Dedicated And Experienced Advocates On Your Side.
Karen Brinkman

Dedicated To Helping Stepparents And Other Third Parties

Whether you are a stepparent, grandparent or another relative who has developed a positive, ongoing relationship with a child, you may have concerns about your rights to visitation following a divorce. At the law firm of Brinkman & Associates in Cincinnati, our visitation rights attorneys understand your concerns, and we will work to help ensure that your relationships with the children you care about remain intact.

Third-Party Visitation: The Rights Of Nonparents

For purposes of visitation or parenting time in Ohio, a third party is someone other than the child’s natural parents. It may be a stepparent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin or someone entirely outside of the extended family. The court will focus on whether this person has a significant connection with the child and whether spending time with them would promote the best interests and welfare of the child.

Our lawyers may be able to obtain third-party visitation or companionship rights in a number of different circumstances, including:

  • When you have lived with a parent for years and have treated his or her children as your own. You may have been the only other parent they have ever known. However, when your relationship ends, you may find that you have no legal right to see the children you helped to raise.
  • After your child passes on, your son or daughter-in-law obtains custody of your grandchildren and refuses to let you see them. We will help you assert your rights.

If you have had a positive, ongoing relationship with the child in the past, our attorneys will work to persuade the court that it would be in the child’s best interest to grant you visitation or companionship rights.

Grandparents’ Rights

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Troxel v. Granville is often misinterpreted to mean that grandparents no longer have any right to visitation with their grandchildren. The ruling did determine that grandparents cannot request visitation with children who live in intact families. However, if there is a divorce or a parent has passed away, or if the children are in the court system for some other reason, our lawyers can petition the court for third-party parenting time, or visitation, rights. We have extensive experience handling visitation rights for grandparents.

In addition to representing stepparents, grandparents and other relatives, we also represent unmarried single people as well as couples who have entered into a domestic partnership.

Consult With An Attorney

If you are a stepparent, grandparent or otherwise have a relationship with a non-biological child and want to know more about your visitation rights, speak with us. Reach us online or call 513-632-5310 to schedule an initial consultation to discuss your situation.