There’s a lot of Latin in the law and, what with it being a dead language and all, there are very few people who speak or understand Latin, beyond the obvious ‘habeas corpus’ stuff. It’s kind of interesting how often we come up against Latin terms and phrases to describe things in the law;...
What does ‘pro se’ mean in a divorce or custody case?
Hiring a lawyer is expensive, not to mention intimidating. Depending on the circumstances, there can be a million different reasons why you can’t really afford to have someone completely handle your entire case from beginning to end – especially since it’s really difficult, ahead of time, to get an accurate estimate of what the case...
Divorce is a trauma. It’s a trauma for you, and, in many cases, it’s a trauma for your children, too. But, then again, probably many of the events leading up to your divorce and/or custody case were pretty traumatic, too. It’s not like you just showed up at a divorce attorney’s office unscathed, and suddenly...
There are probably very few things as devastating as losing custody of your children. As a mother myself, I can only imagine. In my experience, this happens pretty rarely, and (I’m sorry to say) often not without reason. In the majority of cases, the parties agree about how custody and visitation will be handled between...
In Equitable Distribution, the legal process through which we divide the assets and liabilities of a marriage between the parties, the court doesn’t automatically assume a 50/50 split. This is different than states that follow a Community Property model of division. In equitable distribution (or ED, as we sometimes call it), it’s almost like...
I was reading a quote the other day that said that the best thing you can do for a narcissist is to give him a child. That was it – that was the end of the quote – but it really did get me thinking. It probably is the best thing you can do, because...
What’s right for one person isn’t necessarily the perfect fit for someone else. That goes with shoes – just ask Cinderella – and it also goes for divorce attorneys. I mean, really, I think the same is true across many different things in life, but I do think it’s particularly true when it comes...
I got this question the other day – what’s in the divorce seminar that I can’t find on Google – and it made me laugh a little. In one sense, of course, literally everything you need to know about divorce in Virginia probably IS already in Google. In fact, as you probably are also already...