The Foreign Service Journal, October 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2014 45 Susan Keogh was a political o cer in the Foreign Service for 24 years, serving in NewDelhi, Asmara, Quebec andWashington, D.C. After retirement, she worked for State on contract and as aWhen Actually Employed annuitant. Currently, she is on the sta of the Institute of Higher Studies at the University of Laval. She has been widowed and divorced, and is now happily remarried and commuting between Quebec City andWashington D.C., keeping up with work, eight children and 12 grandchildren. Ann La Porta followed her Foreign Service husband around the world for 38 years, working as a lawyer whenever she could, including dealing with Maori river rights issues in New Zealand and designing a Rule-of-Law program inMongolia. She now volunteers as a guardian ad litem for children in contested custody cases in D.C. Superior Court. She lives close to her two grown children and enjoys being with her three grandchildren. Diane Holt followed her diplomat husband around Europe, working as a transactional and commercial lawyer in Central Europe and as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer for the former Italian electric monopoly, Enel. She and Ann met in Naples, Italy, when they began volunteering, rst with the International Committee of the D.C. Womens Bar Association and then as children’s lawyers in the D.C. Superior Court. Diane now serves as editor of international and transactional law in the Bloomberg Law division of Bloomberg BNA. willingness to o er fair and reasonably frequent visitation rights to the other spouse should be carefully documented, because this is often a key consideration in what consti- tutes a child’s best interests. Here are some things that may in uence a judge and enable cooperation with your ex-spouse: • You agree to pay for some or all of your child’s visita- tion costs (e.g., airfares), particularly if the child is close enough to go home for one weekend a month. • You accompany the child on the airline, especially at the beginning of the arrangement, or arrange for “unac- companied minor” status with the airline (up to age 14). • You agree to send your child for almost all long holidays to the noncustodial parent (e.g., summer vaca- tion, alternating Christmas and anksgiving), and make other e orts to ensure a fair division of time between both parents. • You facilitate your child seeing the other parent at post, should that parent wish to visit. •You facilitate interconnectivity through Skype, phone calls or emails. In our experience, the Foreign Service is generally helpful in working assignments that enable an FS parent to take a child under joint legal custody overseas if the FS parent is in the same or nearby time zone as the residence of the other parent (i.e., Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean) and within reasonable ying distance from Washington, without multiple plane changes. Similar time zones and reasonable distance are de nitely factors that contribute to a favorable court decision. Here are some actions to take, arguments to make and information to muster to help demonstrate that your child will do well in a new environment. While you are collecting this information, you should work with your lawyer to make sure that each itemmeets the legal criteria for evidence, so that the judge will be permitted to review it in connection with your case. iStock.com/RyanJLane