Usually, there are no advantages to being the first one to file. However, cases where one party has truly raced to the courthouse to file before the other party and gained a custody advantage with their children by making spurious allegations against the other party in order to get what’s called an ex parte or without a hearing order of temporary custody issued, it can create all sorts of problems for the other side because now one party is fighting an uphill battle when the case has just started.
In other instances, it makes it different who files first but probably 9 times out of 10 or 95 times out of a 100 it really won’t make a difference who files first but there are occasions and that’s the kind of thing you really want to speak to a lawyer about to try to understand the particular facts of your case to make sure that it is being handled properly because each one of these cases is a little bit unique and they have their own set of facts or circumstances that might make a decision on what to do in your case different from a decision to do in your sister’s case, for example.
