Up until the court formally decides custody and visitation – or, alternatively, the parties enter into a signed custody agreement – there’s no formal child custody, visitation, or child support. For many couples, especially the ones that stay together (regardless of whether they’re married), that’s enough and it doesn’t go further than that. Even for...
Katie Carter
After I had my babies, I remember being shocked at how quickly personnel from the hospital came by to make sure that I had arranged to pay my bill, that I knew it wasn’t wise to shake a baby, and to fill out the information needed to complete the birth certificate. I never saw a...
Everyone wants an aggressive attorney. A pit bull. A shark. Those are the terms I hear the most often. “Someone who’ll fight for me,” they say. I get it! Obviously, when you hire an attorney, you want to feel like that person is cool and confident, and will have your back in any situation. ...
Even if you’ve been unhappy for a really long time, it’s sometimes hard to put a label on your relationship, especially if that label is “abusive.” Its kind of like rape. We all understand what it is, but, at the end of the day, often have a hard time describing our own experiences in these...
After an absence of several years, we’re bringing back Custody Bootcamp for Moms! Like so many things, Custody Bootcamp was a casualty of the pandemic. We knew we had to change the way that we offered the seminar – and, anyway, it was in need of some fresh new updates – but the world stayed...
There’s a lot of mystery surrounding our local area judges, and that’s probably especially true in the juvenile court. In case you’re not yet all that familiar with the Virginia court system, most custody cases start in juvenile court – unless they’re part of a larger divorce action (in which case they’d be filed in...
You’ve been married a long time – at least 20 years – and your partner is in the military. How do you know if you qualify as one of the elusive 20/20/20 spouses? Goodness knows you can’t ask your husband, a JAG attorney, or really anyone associated with the military! What is a 20/20/20 spouse?...
Sometimes I think that the military loves mystery. That has to be the reason for all those annoying acronyms, right? TSP, BAH, PCS, LES – is it just fun for them? And then, rather than trying to explain to someone who might not know what they’re talking about, they just mix in the acronyms to...