Shared Parenting & Custody Presumption
50/50 Custody Presumption
Establishes a rebuttable presumption that courts should grant temporary joint legal and shared physical custody, aiming for equal parenting time. "Rebuttable" means that when there is evidence of danger, the presumption is overcome — this is a starting point, not an absolute.
Committee on Children and Families
Strong support. Children deserve both parents. The law should reflect that — with real safeguards for when it isn't safe. A rebuttable presumption does not override safety; it ensures that a fit parent is not excluded from a child's life by default or by delay.
Shared Parenting Presumption in Matrimonial Proceedings
Establishes a presumption for awarding shared parenting of minor children in matrimonial proceedings, unless it is proven detrimental to the child's best interests. Complements S.4797 by extending the shared parenting framework to divorce proceedings specifically.
Committee on Judiciary
Strong support. Parallel to S.4797, this bill addresses the matrimonial context where custody determinations are frequently shaped by the process of divorce itself rather than by the child's actual needs.
Custody & Parentage Modernization
Modernizes terminology from "paternity" to "parentage" and allows courts to recognize "de facto parents" and more than two legal parents. This potentially eases custody access for non-traditional or unmarried fathers who have been functionally parenting a child but lack formal legal standing.
Committee on Judiciary
Support. Many of the fathers ANCHOR serves are unmarried and lack the legal recognition that married fathers receive automatically. Modernizing parentage law to reflect the reality of who is actually raising a child is overdue.
Timelines, Process & Court Reform
Mandatory Six-Month Custody Timeline
Requires a final order of custody or visitation within six months of the preliminary conference or initial appearance. This is the single most direct response to the "trial by teaspoon" phenomenon — the practice of holding hearings in brief increments spaced by months, dragging cases out for a year or more.
Sponsor: Sen. Anthony Palumbo | Committee on Children and Families
Strong support. Mandatory timelines are the centerpiece of ANCHOR's advocacy. Our survey data documents the human cost of delay — every month a father waits for a hearing is a month a child's relationship with that parent may be deteriorating. This bill deserves broad support from every organization concerned with family court reform.
Child Custody Reform Act
Creates uniform statewide standards for custody dispute resolution. Requires an initial planning conference with the judge, mandates mediation referrals (unless inappropriate), and ensures the same judge hears all aspects of a custody case. Has been reintroduced since 2014 without passing.
Sponsors: Sen. Andrew Lanza, Assemblymember David Weprin | Committee on Judiciary
Support with caveats. Planning conferences and judicial continuity are important reforms. Mediation can work well in many cases but must be paired with enforceable timelines (connecting back to S.512) and must not be applied to cases involving genuine abuse, alienation, or coercive control. Some cases require skilled judicial determination, not negotiation.
Kyra's Law — Child Safety in Custody Proceedings
Requires courts to prioritize child safety as a threshold issue in custody proceedings. Mandates expanded judicial training on domestic violence, coercive control, and trauma. Requires courts to distinguish between alienating interference with the child-parent relationship and protective parenting in the context of domestic violence. This bill sits at the center of the parental alienation debate.
Sponsors: Sen. James Skoufis, Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi | Bipartisan co-sponsorship
Engaged but nuanced. ANCHOR supports child safety as the paramount concern, supports expanded judicial training, and supports the bill's recognition that courts must distinguish between alienating behavior and protective parenting. ANCHOR does not support any framework that categorically dismisses parental alienation as non-scientific, because that leaves children vulnerable to a different kind of harm. Courts need the skill to identify both real abuse and real alienation — and systemic delay is the common enemy in every scenario.
ADR Navigator Pilot for Child Support
Establishes a pilot program providing alternative dispute resolution and court navigators to help litigants in child support cases. Navigators assist with document preparation, virtual appearance logistics, and process explanation. If successful, this model could extend to custody proceedings.
Sponsor: Sen. Roxanne Persaud (at request of Unified Court System)
Support. The navigator model validates what ANCHOR is building — court preparation and guidance for people navigating an overwhelming system. We advocate for extending this concept to custody and visitation proceedings, where fathers are frequently unrepresented and unfamiliar with process.
