Asia Scarlett-Jones: Co-Parenting Moves That Cost You in Court

Family court is not a referee, and Asia Scarlett-Jones would rather you stopped asking it to be one. Parents arrive wanting a judge to look at the person their ex really is. Her answer, from years working inside a courthouse before she went into practice, is that judges are trained to spot the noise, that they will not read most of it, and that your actual argument gets lost underneath it.

Our guest this episode is Asia Scarlett-Jones, a matrimonial and family law attorney in New York City making a return appearance. She worked as a court attorney alongside a judge earlier in her career, which is the source of a lot of what she says here about what does and does not land. In her own practice she leans hard toward mediation, and she has restructured how she sells legal help, offering subscription access rather than a large retainer, because most of what her clients need is a quick answer rather than a case.

Asia and Lisa start with the ex who will not stop, and why responding to every message keeps it alive. From there: domestic violence and custody as separate legal questions, and the difference between abuse a court will restrict parenting time over and abuse it will treat as a matter between the adults. Why child support and parenting time do not offset each other. The obligation that comes with residential custody, including facilitating a relationship with a parent who is habitually late or absent. What the court does when a parent who has been gone for years wants back in, which is usually a stepped plan rather than a door closed. And relocation, where Asia's counterintuitive advice is to offer the other parent more time than they have now.

The last stretch is about the ways parents damage their own cases. Social media, including a clause in her retainer and the fact that she reads your relatives' pages too. Reporting a scraped knee to child protective services, and what repeat reports do to your credibility. A false allegation of sexual abuse that ended with custody changing hands. Children turned into informants, and how that habit turns on the parent who taught it. Underneath all of it, Asia says, is control, and she is blunt that no court order will hand it to you.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why answering every lie in writing buries the argument you actually want read
• Where domestic violence stops being a custody question and starts being an adult one
• Why unpaid child support does not cancel the other parent's time with the kids
• The obligation that comes with residential custody, even when the other parent no-shows
• How courts step a long-absent parent back into a child's life
• Relocation: why offering the other parent more time can strengthen your request
• Social media, your relatives' posts, and what opposing counsel is already reading
• Calls to child protective services, false allegations, and what they cost you

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why arguing back with a high-conflict ex keeps it going
4:00 Answering every lie, and what a judge will actually read
5:30 Domestic violence and custody are two separate questions
8:00 Child support and parenting time do not cancel each other out
9:30 The residential parent's job: facilitating a relationship you resent
12:30 Bringing back a parent who disappeared, one step at a time
15:30 Relocation, and why offering more time strengthens your request
20:00 Social media, your family's posts, and what opposing counsel checks
23:00 Control, and the reports to child protective services that backfire
29:30 Building co-parenting skills, and knowing what you actually want

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Asia Scarlett-Jones at ASJ Law Office: https://asjlawoffice.com/

🎧 More with Asia Scarlett-Jones on this podcast
Ep 71: What Your Family Lawyer Can and Can't Do

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.