About Me

Name: Hal Davis

Location: Plano, Texas, United States

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Yesterday I was speaking with someone, and he said he had had a "close call." I asked him what happened, and he said, "You don't want to know."

Now, when I was younger I would probably have let my curiosity get the better of me, and I'd hound him until I got a better idea of what was going on.

But as I've gotten older and wiser (and more experienced as an attorney), I've learned that when people tell me "you don't want to know," they're probably right. Knowing would burden me with ethical concerns, and perhaps the obligation to say or do something.

Similarly, there is a couple I've known for several years who have filed for divorce. Neither one of them has consulted with me or hired me, so my interest is purely personal. I'm dying to learn why they're divorcing. But when I look at my motives, I don't need to know the reason for the breakup in order to be a good friend to either of them. I'm afraid my curiosity is really rooted in a desire for gossip -- and that's a place I don't need to go.

Recently some other divorce attorneys called my attention to the "2-2-5-5" possession schedule (I had never heard of it before). Several marriage counselors say they like it, but I haven't made up my mind, yet.

The schedule is designed to give each parent half the time, while avoiding some of the pitfalls of other ways of doing it. One way of doing 50/50 is trying to split a week (which is difficult to do without giving one parent all the weekends). Another is to alternate weeks (Dad gets a week, then Mom gets a week), but most child development specialists say that children need more frequent time with each parent, not necessarily so prolonged.

2-2-5-5 is much like the name sounds like. Start with either parent (let's flip a coin and say Dad). Dad gets Monday and Tuesday; then Mom gets Wednesday and Thursday; then Dad gets Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday; then Mom gets Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So, over the course of two weeks, each parent gets an extended weekend, and each parent gets half the time.

But I have several concerns about the 2-2-5-5 schedule, most of the practical issues having to do with the nuts and bolts of actually putting the Possession Order together so it still works with the messy complications of real life.

Take Spring Break for example. Often one parent will want to take the child (or children) for the entire Spring Break for a ski trip, or a trip to Disney World, or just to go see family. Under the Standard Possession Schedule, one parent always gets Spring Break in odd-numbered years, and the other gets Spring Break in even-numbered years, so these sort of things sort themselves out. But it's not clear where you'd get back into the 2-2-5-5 schedule after a Spring Break.

Or take Thanksgiving. If Dad gets the first 2 of the 2-2-5-5, then Mom gets every Thursday. And Thanksgiving is always on Thursday. So Dad never gets the kids on Thanksgiving. Don't know if that's a problem or not.

And a more subtle but more pronounced problem is that it's impossible to tell at a glance at the calendar 6 months from now who has the child when. The Standard Possession Schedule solves this problem by not using the term "every other weekend", and instead going with "on weekends, beginning on the first, third, and fifth Friday of each month" - which is very slightly more generous than every other weekend, but it has the great advantage that you can look at a calendar 2 years from now and tell who gets the kids each weekend. The 2-2-5-5 schedule just doesn't work unless you count weekends. And there's no natural way to reset the 2-week cycle after an interruption such as a holiday, Spring Break, summer possession, or a child's birthday.

Custom possession schedules work best when the parents remain cooperative and flexible, and agree to exceptions to the schedule as the need arises. But they often fail when the parents become uncooperative, which usually means a trip back to court, and often means that the judge imposes the Standard Possession Order (because it is tested and tried, and all the loopholes have been squeezed out).

Sometimes my client will tell me that he or she and his/her spouse have agreed to a non-standard possession order and I'll prepare the papers. But then the spouse will ask another attorney to review the papers, and that attorney will point out all the potential problems with a non-standard possession order, and we wind up going back to standard, which often results in additional fees to my client for a substantial rewrite of a big portion of the divorce decree.