Prompt Pilotby Write.law
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Draft

Draft a first-pass parenting plan

Builds a parenting plan meant to survive ten years: real times and places, a default for every snow day and sick day, decision-making split by category, and the provisions whose absence becomes next year's motion.

About 20 minintermediateFamily, Solo / small firm

Your prompt5,063 characters

Still to fill in: State and county, Family facts, Agreed and disputed

RoleYou are a family law attorney who drafts parenting plans built to survive ten years, not ten days. You think in logistics: who drives, where the inhaler lives, what happens when school closes at 9 a.m., and you will not write "as the parties may agree," because that phrase is a future motion with a filing fee.What I needDraft the first-pass parenting plan for the family below under State and county law, using Equal (week on, week off) as the baseline and writing to a relationship that is Cooperative: they talk and problem-solve.InputsFamily facts: Family facts Agreed and disputed: Agreed and disputed State: State and county Baseline: Equal (week on, week off) Communication: Cooperative: they talk and problem-solveHow to work this1. Convert Equal (week on, week off) into clock times, days, and places: when each block starts and ends, who transports, and where the handoff happens on school and non-school days. 2. Write a default for each recurring situation this family hits within a year: school closure, illness, late pickup, make-up time, work travel, an activity on the other parent's day, then the narrow exceptions. 3. Split decision-making into education, routine medical, major medical and mental health, religion, extracurriculars, and travel. Assign each as joint, one decides after consulting, or one decides alone, calibrated to Cooperative: they talk and problem-solve. 4. Take each item in Agreed and disputed in turn: write the agreements as the parents made them, and for each disagreement draft a workable default, name the mechanism that resolves it, and say which parent it favors. 5. Give the child-specific facts in Family facts their own provisions: a condition managed across two households, an IEP, a rotating shift, distance, including who holds supplies, who trains whom, what travels at exchanges. 6. Add what gets left out: relocation notice, a right of first refusal with a workable trigger, dispute resolution before court with cost allocation, review points at school transitions, and a reference to the support order rather than a figure. Mark any State and county requirement you cannot verify [UNVERIFIED - confirm the current form].Close with these four sections, every time, without being askedAssumptions I made. Every fact I filled in: school times, distance between homes, whose schedule is flexible, who handles appointments now. Mark each [verify] or [safe]. Where this is weakest. The two provisions most likely to produce a dispute within a year, and the one place two people could read the plan differently. Quote them. What only you can decide. Present each as options with tradeoffs. At minimum: the right-of-first-refusal trigger: a short one preserves parenting time but turns every evening into a notification duty; a long one keeps the peace and lets a sitter or new partner cover time the other parent wanted. Also: religion as a joint decision, which forces agreement between parents who do not agree, or left to each parent on their own time, which ends the fight and guarantees inconsistent messaging. What would make this materially better. The input that would sharpen the next draft: the school calendar, both parents' actual shift schedules, the drive time between homes, or the current care plan. Rank by impact.Output formatA numbered plan: definitions; residential schedule and defaults; holidays and vacations with an alternation table and notice periods; decision-making by category; communication; exchanges; first refusal; relocation; dispute resolution; review points; support-order reference; child-specific provisions. Then the four sections.Never do this- If this plan could be filed for any two parents with two children, it is too generic. It must run on these work schedules, this distance, these children's needs. - No hedging filler. Cut "arguably," "reasonable and liberal parenting time," and above all "as the parties may agree" as an operative rule. Do not tell me to consult an attorney. I am drafting this. - Never invent a statute, a mandatory form number, or a local rule. Anything not in my inputs carries [UNVERIFIED - confirm before filing]. A plan citing the wrong statute is rejected at the counter. - Where you do not know whether State and county requires a form, restricts relocation, or mandates a dispute-resolution step, say you do not know. Do not smooth over the gap with confident prose. - Do not pad. Two cooperative parents six miles apart do not need fourteen pages. Length is not value.Before you answer- Does every provision carry a time, a place, or a named person, or did I leave one as "as agreed"? - Is there a default for snow days, sick days, late pickups, and missed time, and did I split decision-making by category? - Did I address every disagreement they named and say which parent each default favors? Would this plan fit another family? It should not.

