer also proposes terms that will work day to day, prepares you for the conference and for testifying, and keeps the custody case in step with any PFA, children and youth, criminal or support case running alongside it.

The Easton office, the only office location represented on this site, serves clients in Allentown, Bethlehem and throughout Northampton, Lehigh and Monroe counties.

How Pennsylvania decides custody

Custody has two parts. Legal custody is "the right to make major decisions on behalf of the child, including, but not limited to, medical, religious and educational decisions." Physical custody is "the actual physical possession and control of a child," which in plain terms means where the child lives and when. A judge can give either kind to more than one person to share or to one person alone, and physical custody can also be primary (most of the time), partial or supervised. Shared physical custody doesn't have to mean 50/50. It means each person has "significant periods of physical custodial time with the child," and the order sets the actual schedule. (23 Pa.C.S. §§ 5322, 5323.)

Neither parent starts ahead. The law has no presumption in favor of mothers or fathers and forbids any preference based on gender. (§§ 5327(a), 5328(b).) The judge decides what is in the child's best interest by considering every relevant factor, and since Kayden's Law took effect on August 13, 2024, four factors about safety get "substantial weighted consideration":

• which parent is more likely to keep the child safe;
• abuse, past or present, by a parent or someone in that parent's household, which can include protection orders where abuse was found;
• indicated or founded child-abuse reports, and any protective services from children and youth;
• violent or assaultive behavior by a parent.

The judge also weighs:

• how well the parents cooperate, including which one is more likely to encourage frequent, continuing contact with the other parent when that contact is safe, and whether either is trying to turn the child against the other;
• each parent's willingness and ability to put the child first, based on the parenting each has done and is willing and able to do, and on how each one attends to the child's daily physical, emotional, developmental, educational and special needs;
• stability in the child's school, family and community life, unless a change is needed to keep the child or one of the parties safe;
• the child's relationships with brothers, sisters and other family;
• the child's own well-reasoned preference, depending on the child's developmental stage, maturity and judgment;
• how far apart the parents live;
• each parent's work schedule and availability to care for the child or arrange child care;
• any history of drug or alcohol abuse by a parent or anyone in that parent's household;
• the mental and physical health of the parents and the people in their households;
• anything else that matters.

The same factors apply to a grandparent or anyone else who is a party, and no single factor decides the case. (§ 5328.)

Act 11 of 2025, which took effect August 29, 2025, cut and reorganized much of the older list. The availability of extended family, for example, is no longer a separate factor, and the court now has to send each party a copy of the factor statute early in the case. Our article One Year Under Pennsylvania's Rewritten Custody Factors goes through the changes, and Kayden's Law in Pennsylvania Child Custody & PFA Cases covers the safety reforms.

One more rule matters for grandparents and other nonparents. In a dispute between a parent and a nonparent over primary physical custody, the law presumes the parent should have it, and the nonparent must overcome that presumption with clear and convincing evidence. (§ 5327(b).)

Custody cases in Northampton County

Northampton's procedure comes from Administrative Order 2023-14, which took effect September 5, 2023. Custody papers, other than relocation filings, start at the Custody Office. For an ordinary filing, the office gets a scheduling order signed by the Administrative Judge, and the papers then go to the Prothonotary for filing and a conference date. If you don't have a lawyer, you have to file in person.

The first event is a conciliation conference with a custody conference officer. It is off the record. The officer can help the two of you reach an agreement but cannot decide anything you disagree about, and children aren't interviewed. If you agree on everything, the agreement goes to the judge and becomes the order once it is signed.

If you don't agree, a judge sorts out disputes over temporary arrangements and over things like evaluations or counseling. The case then goes to a judicial settlement conference, and to trial only if the judge authorizes it. The trial is a fresh hearing before the judge. (Pa.R.C.P. 1915.4-3.)

Both sides must take the Co-Parenting Education Program, known as COPE. The person who files registers within 30 days after filing and the other side within 30 days after being served, and both have to finish within 60 days of the filing. Requests for more time go through the Custody Office, and a certificate from an earlier class may count. Emergency petitions also go through the Custody Office before they reach the Motions Judge. Our Northampton County family court guide has the filing details.

Custody cases in Lehigh County

In Lehigh County, before you file a complaint, or a petition to modify or for contempt, you get a scheduling order from Family Court Administration that sends everyone to a mandatory office conference at the Lehigh County Courthouse in Allentown. Filing is electronic, through Lehigh County File & Serve, unless the court has exempted the filing, and there are staff and computer kiosks at the Family Court Office for people who don't have a lawyer.

The office conference is off the record. Children don't attend unless the hearing officer directs it, either on the officer's own initiative or because a party asked in writing.

