Legal Information: Arkansas

Custody

Updated: 
February 12, 2020

What is joint custody?

Joint custody is when parents have both joint physical custody and joint legal custody. In an action for divorce, an award of joint custody is favored in Arkansas.1 If, at any time, the judge determines that one parent has a pattern of intentionally creating conflict in an attempt to disrupt a current or pending joint-custody arrangement, the judge can consider such behavior to be a material change of circumstances and can change a joint custody order to an order of primary custody to the nondisruptive parent.2

1 A.C.A. §§ 9-13-101(a)(1)(A)(iii)
2 A.C.A. §§ 9-13-101(b)(1)(A)(iii)

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