Adds driver's-seat tunes: options instead of answers, questions before work, every citation flagged. Your values come with it.

2

Pressure-test it

Makes the AI switch hats and attack its own answer.

This plan goes into a signing stack in front of a family-court commissioner who sees the same three ambiguities generate motions every month, and who will either sign it or send it back. Read it as the commissioner. Name the three provisions most likely to bring these parents back within a year, rewrite each to remove the ambiguity, and then name the one operational fact about this family the plan does not address at all.
3

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

What does a parent actually carry to a handoff? Produce the two working documents that make this plan usable: a holiday alternation table covering the next five years for the holidays this family actually observes, showing which parent has each one in each year with times; and a one-page exchange checklist the parents use at every handoff: medication and supplies, homework and school communications, sleep and meals since the last exchange, upcoming appointments, and anything the receiving parent needs to know this week.

Before you run it

What to gather first

  • Your state's parenting-plan statute and any mandatory form
  • Children's ages, schools, and any medical or educational needs
  • Both parents' work schedules, addresses, and distance apart
  • What the parents have already agreed to and where they are stuck
  • The school calendar and the activities already committed to

Watch for

  • Many states require a specific parenting-plan form or mandate particular contents. Confirm the current form and required provisions before filing anything drafted here.
  • Joint decision-making between high-conflict parents converts every decision into a motion. Where the parents cannot cooperate, one-decides-after-consulting is usually the more durable term.
  • Relocation is governed by statute and by notice periods that override plan language. Draft the relocation paragraph to match the statute rather than the parents' preference.
  • A short right-of-first-refusal trigger sounds protective and generates more conflict than it prevents. Set the trigger to the length these parents can actually live with.
  • Never put a support figure in the parenting plan. Reference the separate order, or the two documents will conflict the first time either is modified.

What comes back

A numbered parenting plan: definitions; residential schedule for school year and summer with defaults for closures, illness, late pickup, and make-up time; holiday and vacation schedule with an alternation table and notice periods; decision-making split by category; communication protocol with channel and response times; exchange logistics including what travels with the child; right of first refusal; relocation; dispute resolution with cost allocation; review points; a reference to the separate support order; and child-specific provisions. Followed by the four closing sections.

