Dr William Fabricius describes the success of Arizona's 2012 shared parenting legislation in a recent article which notes that:

The new statute was carefully worded to promote equal parenting time while still requiring judges to weigh the traditional children’s best interest factors, such as parental mental health, that might disqualify either parent. We removed the traditional factor that gave preference to the parent who had provided primary caretaking in the past, and added a new one stating that “absent evidence to the contrary, it is in a child’s best interest to have substantial, frequent, meaningful and continuing parenting time with both parents.”

The statute states that “consistent with children’s best interests, the court shall adopt a parenting plan that maximizes the parents’ respective parenting time.”

By not giving any target numbers, the law puts the focus on providing the child with as close to equal parenting time with both parents as possible for that family.

His research showed support from judges, court staff, lawyers and mental health providers for the new measures.  His conclusion: "Arizonans have found that there doesn’t have to be a trade-off between equal parenting time and judicial discretion when courts are directed to try to maximize children’s time with both parents."