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Three articles in legal publications recently documented the new legal trend in "Virtual Visitation" -- using the Internet to maintain relationships between parents and children after spouses divorce. 
The 2003 Edition of the Report on Trends in State Courts, published by the National Center for State Courts, an organization with the mission of helping courts anticipate change and better serve the public, suggests that virtual visitation is "a new option for divorcing parents."
"Courts are increasingly implementing virtual visitation when deciding child-related cases in a manner that recognizes the critical need for a child to have both parents in his or her life," author Carol R. Flango observes. For the complete article, click.
The summer 2002 issue of Family Law Quarterly, published by the American Bar Association, included an article called ""Virtual Visitation: The Next Generation of Options for Parent-Child Communication," by Kimberly R. Shefts, a law student at Northern Illinois University and member of the law review. Ms. Shefts examined more than a dozen cases in which virtual visitation was a factor, and the various legal and social issues involved.
"Like Humpty Dumpty, a family, once broken by divorce, cannot be put back together in precisely the same way, but 'Virtual Visitation' is one way to ensure the pieces can retain some semblance of the shell that protects the child," she wrote. "Beginning today, the technology should be utilized in custody and visitation orders in “virtually” every case," she concluded.
Ms. Shefts' article was followed by a piece in the Fall 2002 issue of Family Law Quarterly by Sarah Gottfried of Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. Her article, which won first place in the 2002 Howard C. Schwab Memorial Award Essay Contest, was entitled “Virtual Visitation: The Wave of the Future in Communication Between Children and Noncustodial Parents in Relocation Cases.”
Ms. Gottfried noted that "there has been a dramatic increase in the use of technology by the courts in relocation cases."
According to the footnoted articles by both Ms. Shefts and Ms. Gottfried citing specific cases, as well as more recent news media reports, courts in at least 15 states have considered family law cases in which new communications technologies have been a factor in maintaining relationships after divorce -- Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Louisiana, North Dakota, New York, Tennessee, Nevada, New Jersey, Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Minnesota.
In several cases, courts have actually ordered parents to install advanced Internet communications equipment and to use it routinely.
"After a marital dissolution, the needs of both parents to secure or retain employment, pursue educational or career opportunities, relocate with a new spouse, or seek support of other family or friends renders it unlikely that divorced parents will permanently remain in the same location," Ms. Gottfried wrote. "Faced with the choice of relocation or unemployment, many of the women now achieving professional and managerial roles find that restrictive relocation laws ask them to choose between primary custody of their children and economic survival."
Women are more likely to see the legal advantages of virtual visitation, because women tend to win custody of children more often, and widespread adoption of the technology might free them to move away from ex-husbands, while allowing children to maintain a relationship with their father.
An increasing number of men, however, are winning custody of children. One of the "landmark" virtual visitation cases, Kaleita v. Sniderman in Florida, involved a mother who requested that her daughter be allowed to move to Ohio with her and "virtually visit" routinely with her father. The court ruled, however, that since the mother was such an enthusiastic advocate of the technology, she could become the virtual parent, while the daughter lived primarily with the father.
"Virtual visitation offers the promise of an additional alternative way for parents to maintain contact with their children when distance makes personal visits impossible or impractical," Ms. Gottfried wrote. "Virtual visitation can be a successful tool in maintaining essential relationships between children and non-custodial parents in relocation cases."
Ms. Shefts' article focuses more on how the Internet may be utilized by parents, judges and attorneys to promote stable and ongoing relationships between non-custodial parents and their children.
"The technological advances of our time should be seen as neither a panacea nor an evil to be avoided," she wrote. “Virtual Visitation,” encompassing the Internet, e-mail, instant messaging and video conferencing "should be viewed and utilized as a tool that will keep parents and their children emotionally involved in one another’s lives on a continuous basis....
"The technology cannot replace the hug and kiss missed by both the non-custodial parent and the child every night, but the absence of that physical contact is a result of the divorce, and that absence would be there with or without the technology. What the technology provides is a creative way to let the child know that the parent is interested in the continuation of the parent-child relationship. "While the legal field has traditionally been known to lag behind in technological advances, the American Bar Association is encouraging the entire Bar to take advantage of the available technology to change that image and to make access to the justice system more available to the general public."
Family Law Quarterly, American Bar Association. Listen to NPR Morning Edition Host Host Bob Edwards interviewing Linda Elrod, chairwoman of the American Bar Association's Family Law Section, about online visitation. Increasingly, parents who don't have primary custody of their children are incorporating the Internet into their efforts to stay in touch. July 25, 2001
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