At Gillespie, Shields & Durrant, we are delighted to offer a full range of services for every type of family law issue, including the rights of grandparents seeking full custody of their minor grandchildren.

Under Arizona law, a court considering a request for full custody by grandparents of their minor grandchildren must determine if the request is in the child's best interests. The court begins with a presumption that the physical, psychological and emotional needs of the child are best served by having the child in the parent's legal custody.

To rebut this presumption, a grandparent must show by clear and convincing evidence that awarding custody to the parent is not in the child's best interests, and must meet all of the following criteria:

• the parents are not married to each other, or one of them is deceased; and
• it would be significantly detrimental to the child to be or remain in the parent's custody; and
• the grandparent stands in place of the parent and has formed a normal child-parent relationship with the child.