February 19th, 2024

“Equal Parenting” Legislation. Meanwhile, the Ohio House Families and Aging Committee this week accepted a substitute bill on House Bill 14, the so-called “equal parenting” bill, which the Ohio Bar has strongly opposed on the principled grounds that the best interests of the child should always be paramount in custody cases. Though many changes were made in the substitute bill that the sponsors say were designed to allay our concerns and those of the bill’s 80+ opponents (among them the Ohio Judicial Conference, Ohio Domestic Violence Network and the Ohio Association of Juvenile Court Judges), we remain opposed. Among the changes is a shift in the evidentiary standard for rebutting the bill’s presumption of shared parenting from “clear and convincing” to “a preponderance of the evidence.” Though this provision is better than the as-introduced version, we maintain that the overall dramatic shift in the legal framework in child custody cases this bill prescribes would not be in the best interests of Ohio, our court system and most importantly, the families they serve. You can view all the changes to HB14 and see where the bill currently stands via this comparison document prepared by the Legislative Service Commission.  ​