In this video, we're going to discuss what's called a motion to modify, or what I might also call modification. Modification is when we have an existing court-ordered parenting plan, that would either be from a divorce or a custody and support case, and we're asking to change the plan.
You might be asking to change the physical custody schedule, the legal custody orders, or the financial orders. So, when we are thinking about modification, we are thinking about taking that existing parenting plan and changing the parenting plan.
How do we get from point A to point B? Missouri law says we have to have a substantial and continuing change in circumstance that warrants modification. So, unlike divorce, which we file a petition for dissolution that has very set statutorily set factors in it, every modification is unique. In your motion to modify, we are going to list in that pleading what the current orders are and how we want those orders to change and why there has been a, a substantial and continuing change in circumstance to warrant that change.
That's the best way to think about it when we want to plan, not only how we're going to plead the modification, but what evidence that we wanna generate. So depending on your modification, there will be different evidence that we need to consider. But what I want you to do when you're thinking about it in your mind and how you're organizing it for me is to think about, here's the current plan we have, here's the future plan that we want, what evidence do we have that has occurred since the entry of that original plan that leads our future plan to be the logical conclusion. So let me explain that a little bit further and give you some examples.
So let's say that currently you have a plan that is 50/50 joint legal custody. And you and your co-parent are constantly in conflict and are unable to agree and decisions are not being made because of the co-parent conflict and the failure to agree. Then in our modification, we would put, currently you have joint legal custody. Since the entry of that joint legal custody order, there have been disagreements about selection of a counselor. There's been disagreements about orthodontia.
There's been disagreements about extracurriculars. We would list that out in the modification And then we would put what our desired result is. It could be, because of these conflicts, we believe the plan needs to go from joint legal custody to sole legal custody. So we need to think about what the plan is, what we want the plan to be, and the reasons why we think the new plan would work better for your children. Thank you.