California Learn
Legal custody, physical custody, and visitation — California's own words
California decides custody by the child's best interest with health, safety, and welfare as the PRIMARY concern: the statutory factors include any abuse history (with corroboration options), contact with both parents, and substance abuse — and the court may not consider a parent's sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Contested custody or visitation is SET for mediation as a structural step, and a domestic-violence finding within five years raises a rebuttable presumption AGAINST custody to the perpetrator.
The honesty note
County Family Court Services models differ (recommending versus non-recommending counties) — your county's practice controls the mediation's role, and the DV presumption's rebuttal requires specific findings.
Authority locked — retrieved from the hash-pinned corpus
Do it with the tools
Legal information, not legal advice. Statements about county practice defer to your superior court's local rules (CRC rule 5.4 territory) and the official self-help center — where this platform has no verified county data, it says so instead of guessing.