What remedies are available to left-behind parents when a child is removed from the child’s primary country to another country? There has been a recent uptick in the number of cases where a parent unilaterally removes a child from the child’s place of residence to another country in an attempt to be the child’s sole parent. The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction (read the text of the treaty here)…

Highly compensated individuals may have a laundry-list of deferred compensation awards going out over many years. Sometimes these compensation methods require negotiation transactions during a divorce that may or may not be legally permitted without full transparency. In most Texas courts, there are “standing orders” that automatically apply to every divorce that prohibit certain types of transactions. It is important to understand the marital assets in order to prevent the client from inadvertently violating one…

Most business valuations in the divorce context are performed upon long-standing businesses. Valuing an early-stage start-up company poses some challenges. In 2013 the AICPA released a guide detailing a framework for assessing the six typical stages of a business’ lifecycle. Stage 1: The enterprise has no product revenue, limited expense history, incomplete management team, and initial product development. Stage 2: The enterprise has no product revenue, substantial expense history related to product development, and an…

Because business entities are often a large part of a marital estate for divorce, family lawyers and clients should understand how to review the report and spot issues even before hiring or relying upon the party’s own expert for review. 1.Professional standards and credentials – Along the lines of starting at the very beginning (channeling my best Julie Andrews), begin with an analysis of the qualifications and credentials of the person performing the analysis. There…

Often in divorces, a spouse or both spouses may own a closely-held business. While the business itself may not be divisible in the divorce, the value of the business entity as an asset of the marital estate can be an important component to the division. There are several considerations at play when valuing a business entity for divorce purposes. The first question is the gross entity value. This considers the total capital structure or the…

Interesting article in Texas Lawyer this week about the effect of online impersonation having growing relevance in Texas family law. People are increasingly impersonating spouses, paramours, and others online out of spite or to gain leverage. In 2009, Texas made it illegal to pretend to be another person online to harass, stalk, or defraud someone. For example, it would be illegal to create a fake website in an ex’s name and provide personal details about…

The Texas Legislature convenes every two years, with 2019 being one of those. Each session, proposed new laws get introduced that will affect family law in Texas. It is expected that a bill will be introduced to remove no fault divorce and require proof of fault grounds for all Texas divorce and extend the waiting period to finalize a divorce (currently 60 days). Neither of these proposals are expected to gain much traction. Reform of…