The events giving rise to a divorce and the conduct of parties during a divorce proceeding can create strong feelings among all involved parties.  Having these feelings is perfectly natural and when contained will, generally, have no bearing on your divorce or custody proceeding.  Michigan is a no-fault divorce state and there are very few reasons that a court would use the conduct of either party in real life or on-line as a basis for not ordering a truly equitable division of marital assets.

Custody, however, is not determined on a no-fault basis.  The conduct of the parties may be direct evidence utilized by the court to depart from the baseline 50/50 split of parenting time.  As an attorney, one of the first places that we will look to bolster our client’s claims in a custody proceeding is Facebook.  While a questionable post may be used as evidence for several of the 12 Best Interest Factors, in our experience most often these posts are used to show a lack of willingness and ability of a party to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing parent-child relationship between the child and the other parent.  

Where this comes up most frequently is when one parent or both are posting mean or untrue things about the other party.  We all should be frequently reminded that in spite of our best efforts to boost our privacy online, Facebook is an inherently public forum.  While you may not intend that your kids or friends and parents of your kids will read you posts, all too often they do.  Any evidence that an attorney can present that shows that you are anything but supportive of your children’s relationship with your ex will be presented and have an impact on a Judge’s decision making.

We often counsel clients to shut down their social media sites while they are going through a custody battle as little good can come of leaving them up.  If you are looking for legal counsel as you navigate the difficult road of a custody battle, give The Law Office of Mattias Johnson a call.  We will be happy to meet with you and discuss how we can help.