Q: If I have full physical custody of my child (shared legal),can I relocate (out-of-state) with no further filings needed?

A: There is quite a bit of grey area in the answer to your question. The best practice is to work out your agreement and then submit it to the court to get an updated custody order. You may want to run the agreement by a lawyer before signing if you have any questions, and to help you put it into the right format for the court to sign. Filing with the court would be simple enough that you should be able to it yourself using the forms on the court's website. You can get free help with the basic process from the Family Law Self-Help Center (also on the court's website).

Some people might choose to skip the court filing and just rely on a written, signed agreement to modify the visitation arrangements. That could be ok, as long as things stay amicable. The problem is you can't predict what will happen years down the road, and sometimes differences arise which require going back to court. The court will only entertain requests to modify custody orders if there's been a change in circumstances, and if you have moved since you were last in court, that would qualify as a change. Getting a new order would mean that you could rely on your agreement being enforceable, and that the court wouldn't mess with it unless something else changes after the new order is issued. By submitting your agreement to the court now, you lock in a baseline. You can still adjust it by out-of-court agreements down the road, but the revised order would give you a reliable fall-back structure if a time comes when you no longer see eye to eye.