Recent Blog Posts
How Will a Guardian ad Litem Affect Your Child Custody Case?
Children are often the subject of the bitterest disagreements during a divorce. Sometimes the parents’ divorce petitions and testimony in court wildly contradict each other about the children’s behavior and wishes. For this reason, the courts sometimes ask children to testify, but this practice has its own problems. Teenagers might have a clear preference… Read More »
Intentionally Losing Money to Avoid Paying Spousal Support Will Always Backfire
In Florida, equitable distribution is the guiding principle for deciding division of property and, when applicable, spousal support. In other words, the courts attempt to separate a couple’s finances according to what is fair. The court determines how much money the couple has and how much each spouse needs. The law assumes that both… Read More »
Update Your Co-Parenting Vocabulary for the New Year
Language changes quickly. Now it is 2020, and, having firmly established a name for the decade known as the aughts, we now take their linguistic innovations for granted, such as the word “bromance” and using “friend” as a verb. Meanwhile, the 1959 edition of the Elements of Style advised writers to refer to one… Read More »
The Time to Get a DNA Paternity Test Is When the Child Is Born, Not in the Middle of a Long Legal Battle Over Child Support
Infidelity and lack of trust are very common reasons that people divorce. Discovering that your wife cheated on you is bad enough, but discovering that she cheated throughout your whole marriage and that someone else might be your children’s biological father can tear your world apart. It can be tempting to tell your wife… Read More »
If You Financially Support Your Adult Children, How Will It Affect the Division of Property in a Divorce?
Nothing says “Till death do us part” like sitting next to your spouse and watching your baby walk across a stage in a graduation cap and gown. Sometimes the marital conflicts over how best to take care of your children after they grow up can be as divisive as the sleep-deprived battles over whether… Read More »
How Does the Court Calculate Alimony If Your Income Varies from One Year to the Next?
The gig economy is becoming the new normal for an increasing number of Americans. You might seethe with anger when your tax accountant tells you that you should estimate your income from your 1099 jobs and send the IRS a check each quarter, as if any gig economy worker can afford to do that. … Read More »
Suing for Paternity After an Extramarital Affair Might Break Up Someone Else’s Marriage, but It Won’t Make You a Father
Infidelity is a common cause of divorce, but some marriages survive after one partner cheats, and sometimes the betrayed spouse does not even find out about the affair. Breaking your silence about an extramarital affair years after it ends is a sure way to cause hurt feelings in an entire family, and it may… Read More »
Florida Parenting Classes Can Help You Avoid the Pitfalls of Co-Parenting?
If a judge orders you to take a driving safety class, it probably means that you made a major driving mistake. Consider, though, that many thousands of Floridians take state-run driving courses every year, not because a judge orders them to, but just because it’s the law. Everyone applying for a restricted driver’s license,… Read More »
A Family Law Attorney Can Help Keep Student Debt from Ruining Your Marriage
What determines when a person is mature enough to consider marriage? Most people would cite financial independence as a prerequisite for marriage readiness, but in today’s economy, the meaning of financial dependence is changing. While some people value the multigenerational household, lots of people in their 20s and 30s would balk at the idea… Read More »
What Happens to Your Debts If You Divorce?
Many divorced people complain about how their divorce ruined them financially, but the truth is that many of them were not in the best financial shape while they were married, or even before they met their spouse. These days, almost everyone is in debt, not just people with prodigal, work-averse, or materialistic ex-spouses. The… Read More »
