In Virginia, a couple of things go into a child support calculation: both parents’ combined incomes (if you are receiving spousal support, this is included as ‘income’), the amount either or both are paying for support of other children, the total amount of work-related childcare that they are paying, and the cost of health insurance...
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Question: My child’s father and I share custody. Our child is involved in a number of activities and there are practices, games, recitals, meets, and more, all on a regular basis. I’ve always taken the child to everything, and I’ve never missed a game or performance, but now that we’re divorced, my child’s father is...
Drug and alcohol are a major issue in divorce and child custody cases – and it’s one of the things that, in my experience, both Guardians ad litem and judges take seriously because it is very clearly and obviously not in the best interests of a child (or children) to be in the care of...
We definitely get a lot of questions about our decision to represent women only and, because it’s unusual, we get it! One of the first questions we get – often when a man inadvertently calls our office – is “Isn’t that discrimination?” What they mean isn’t to really ask whether it is discrimination; by definition,...
Whether you want to check the status of your own ongoing case – especially if you are not represented by an attorney – or you’re trying to check up on someone else’s divorce records, it’s relatively easy to get this information in Virginia. Where are divorces filed in Virginia? We have the Circuit Court Information...
Sometimes, divorce comes about gradually, over time, as people outgrow relationships that once served them. In other cases, though, there was one triggering event that set events in motion, so to speak. These cases are the most difficult, I think, because it wasn’t a gradual thing that you could adjust to over time. It was...
A protective mom is one who take action, particularly in a child custody case, to protect her child from harm. Though protective moms are sometimes reviled in the media as helicopter moms, unnecessarily over-protective women who interfere in their children’s lives, in the custody context they are often the only ones speaking out about the...
The short answer is yes – you can choose to give your child your last name at birth. The longer answer, of course, is that this can be complicated. For unmarried mothers, particularly ones who exclude their child’s father from the birth, this is easier. We don’t necessarily assume that a child should be given...