See an example of what you’ll get
*[Excerpt: sections 2, 4, and 5 of a fourteen-section plan.]* 2. Residential schedule (2-2-5-5). *School year.* Monday and Tuesday with Mother; Wednesday and Thursday with Father; alternating Friday through Sunday. Each block begins at school dismissal (2:55 p.m. at Mason Elementary) and ends at school dismissal on the next block's first day. On non-school days a block begins at 9:00 a.m. *Exchanges.* School dropoff and pickup on school days. On non-school days, the Lakewood Library parking lot at 9:00 a.m. Neither parent enters the other's residence. *Summer.* Same pattern. Each parent has two non-consecutive seven-day vacation blocks: written notice by April 15 for July and August travel, 90 days for international travel. *School closure or delay.* The children stay with the parent who began that day. If the closure is announced before 7:00 a.m. and the block was to change that morning, the receiving parent takes them at 9:00 a.m. at the library. *Illness.* The parent in residence provides care and notifies the other within two hours through the parenting app. Neither parent's block changes because a child is sick. *Late pickup.* Fifteen minutes of grace. Beyond 45 minutes without notice, the waiting parent may leave with the children and the block proceeds; the missed time is made up under the make-up rule. *Make-up time.* Any block missed by four hours or more for a reason other than the children's illness is made up within 60 days, on dates the missing parent proposes and the other parent selects from. 4. Decision-making. - *Education.* Joint. Tacoma School District; a change of school requires written agreement. Both parents hold PowerSchool access and both attend conferences. - *Routine medical and dental.* Mother decides and informs Father within 24 hours. She is an ER nurse and manages Aisha's endocrinology care today; splitting this authority would delay appointments without improving anything. - *Major medical, surgery, and mental-health treatment beyond six sessions.* Joint. If the parents do not agree within 14 days, the treating physician's written recommendation controls; if they still disagree, the dispute-resolution paragraph applies before either files. - *Aisha's diabetes management (Type 1, pump and CGM).* Mother is the primary care manager. Both households stock a full set of supplies; no supply travels between homes except the pump and CGM on the child. Both parents and David's mother complete the endocrinology team's caregiver training within 60 days. The written care plan attaches as Exhibit A; either parent may follow up with the care team directly. - *Religion.* Each parent decides on their own time. Father may take the children to Catholic services and family observances during his blocks; Mother is not required to facilitate them during hers. Neither parent enrolls a child in sacramental preparation or religious school without written agreement. - *Extracurriculars.* Ezra's soccer and Aisha's swim continue, and both parents transport during their own blocks. Either parent may add one activity per child per season. Anything over $400 a season, or requiring travel beyond 50 miles, needs written agreement. - *Travel and passports.* Domestic travel with 14 days' notice and an itinerary. International travel requires written consent and 90 days' notice. Mother holds the passports and provides them 14 days before travel. 5. Communication. Parenting app within 30 days of entry; it is the exclusive channel for scheduling, medical updates, and expenses. Non-urgent messages get a response within 24 hours; anything involving a child's health or a schedule change inside 24 hours gets a response within two hours. Emergencies by phone. Neither parent uses a child to carry a message about schedule, money, or this case. --- Assumptions I made. Mason Elementary dismisses at 2:55 p.m. [verify]. The parents live six miles apart with a 15-minute drive [verify - the exchange design depends on it]. Mother currently manages Aisha's endocrinology appointments [verify]. Neither parent has a shift that regularly starts before 7:00 a.m. [verify - this one breaks the school-closure default if wrong]. Where this is weakest. The routine-medical assignment to Mother is the provision Father is most likely to contest, because it reads as a demotion rather than a logistics choice. Consider stating the reason in the plan itself. And "the treating physician's written recommendation controls" assumes a single treating physician, which will not hold once Aisha has both a pediatrician and an endocrinologist. What only you can decide. The right-of-first-refusal trigger. At four hours, Mother's rotating 12-hour shifts mean Father is offered time most weeks: more parenting time for him, and a standing notification duty that these parents will fight about. At 24 hours, the paternal grandmother covers most shifts, which is stable for the children and gives up time Father wants. Also yours: religion. Drafted above as each-parent-decides, which ends the fight and guarantees inconsistent messaging; the alternative is joint authority, which is what Father will ask for and what will send them back to court. What would make this materially better. (1) Mother's actual shift rotation: it determines whether the first-refusal trigger is a real question or a theoretical one. (2) The Tacoma school calendar, including early-release Wednesdays. (3) The endocrinology team's written care plan, which should attach rather than be summarized.
Why this prompt is built the way it is
## Framework 1. **Times and places, not labels.** "Week on, week off" without a start time and an exchange location is a dispute scheduled for week three. 2. **A default for everything that will actually happen.** School closure, illness, late pickup, missed time, work travel, an activity that falls on the other parent's day. Then the narrow exceptions. 3. **Decision-making by category, calibrated to conflict.** Education, routine medical, major medical and mental health, religion, extracurriculars, travel. Joint authority between high-conflict parents produces motions, not agreement. 4. **Every stated disagreement gets a term.** Draft the default, name the mechanism that resolves it, and say which parent the default favors. Silence is not neutrality. 5. **Child-specific facts drive provisions.** A medical condition managed across two households, an IEP, a rotating shift, forty miles between homes. Each needs its own paragraph. 6. **The forgotten provisions are the ones that matter.** Relocation notice, right of first refusal with a workable trigger, dispute resolution before court with cost allocation, review points at school transitions. 7. **Reference support, never restate it.** A support figure inside a parenting plan conflicts with the support order the first time either is modified.