If you’ve found your way to this page, you probably already know that, in most jurisdictions, it can take several months to get a hearing schedule on custody and visitation petitions with a juvenile court. In Chesapeake, for example, it takes 90 days for the court to review the petitions, and usually another 90 to...
Monthly Archive: September 2018
I rarely have an opportunity to see a husband abuse his wife – my client – first hand. Obviously, most of these abusers lawyer up pretty quickly, and they’re often pretty good at putting on a good face in public. After all, isn’t that characteristic abusive spouse behavior? Awhile back, though, I witnessed – first...
When it comes to facing a custody case, you probably feel like a fish out of water. And, honestly, if you don’t feel that way, you probably should. I don’t say that to scare you – I don’t ever want to just scare anybody – but only to make you aware that things that you...
A client of mine, who had retained me to help her draft a separation agreement, forwarded me the draft separation agreement that her husband had prepared while we were working on ours, with the caption “Things just got ugly.” I was confused – after all, I was retained to prepare a separation agreement, much like...
Spousal support is one of those areas where tensions tend to run high. No one – husbands and wives included – want to have to pay it. But for the lesser earning spouse (and I can tell you, I’ve represented the lesser earning spouse many, many times), spousal support is sometimes the only real lifeline...
Real estate is easy. Either one or the other of you keeps it, in which case you refinance the mortgage to remove your spouse from liability, or you sell it and split the proceeds. There’s not a lot of options, so we can often cut to the chase pretty quickly. I want to keep the...
It’s scary, when you’re thinking of divorcing and splitting up all the things you’ve acquired jointly during the course of your marriage, to think also about the money you may have to pay to have an attorney represent you. It’s confusing, too, because different attorneys handle fees differently. You’ve heard, I’m sure, of the contingent...
It happens sometimes that our clients lie to us. I get it – it’s scary. It’s overwhelming. And there are maybe some facts in your case that you’re not entirely proud of – and may be intensely embarrassed of. You may be afraid of what might happen if those details get out. It’s not that...