Right to Counsel in Support & Paternity Proceedings
Fills gaps in legal representation by providing a right to appointed counsel in child support violation and paternity proceedings — areas where fathers are commonly unrepresented and face serious consequences including jail.
Sponsor: Sen. Jabari Brisport (at request of Unified Court System)
Support. No one should face potential incarceration without legal representation. This bill addresses a fundamental fairness gap.
Fatherhood, Support & Representation
Center for Fatherhood Initiatives
Directs the Office of Children and Family Services to establish a center providing grants for programs that promote the advancement of fatherhood — focusing on improving parenting knowledge, self-efficacy, and father engagement with children and families.
Committee on Children and Families
Strong support. This is precisely the kind of institutional investment in fatherhood that ANCHOR was created to advocate for. Fathers are not an afterthought in their children's lives and should not be an afterthought in state policy.
Military Parent Custody Rights
Provides that a parent's active duty deployment in the U.S. Armed Forces cannot be used as a detrimental factor against them in custody decisions, provided a suitable care plan is presented. Addresses a specific injustice where service to the country is used to undermine parental standing.
Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs
Support. Military service should never become a weapon in a custody dispute. The principle — that absence imposed by duty is not the same as absence by choice — has broader implications for any parent whose circumstances are mischaracterized in court.
Right to Counsel in Support & Parentage Proceedings
Provides the right to counsel in family court proceedings regarding violations of child support orders and the establishment of parentage. Complements S.8197 in addressing the representation gap that leaves fathers vulnerable in proceedings with serious consequences.
Assembly Judiciary Committee
Support. See S.8197 above. The right to counsel in proceedings that can result in incarceration or loss of parental standing is a fundamental fairness issue.
Procedural Modernization
Electronic Filing in Family Court
Allows for electronic filing of notices of appeal and objections to Support Magistrate orders. A procedural reform that enables faster, remote, and more accessible legal procedures — particularly important for working parents who cannot easily take time off to file papers in person.
Signed into law
Support. Any measure that reduces the procedural burden on parents navigating the system is welcome. Electronic filing is a basic modernization that most court systems should have implemented years ago.
Mandatory Parent Education in Contested Custody
Mandates parent education programs for parents involved in contested custody cases, aimed at reducing conflict and improving transitions for children. The quality and framing of such programs matters — education that respects both parents and centers the child's experience can be valuable.
Assembly Committee on Judiciary
Support with caveats. Parent education is valuable if it is genuinely educational and not punitive, if it respects both parents' roles, and if it does not become another source of delay. The content and delivery of such programs matters as much as the mandate.
Child Support & Incarceration
2026 updates in New York law confirm that incarceration is not automatically treated as "voluntary unemployment." This means incarcerated parents can seek modification of child support orders to reflect their actual ability to pay — preventing the accumulation of unpayable arrears that trap parents in a cycle of debt and legal jeopardy upon release.
Support. Crushing a parent with debt they cannot pay does not serve the child. Support orders should reflect reality, and modification should be accessible.
The Systemic Picture
NYC Family Court processes approximately 192,000 filings per year with just 56 statutorily authorized judges. Even supplemented by court attorney-referees and hearing officers, the math does not work. The 2020 Jeh Johnson Report described Family Court as a "second-class system of justice for people of color." The NYC Bar Association documented "dehumanizing" conditions and systemic delay. The assigned counsel panel went without a pay raise for nearly twenty years, collapsing the attorney pipeline.
A significant development: New York is adding 28 new family and civil court judges to address the backlog. This is the most concrete structural investment in years — more judges means faster case resolution, which means less harm from delay. ANCHOR will monitor whether this expansion translates into measurably shorter timelines for custody proceedings.
These are not isolated problems. They are structural failures that compound each other — and they fall hardest on low-income families and communities of color who lack the political power to demand better. Reform requires sustained legislative action, adequate funding, and ongoing public pressure. ANCHOR's survey data is part of building that evidence base.
Your experience is evidence.
Survey data from fathers across all five boroughs becomes the foundation for ANCHOR's legislative advocacy. Share your story.
Take the Survey Contact Us About Advocacy