In Virginia, there is no requirement that you hire an attorney to represent you in a divorce or custody case, whether at the juvenile or circuit court level (or even beyond, if your case merits an appeal). If you choose not to hire an attorney, you represent yourself. We call people who represent themselves pro...
How do I know if I need a VA family law attorney?
It’s intimidating to go to court. It’s intimidating to do anything, really, when the process and routines are unfamiliar to you, but it’s especially true when those processes result in splitting the assets and liabilities you’ve spent your adulthood accumulating, not to mention determining custody and visitation of your minor children. There’s a lot at...
Knowing which court does what and where to file your petitions is anything but easy, especially in family law. Our cases are handled both in the juvenile courts AND the circuit courts, and there can be some interplay between the two, depending on the specifics of each case. Let’s talk about it. What petitions do...
We’re all used to the idea that, by virtue of the Constitution, we have these certain, unalienable rights. And it’s true – we do. But the reality of what those rights are, and what they mean, and how and when they apply is a little bit more complicated. In a lot of ways, family court...
When, exactly, to file for custody and visitation is going to depend a lot on what your goals are. Are you looking to deal with school enrollment, trying to secure a relocation before the new school year starts, trying to resolve something related to holiday visitation, or something totally different? There are a lot of...
On Wednesday, we discussed what a contested divorce means. We touched a little bit, too, on uncontested divorce – because it’s hard to understand one without the other. Contested refers to a divorce where the parties have not reached an agreement about how the assets and liabilities will be divided; in an uncontested divorce, on...
In the election last month, one of my best friends was elected as prosecutor in her county. (She’s actually the first woman to have been elected in her county, ever – but, for my purposes today, a little beside the point.) It got me doing a little research into the local government and court structure...
We get calls, from time to time, about appeal cases, both for custody and divorce. It’s not the most common type of call – appeals are, after all, more rare than other types of cases – but it happens. Of course it does! In a divorce or a custody case, there’s a lot at stake;...