1. What is the difference between legal custody and physical placement in Wisconsin?

Legal custody concerns decision-making authority. Physical placement concerns where the child spends time and who provides the child's day-to-day care during that time.

In Wisconsin, legal custody is the right and responsibility to make major decisions concerning a child. Major decisions include choices about nonemergency health care, education, religion, obtaining a driver's license, military service, and consent to marry.

When parents have joint legal custody, both ordinarily share those rights and responsibilities, although a court order may assign particular decisions to one parent. Sole legal custody gives one parent that decision-making authority, subject to the terms of the court order.

Physical placement is the right to have the child physically placed with a parent and to make routine daily decisions while the child is with that parent. Those daily decisions must remain consistent with the major decisions made by the person or persons holding legal custody.

Joint legal custody does not automatically require equal physical placement. Parents may share major decision-making even when the child spends more overnights with one parent. Conversely, a relatively equal placement schedule does not necessarily mean the parents have equal authority over every major decision. The controlling document is the court's custody and placement order.