As of January 1st, 2001, Minnesota litigants have had the option of stipulating to a "Parenting Plan" in lieu of a traditional custody award. A major goal of this legislation was to help parents avoid getting bogged down in arguments over the custody label. Unfortunately, the legislation hasn’t entirely lived up to its promise. The statute still requires custody labels, and although this is supposedly only for purposes of enforcement in other states, it remains a source of conflict.

Nevertheless, the Parenting Plan legislation does make possible two good options not previously available to parties:

First, it allows parties to stipulate to a "best interest of the child" standard for purposes of any future motions to modify parenting time. This is in lieu of the "endangerment" standard which would otherwise apply. Prior to enactment of the Parenting Plan legislation, parents were not even free to stipulate to a standard other than endangerment for future modification motions. This resulted in many custody conflicts even where both parties agreed that one or the other should have custody at present, because the prospective non-custodial parent didn’t want to be in a position of having to prove endangerment in order to modify custody in the future.

Second, it allows parties to stipulate to a "best interest of the child" standard for purposes of any future motion to move the children’s residence out of state. Without such a stipulation, the non-custodial parent would have to prove either that the move would endanger the children, or that the move is only intended to interfere with parenting time, in order to prevent the move.