Understanding Legal Guardianship and Custody

As students in the University of Geneva’s DAS Communication digitale program delve deeper into their studies, we turn our attention to exploring complex topics like law. We’ve already seen how students grappling with understanding technical concepts like HTTPS can provide key insights for brands in their use of technical communication. This week, we’ll explore the field of family law, focusing on the concepts of comprehensive legal guardianship and custody. How can a more developed understanding of law help our students to become better digital communicators?

At some point in their relationship, a couple will choose to marry, separate or even divorce. If the couple has children, many questions will arise around holding a child’s legal guardianship and/or custody. It’s important that digital communicators have an up-close and intimate understanding of these concepts – not just at the marketing level, but from a strictly linguistic sense.

As a point of origin, let’s define both legal guardianship and custody as found in Swiss Family Law:

Before we go into further detail on legal guardianship vs custody, it’s important to remember that this is a legal matter. Above all else, a digital communicator (or any kind of communicator for that matter) needs to be sensitive to the person’s situation. This is critical to their content strategy. If a divorce case is unfolding, for example, there very likely are emotions attached. Therefore it’s the job of the digital communicator to properly relate the situation – both verbally and nonverbally.

Let’s understand the difference between guardianship and custody. To do that, let’s take an example: A couple is married, and has two children under the age of seven. Understanding that the Supreme Court has provided clarity on various aspects of family law in its rulings (including legal guardianship and custody), we will assume that the crystallization occurs at age seven (in this case).

When the couple separates, there may be a legal argumentation with a varied ruling. That is, legal guardianship vs custody can be awarded to either the mother or the father. Let’s say in our scenario (Couple A), the mother received the legal guardianship (supreme rule).

In Couple A’s case, although the father (Mr. A) has visitation rights, he is required to inform the mother before guiding them to a different country. Herein lies the real difference between custodianship and guardianship. Now let’s take the second couple into consideration.

First of all, Mr. B is the custodian parent. That means that he is solely responsible for their upbringing. Although the visitation rights to the mother are guaranteed by law, the current living arrangement resides permanently with the father. Essentially, children B1 & B2 are to remain under the custody of their father.

Mr. B has the ability to make unilateral decisions, including those concerning potential relocation with the children.

There is no rights or wrongs here – only degrees of efficiency. We’ve established that the professional understanding of a “legal guardianship vs custody” is a complicated matter. But which client would want to have a poorly written article on their blog network without proper birth and death dates? What happens if the reader is left in confusion after finishing? The answer is simple – a very high bounce rate with a very long article containing virtually no value for the reader. Not even those seeking solace for their broken relationship.

Could we propose hypothetical statistics to suggest the number of people entering into an article but not reading it until the end? We could. But the statistics are not the greatest factor to consider. Although SEO can be quite the discipline, we ought to understand its limitations. Sometimes it’s not only about producing content for search. It is equally – if not more important – to create content for the reader.

This is especially important in the field of family law. How much value could a company like ours add to the family law spectrum? Quite a lot. With each additional client, new insights can be gained. It isn’t just a hire, but a new wealth of experience (especially for family law). So to speak, it’s the perfect customer segment to have on board.

Perhaps you could imagine why we’d like you to learn about such matters as “legal guardianship vs custody”. It is far from what you may believe it to be. For now, we leave you with these final insights.