If the case doesn't settle, the next step depends on what you are asking for. Claims for legal custody, or for primary or shared physical custody, go to trial before a judge, and a judge also hears contempt. Partial custody goes to a hearing officer, a lawyer who takes testimony on the record and recommends an order. You then have 20 days to file exceptions (written objections), counted from the date the report is mailed or received, whichever comes first. Whoever files exceptions has to get the transcript, and a judge hears argument and enters the final order. If a partial-custody case involves complex questions, or the parties certify serious allegations about the child's welfare, either side can ask, promptly after the first court contact, for a judge to hear it instead.

Everyone in a Lehigh custody case has to complete the Co-Parent Education Program, the plaintiff within 60 days of filing the complaint and the defendant within 60 days of being served. In an emergency, a petition for special relief has to be filed along with a custody complaint when it seeks to establish custody, or with a petition to modify when it seeks to change an existing order. It can be presented to Family Court Administration for scheduling. Anything granted without notice to the other side is temporary, and a hearing follows once that side has notice. A request for a relocation hearing starts with a conference before a custody hearing officer. (Lehigh County Family Court Rules 1915.3, 1915.4, 1915.4-2, 1915.13 and 1915.17; Pa.R.C.P. 1915.4-1, 1915.4-2.) Our Lehigh County family court guide has more.

Moving with a child

Pennsylvania calls a move a "relocation" when it would significantly impair anyone else's ability to exercise custody rights. A relocation can't happen unless everyone with custody rights agrees or the court approves it. (23 Pa.C.S. §§ 5322, 5337.)

If you want to make that kind of move, you must notify everyone with custody rights by certified mail, return receipt requested, at least 60 days before the move. The court rule adds "addressee only," or allows service under Rule 1930.4. If you couldn't reasonably have known in time and the move can't reasonably wait, the notice is due within 10 days after you learn of the move. It has to include, if available:

• the new address, and the mailing address if it's different;
• the names and ages of everyone who lives or will live in the new home;
• the home phone number;
• the new school district and school;
• the date of the move and the reasons for it;
• a proposed new custody schedule;
• a counter-affidavit the other side can use to object;
• a warning that not objecting within 30 days will bar a later objection.

The law shields some information from disclosure, such as an abuse victim's address. (§ 5337(c); Pa.R.C.P. 1915.17.)

If you receive a notice and want to object, you have 30 days from the day you get it. Fill out the counter-affidavit, file it with the court, and serve it by certified mail, return receipt requested. The court rule calls for service, plus filing if a custody case already exists, so doing both is the safe course. If you were given proper notice and don't object in time, the law presumes you consented, and the court won't hear testimony challenging the move later; the rule's notice form adds "absent exigent circumstances." (§ 5337(d); Pa.R.C.P. 1915.17(b), (i).)

Even when no one objects, the statute tells the parent who is moving to file four things with the court before the move: an affidavit that notice was given and no one objected, proof of notice (the signed return receipt and the full notice), a petition to confirm the relocation and modify any existing order, and a proposed order. The court rule also says that, if no objection is timely served after proper notice, the parent may move; it describes confirmation filings for a parent seeking a court order. Get advice about confirming the move and revising any existing custody order before relocating. If there's no custody case yet, the court rule pairs that filing with a custody complaint. In Lehigh County, get a hearing date from Family Court Administration before filing the petition to confirm. (§ 5337(e); Pa.R.C.P. 1915.17(e); Lehigh County Family Court Rule 1915.17(e).)

When someone objects in time, the court holds an expedited full hearing before the move, unless exigent circumstances justify approving it in the meantime. The judge weighs ten factors, with extra weight on those that affect the child's safety. They include the child's relationships, age and needs, whether the child's relationship with the other parent can be preserved, each side's reasons and motives, and any abuse. The parent who wants to move has to prove the move serves the child's best interest, and each side has to show its motives are honest. (§ 5337(g)–(i).)

If someone has objected, don't move before the hearing unless the court has approved the move. A parent who moves before the hearing gets no presumption in favor of the move. Moving without reasonable notice can count against that parent, both on the move itself and on whether custody should change, and it can also lead to an order to bring the child back, an award of the other side's expenses and counsel fees, and contempt. But if the court finds that abuse caused the missing notice, in whole or in part, the law requires it to give that failure less weight. (§ 5337(j)–(l).)

Since November 26, 2025, a separate law, the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act (Act 40 of 2025), has governed custody during a parent's military deployment. The relocation statute still applies to moves under that Act, and the statute on changing an order gives way to it where the Act provides otherwise. (51 Pa.C.S. ch. 46; 23 Pa.C.S. §§ 5337(a), 5338(b).)

When safety is the issue

The judge has to consider whether anyone asking for custody, or someone in that person's home, has been convicted of certain offenses or pleaded guilty or no contest to them. If so, the court can give that person custody only after deciding they don't pose a threat of harm to the child. A conviction generally doesn't decide custody by itself, but special statutory limits apply to murder of the other parent and certain offenses that resulted in the child's conception. (§ 5329.)

