Family & Divorce

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Litigation
As one of the most common approaches to divorce, mediation offers the possibility of reduced stress, a minimal time commitment, and considerable savings. It’s not right for everybody, however. Some spouses desperately need the assertive legal advocacy that can only be achieved in a litigated divorce. Litigation is especially worth pursuing in the following situations: Lack of Good Faith Mediation works best when both spouses acknowledge that, despite their differences, they ultimately want the best…
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As a collaborative divorce lawyer in New York, headlines announcing the Bezos divorce settlement gave me hope for the future of divorce – and the future of marriages in the US.  Since the news first made headlines in January that Jeff Bezos and his with MacKenzie were divorcing after 25 years of marriage, the pundits have been obsessing about how this would affect Amazon. As the founder and CEO of Amazon, the most valuable company…
To answer a question with a question: “Isn’t the sensible answer ‘No’?” After all, people contemplating divorce are not children. This is an entirely adult decision made by an adult who decided to marry in the first place. The prospective client is the person living the marriage with all of its advantages and disadvantages. No matter how close the friend or family member, that person is not living the marriage. In the past, my feelings…
Wisdom
If you’re like most people, your attitudes regarding divorce have largely been shaped by the media and your community. Perhaps you’ve watched Divorce Courton TV or listened to a loved one’s complaints about this notoriously complicated process. Ultimately, however, it’s impossible to understand exactly how divorce works until you’re in the trenches. The more you know in advance, the better your chances of escaping the biggest dramas of divorce. To prepare you, we’ve compiled a…
We often deal with cases in which one or both spouses own a business.  In many of those cases, a spouse received their interest in a business prior to the marriage, either from a family member, or otherwise.  With regard to premarital assets and/or any other assets that a party claims is exempt, that party must prove that the asset is truly exempt.  The inquiry doesn’t end there.  If the asset is an active asset,…
I have previously written about the custody and parenting time issues that may be presented when a child is moved from state to state within the country.  But what of child support? In an interesting recent unpublished decision, Flynn v. Flynn, the New Jersey Appellate Division examined the question: in a case where multiple child support orders have been entered in multiple states, which state has jurisdiction over the issue, and which state’s law controls? The…
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On January 8, 2019, the Tennessee Supreme Court amended Rule 34, which governs requests for production of documents. Effective July 1, 2019, Rule 34.02 will require responses to such requests to state, with respect to each item or category, that inspection and related activities will be permitted as requested, unless the request is objected to, including an objection to the requested form or forms for producing electronically stored information, stating with specificity the grounds…
Baby Boomer divorce rates continue to be above the average with one in every four divorces occurring in this age group. When I first wrote about so-called “grey divorce” (also referred to as ‘gray divorce’) in 2012, the overall divorce rate was going down, while the rate of divorce for people born between 1946 and 1964 already had a divorce rate triple that of their parents. In 2019, those statistics are holding true. Grey divorce…
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This article by Belinda Luscombe in Time magazine is interesting. The Divorce Rate Is Dropping. That May Not Actually Be Good News Have you heard that statistic that half of all marriages will end in divorce? It’s wrong. Even if that many marriages ever did disintegrate at one point, they don’t now. Divorce is on the decline and has been since the 1980s in America (when that 50% divorce statistic took hold). Experts now…