Breaking up with your child’s father makes a difference to your life in a million different ways. Ultimately, your estate plan is one of those ways that – though it may not immediately be apparent to you, if you’re young-ish and in relatively good health – can sneak up on you later. Regardless of your...
What happens to child custody if something happens to me?
It’s a tale as old as time – or, at least, a tale as old as shared custody. What happens when a dad fights for a parenting plan that reflects shared custody (meaning that he gets 90 or more days of parenting time over the course of a calendar year), but then doesn’t exercise his...
I’ve said it before and, though it pains me, I’ll say it again. Where domestic violence and child abuse are concerned, the court is very, very jaded. It’s not just the courts, either. Attorneys, too, can become jaded. We hear terrible stories, day in and day out, and, sometimes, they’re not true, or they’re...
I was talking to a woman the other day who sort of surprised me. “I have ADHD and Asperger’s,” she said. “I know it’s not always easy, and people get frustrated with me. Would you firm be able to work with me?” I was surprised she asked, for one thing. Though many of us have...
Child custody is complicated, especially because it’s really never absolutely final. Under Virginia law, anything related to the children, including child custody, visitation, and child support, are always modifiable based on a material change in circumstances, up until the time the child turns 18 and is no longer legally considered a child. School enrollment...
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...
A few months ago, I followed the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation case pretty closely. In a lot of ways, to me, it represents the core of what I do at work, and what I’ve come, personally, to care a lot about. In general, we don’t put much faith in the things that women say. You’d...
Once you (and your spouse) have made the decision to divorce, you start to worry. How long is it going to take? How much is it going to cost? Will I have enough money to survive on after this is all done? In most cases, the tensions escalate before they deescalate, and there’s a...