The court also has to find out whether the child, a party or anyone in a party's household has an indicated or founded child-abuse report or has received protective services. Since July 1, 2025, when a party discloses that kind of history, or when the judge wants to know more, the court asks the county children and youth agency, which has 14 days to respond unless the court sets a different deadline. The report goes to the parties, stays confidential, and can't be passed along to anyone else. (§ 5329.1; Pa.R.C.P. 1915.3-3.)

Sometimes a judge finds a history of abuse or a present risk of harm and still gives any form of custody to the person who committed the abuse, or whose household member did. When that happens, the order has to include the safety conditions reasonably needed to protect the child or the person who was abused, along with the reasons. Those can include professional or nonprofessional supervision, limits on time, an intervention program and limits on legal custody. If the judge finds by a preponderance of the evidence that there is an ongoing risk of abuse to the child, the law presumes that the person who poses the risk gets only supervised time with the child. That presumption can be overcome, and when the court orders supervision it must prefer a professional supervisor. (§ 5323(e), (e.1).)

The statute also protects a parent who acts to keep a child safe. A factor isn't held against a parent when the circumstances behind it were a response to abuse, or were necessary to protect the child or the abused party, as long as that parent isn't a risk to the child at the time of the hearing. Good-faith, reasonable efforts to protect yourself or your child aren't treated as refusing to cooperate, and reasonable safety concerns aren't treated as turning the child against the other parent. Where there has been abuse, the court can order counseling for the abuser but can't order the parents into joint counseling. (§§ 5328(a)(2.3), (a.1), 5333(b).)

A Protection From Abuse case is separate, with its own rules and deadlines. Start with our PFA page, the guide to getting a PFA and the guide for people served with one, and see how PFA, custody, criminal and firearms cases interact.

Emergencies, contempt and changing an order

A real emergency usually means an immediate threat to the child's safety, not a dispute over a weekend. Once a case is open, or by filing a custody complaint at the same time, you can ask for special relief, including temporary custody. (Pa.R.C.P. 1915.13; 23 Pa.C.S. § 5323(b).) A Pennsylvania court can also step in temporarily, even when another state would normally decide custody, if the child is here and has been abandoned, or needs emergency protection because the child, a brother or sister, or a parent is being mistreated or abused or is threatened with it. (§ 5424(a).)

When a parent willfully ignores the order, the other parent can ask the court to hold that parent in contempt. The penalties can include up to six months in jail, a fine of up to $500, up to six months of probation, action against a driver's license, and counsel fees and costs. A jail order has to say what the parent must do to be released. (§ 5323(g).)

A judge can change an order, on a petition, whenever the change would serve the child's best interest, and a petition filed today is decided under the current factors. (§ 5338(a).) Our holiday custody guide shows how modification, clarification and contempt play out in a typical holiday dispute. If the other side's conduct is "obdurate, vexatious, repetitive or in bad faith," the court can order that side to pay your counsel fees, costs and expenses, although that may not apply to a parent who went to court in good faith to protect the child. (§ 5339.)

Grandparents and other relatives

Being family isn't enough on its own. The law spells out who can ask for custody, and what kind.

Anyone who stands in loco parentis, meaning they have taken on a parent's role and duties, can seek any kind of custody, including primary custody. That can be a grandparent, another relative or someone else. A grandparent who isn't in that role can still seek any kind of custody if three things are true: the relationship began with a parent's consent or under a court order; the grandparent has taken on, or is willing to take on, responsibility for the child; and a court has found the child dependent, the child is at substantial risk because of a parent's abuse, neglect, drug or alcohol abuse or incapacity, or the child lived with the grandparent for at least 12 consecutive months before the parents took the child back. In that last situation, the grandparent must file within six months after the removal. (§ 5324.)

Grandparents and great-grandparents can also ask for partial or supervised time in three more situations: when a parent has died, in which case the deceased parent's own parents or grandparents can file; when the parents are in a custody case and disagree about the grandparents' time, as long as the relationship began with a parent's consent or a court order; and when the child lived with them for at least 12 consecutive months and was removed by the parents, again within six months of the removal. (§ 5325.)

Someone without one of these connections, such as an aunt or a family friend who isn't acting as a parent, can seek custody only by proving by clear and convincing evidence that they have taken on, or are willing to take on, responsibility for the child; that they have a sustained, substantial and sincere interest in the child's welfare; and that neither parent has any form of care and control of the child. That route isn't available while a dependency case is pending or after an order of permanent legal custody. (§ 5324(4)–(5).)

In a fight over primary physical custody, a parent starts with a presumption in the parent's favor against a nonparent. When grandparents ask for partial custody, the judge also weighs whether it would interfere with the parent-child relationship. (§§ 5327(b), 5328(c).) Our grandparents' rights page explains each path.