“Who is your son’s teacher?” one of the moms at the bus stop asked me this morning.

While my wife has been busy being the PTA president, buying school supplies and clothes, and meeting the teachers, I have been working to pay for my kid’s food, clothing, shelter and future college tuition.

So I tell her, “I don’t know.  You’ll have to ask my wife.”

But I feel guilty about this.  It reminds me of the infamous Woody Allen deposition.  Woody couldn’t name his children’s teachers, favorite pajamas, shoe sizes or best friends.  In giving custody to Mia Farrow, the judge found that Woody was an uninterested parent.

Next time someone asks me, I’m going to know the answer to questions like these.

A deposition is part of the discovery process in a custody trial.  Your spouse’s lawyer gets to ask you a lot of questions, some rude or embarrassing, at his or her office, in front of a stenographer who is taking everything down to be used against you at trial.  You are in the hot seat and it may take all day.

The lawyer has usually done this hundreds of times and knows a lot of tricks, trips and traps.  And the lawyer gets to ask the questions.  You have to answer them.

Here is the number one thing I tell my clients before their deposition.  Repeat the question in the form of a declaration, pause, and finish the sentence.  Put a period at the end of it and then stop talking.  Wait for the next question.

So the lawyer asks, “Where were you on the night of August the 7th of this year?”

You say, “On August the 7th of this year…I was at work.”

This approach has several benefits.  It gives you time to think.  It keeps you focused on the question asked.  It keeps you from talking too much.  It keeps you from guessing.  It keeps you calm.  And it might keep you from saying something that can be used against you at trial.

Caryn Tamber tells the story in the Maryland Daily Record of Marius Aydanian and Antonina Aydanian, both of Bulgaria, who met when they were seeking political asylum in the United States.  They were granted asylum, married and moved to Indianapolis.  In 1998, Antonina enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.  Marius stayed in Indianapolis.  Antonina gave birth to their son.  In 2005, she obtained a Bulgarian divorce.

Marius was able to obtain a visitation order in the U.S. for two days a month and the summers.  However, Antonina sent the boy to Bulgaria for two summers in a row.

Marius filed suit in Montgomery County, Maryland, for intentional interference with visitation.  On July 1, 2009, after two and a half days of trial, the jury returned a verdict for Marius in the amount of $23,000.

In a 2008 case, Khalifa et al. v. Shannon, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld a $3 million verdict in favor of a father for interference with visitation when his ex-wife and mother-in-law took their two children to Egypt.

Jill Brooke has written an interesting blog at Parental Rights claiming that divorce makes dads better parents in some cases.

She says that, with married couples, sometimes the mom is the center of all children related activities.

However, when timesharing becomes rationed in a divorce, then dad gets more valued one on one time with the children.

She also credits technology, like cellphones, Facebook and videoconferencing, with allowing non-custodial dads to interact more with their children.

“Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. And I just wanted to say I love him so much,”  – Paris Katherine Jackson, ll year old daughter of Michael Jackson.

Get ready for the custody fight now for Paris and her two brothers, Prince Michael, 12, and Prince Michael II, seven, also known as “Blanket”.

The children are in the temporary custody of Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother, who is 79 years old, as requested in Michael’s Will.

However, Debbie Rowe, the biological mother of the two oldest children, says she intends to seek custody of all three children.  She gave up her parental rights to the children in her divorce from Michael Jackson in 2003, in which she received $8.5 million dollars as a settlement.  Jakson’s Will left nothing to Rowe, but if she does get custody, she would be guardian of the children’s inheritance while they are minors.

Joan and Jack, two venerable divorce lawyers, bumped into each other while having coffee in the café close to the courthouse.  They greeted each other effusively and sat down at a table together putting their legal files on empty chairs.

“I’ve got this tough case,” said Jack.  “My client is the mother and she wants the father to have no visitation at all.  The father will settle for nothing other than 50 percent of the time with the children.”

“So what are you going to do?” asked Joan.

“I’m going to tell the father that he has a career to worry about.  And he is going to want to have a social life.  There is no better baby sitter than the mother.  I’m going to try to talk him into less than 50 percent.”

“I’ve got another idea,” said Joan.

“What is it?”

“Tell the mother to let him have the children 50 percent of the time.  Lot’s of fathers idealize about custody of the children.  But once they try to juggle a career with the demands of little children, they find it is no easy task.  After a couple of weeks, he will be asking the mother to spend more time with the children.”

“Not bad,” said Jack, “For that salutary advice, I’ll buy you a doughnut.”

The mother removed her child from England, where the father lived, to her country of origin twice.  Both times the father sued under the Hague Convention and the mother returned with the child.  The father now has custody.

The mother wanted visitation under an interim order until a custody evaluation could be completed.  The father objected, concerned that the mother would abscond with the child again.

The English High Court, in Re A (A Minor), March 17, 2009, issued an order requiring that the mother wear an electronic ankle bracelet before being allowed to visit her child.

Read more at Jeremy Morley’s excellent International Family Law Blog.

David Rembert tried his divorce case against Angela Rembert and got joint legal custody of his two children.  But the judge also gave him primary physical custody and final decision making authority on all matters involving the children including the school they attend, membership in organizations, and other extracurricular activities.

Angela appealed contending that the order didn’t really grant joint legal custody because it gave David final decision making authority.

The Supreme Court of Georgia noted the joint custody statute provided that the judge may designate one parent to have sole power to make certain decisions.

Angela also complained that the decision to award primary physical custody to David was wrong because she was equally fit to be a parent.  The court noted that Angela had a romantic involvement with a married man prior to filing for divorce and said she intended to marry him after her divorce.  She also planned to be a full-time student.  She borrowed $43,000 from David to buy a car after the separation.  And she threatened the life of a neighbor.

David, on the other hand, intended to stay in the marital home, and was seeking a transfer from his job as a pilot to be a trainer with a more regular schedule.  The appeals court said this was ample support for the decision of the trial court and affirmed the decision.

Rembert v. Rembert, Case No. S08F1582, Georgia Supreme Court (Decided March 23, 2009)

Katrina Daniels Lee had some good advice on her radio show last night for parents who are prevented from seeing their children by a hostile parent or by the court.  She told them to set up a Facebook site and post their positive feelings for their children on it.  She said that children are so  computer savy these days they will find it sooner or later.  In her interview with me, she also told her listeners to reach out for support, help each other and never give up hope for reunification with their children.

People do desperate things in custody battles.  From Nebraska comes word of a mother hiding a recorder in her two year old’s teddy bear to tape the father during visitation.  William Lewton is suing Dianna Divingnzzo in U.S. District Court in Omaha for invasion of privacy and violation of state and federal wiretapping laws.