Downtown Charleston Child Custody Attorney
On the peninsula, the courthouse is an easy walk. Nothing else about this is.
Downtown is a city to visitors and a village to residents, small enough that you recognize most of the strollers on your block.
Which is the problem. You have been carrying this through a village, and you already know who you’d see on the walk to Broad Street. That is not a reason to keep carrying it alone.
Bring it to someone once.
QUICK ANSWER
Where is a downtown Charleston custody case heard, and what decides it?
Downtown Charleston sits on the peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, in Charleston County, so a custody case here is ordinarily heard at the Charleston County Family Court at 100 Broad Street, often within walking distance of home. Custody is two questions decided together: who makes the major decisions about your child, and where your child lives.
- The factors are written down. S.C. Code Ann. § 63-15-240(B) lists all seventeen. Best interest is a checkable list, not a judge’s impression of you.
- Both parents must file a proposed parenting plan. S.C. Code Ann. § 63-15-220 requires one at every contested temporary hearing, on court form SCCA 466.
Downtown clients worry about being seen, and they are right to. Broad Street on a weekday morning is a small town. Hearings are not announced and the building is busy with people there for a hundred other reasons, but if it matters to you, say so early and it can be planned around.
School here is a lottery, not a zone
My office is on East Bay Street and Broad Street runs west off it, so for most downtown clients getting to court is the one part of a custody case that costs nothing but shoe leather. If you’re driving in, park in the courthouse garage, off Meeting Street or off Queen, with another down Queen past King.
The peninsula’s real complication is school. Downtown families do not simply get a zoned assignment the way a suburb does. Buist Academy admits through a lottery with testing, and several of the most sought-after magnet programs are not on the peninsula at all. So where a child goes to school is not settled by an address here, and how a child is doing at home, at school, and in the community is one of the seventeen factors under Section 63-15-240(B). Downtown, that factor is a live decision rather than a fixed fact.
How does a downtown custody case actually move?
- Get clear on what you’re asking for.
Legal custody is who decides about school, doctors, and activities. Physical custody is where your child sleeps. On the peninsula the school question is squarely a legal custody question, because somebody has to decide what to enter in the lottery.
- Confirm which courthouse.
The peninsula is Charleston County, so the answer is usually the building down the street. Not automatically. Where a custody claim rides along with a divorce or separate support action, S.C. Code Ann. § 20-3-60 also allows the county where the other parent lives, so a co-parent who moved over the Cooper to Daniel Island can put the case in Berkeley County.
- Fill out the proposed parenting plan.
Both parents file one under Section 63-15-220, on form SCCA 466. It wants a fourteen day schedule, a summer schedule, and a holiday table. Downtown households are often small and close together, which makes a generous-looking schedule easy to write and hard to live in. Write the real one.
- The temporary hearing.
Under Rule 21, SCRFC it lands twenty one to forty five days out and runs on sworn written statements, not live testimony. The length you asked for caps your pages, and your reply is handed up at the hearing. Don’t spend it all up front.
- Mediation, then a final hearing.
Most cases end at mediation, which is usually better, because settling keeps the decision with you.
Family therapists on the peninsula
A custody case changes where a child sleeps and who they see, and the law already treats that as relevant: how your child is adjusting at home, at school, and in the community is one of the seventeen factors. Downtown has the shortest trip to a counselor of anywhere in the area, which is worth something when the alternative is a bridge. Two honest notes: a treating therapist isn’t a custody evaluator and shouldn’t be asked to become one, and counseling records can come up in a case.
198 Rutledge Avenue, Suite 8
410-299-7980
Individual, couples and family therapy, west of King and just south of the Crosstown. The out-of-state number is the practice’s own.
170 Meeting Street, Suite 110
843-823-7196
Family counseling and teen therapy, with ADHD and autism-focused work, a few blocks from the courthouse.
Lowcountry Family and Children
222 W. Coleman Boulevard, Suite 202, Mount Pleasant
843-693-5112
A children’s therapist, for a child who needs a steady place of their own to talk while the grown-ups sort out the schedule.
Listed as a starting point, not an endorsement or a referral arrangement. Confirm current details with each practice.
Questions downtown parents actually ask
Will people I know see me at the Charleston County courthouse?
Possibly, and it is a fair thing to plan around rather than hope about.
Broad Street is busy with people attending court for many reasons, and nothing about a family court hearing is announced. If privacy is a real concern, raise it at the first meeting with your lawyer so it can be handled deliberately.
Downtown Charleston schools run on a lottery. Who decides what we enter?
That is a legal custody question, and it belongs in your parenting plan.
South Carolina court form SCCA 466, the proposed parenting plan, asks which major decisions require joint discussion, including education, and how disagreements are resolved. On the peninsula, school choice is the one to spell out, because the lottery deadline arrives whether or not the two of you are speaking.
My spouse earns everything and already hired a lawyer. What now?
A South Carolina family court can order the other spouse to contribute to your legal fees.
S.C. Code Ann. Sections 20-3-120 and 20-3-140 allow a court to order one spouse to pay toward the other’s attorney’s fees, including while the case is pending. Bring what you know about the money even if it is incomplete.
Do I have to file a proposed parenting plan before the first custody hearing in South Carolina?
Yes, at every contested temporary custody hearing.
S.C. Code Ann. Section 63-15-220 requires each parent to prepare, file, and submit a proposed parenting plan, on court form SCCA 466. It goes further than people expect, down to a holiday table and how the two of you settle disagreements.
Downtown Charleston. Let’s talk.
On the peninsula, the school decision and the custody decision are the same decision, and the lottery calendar does not wait for either of you. An hour with an attorney is a way to settle who decides before the deadline settles it for you.
Contact Leslie’s office →Prefer to call? 843-350-3200
Confidential. Conflicts checked at no charge. Serving downtown Charleston and the surrounding area.
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