Talking to your child about your Virginia divorce

  I think most parents know that they really shouldn’t be giving their children information about their ongoing divorce or custody case, especially if what they’re saying is (1) a lie, or (2) disparaging to the other parent. And, yet, it still happens. Like, every day. You’re human. He’s human. You’re under incredible amounts of...

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  When it comes to coparenting, there are a lot of issues that can come up. Of course, in some cases, there are a lot of issues that DON’T come up, because they’re already foregone conclusions that both parents take for granted. It seems like school enrollment is one of those issues that can find...

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50/50 Custody in Virginia

  We get a lot of questions about custody and visitation in Virginia. Does the court assume 50/50 here? Does the court prefer mom? No, the court definitely prefers dad, right? Is there a standard custody arrangement that the court orders? Like, what happens in these cases, anyway? I hear you. It’s like most moms...

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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...

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Constitutional Rights in Family Law

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...

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Do family law lawyers make conflict worse?

I was recently reading a book (that I mentioned in the articles I shared with you on Monday and Wednesday of this week as well), where the author, Greg Ellis, alleged that, in his high conflict divorce and custody case spanning over 5 years and costing in excess of a million dollars, family law attorneys...

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Does it matter who files first in Virginia divorce or custody? I was recently reading a book, “The Respondent”, about a dad who faced a divorce and ongoing custody battle in California, allegedly as a result of the lies his wife told about his relationship with his two young boys. I have a lot of...

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  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;...

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