The Atlanta Lawyer February / March 2019 | Page 18

Family Law and Co-Parenting: There’s an App for That By Max Ruthenberg-Marshall The Ruthenberg-Marshall Law Firm [email protected] Family law attorneys are used to dealing with challenging cases: two parents with such high con- flict they cannot possibly say a civil word to each other, a cli- ent reporting the other party is always late for exchanges, or repeated arguments over whether one parent has provided the other parent with certain information or documents. Well now, there is an app for that. In recent years, society’s reliance on technology and, particularly, apps has grown. Americans now check their phones an average of 80 times per day, which is about every 12 minutes during waking 18 February/March 2019 hours. 1 U.S. users spend an aver- age of five hours a day on their phones, including spending more time using apps than watching TV. 2 The Apple App Store, which launched only ten years ago, 1 SWNS. “Americans Check Their Phones 80 Times a Day: Study.” New York Post. November 8, 2017. 2 Perez, Sarah. “U.S. Consumers Now Spend Five Hours Per Day on Mobile Devices.” Tech Crunch. March 3, 2017. boasts over 2 million apps and over 500 people visiting the app store each week. 3 With such an increase in overall app usage, it is no wonder so many apps have been developed that specifically target consumers in family law cases. Co-parenting apps help busy or high-conflict parents effec- tively manage co-parenting their children. These apps provide 3 Silver, Stephen. “Apple Details History of App Store on Its Tenth Anniversary.” Apple Insider. July 5, 2018