To cut to the chase and state the obvious as simply as possible: if there’s no custody order in place (as in, you and your child’s father have never (1) been to court to let a judge determine custody, and (2) you’ve never signed an agreement related to custody and visitation), both you and your...
Virginia Custody Issues: He won’t let me see the kids
In family law cases, it seems to happen fairly often that, in litigated cases, you come before the same judge several times. Most courts, of course, do this on purpose – in order to minimize the amount of time needed at each hearing that the judge needs to familiarize himself with the facts of the...
I spend a lot of time talking here about separation agreements, uncontested divorces, and how, in general, it’s often ideal to avoid going to court to have your assets and liabilities divided. In most cases, that’s quite true. But “most cases” is not every case, and you have to think critically about your case, and...
If you’ve found your way to this page, you probably already know that, in most jurisdictions, it can take several months to get a hearing schedule on custody and visitation petitions with a juvenile court. In Chesapeake, for example, it takes 90 days for the court to review the petitions, and usually another 90 to...
I rarely have an opportunity to see a husband abuse his wife – my client – first hand. Obviously, most of these abusers lawyer up pretty quickly, and they’re often pretty good at putting on a good face in public. After all, isn’t that characteristic abusive spouse behavior? Awhile back, though, I witnessed – first...
When it comes to facing a custody case, you probably feel like a fish out of water. And, honestly, if you don’t feel that way, you probably should. I don’t say that to scare you – I don’t ever want to just scare anybody – but only to make you aware that things that you...
Spousal support is one of those areas where tensions tend to run high. No one – husbands and wives included – want to have to pay it. But for the lesser earning spouse (and I can tell you, I’ve represented the lesser earning spouse many, many times), spousal support is sometimes the only real lifeline...
Real estate is easy. Either one or the other of you keeps it, in which case you refinance the mortgage to remove your spouse from liability, or you sell it and split the proceeds. There’s not a lot of options, so we can often cut to the chase pretty quickly. I want to keep the...