Can I handle my family law case without a lawyer?

I’m biased.  I’m a lawyer.  I earn my living handling family law cases on behalf of the women who become my clients. Also, because I am a lawyer I also (1) see the people who can’t resolve things on their own (and very few of the people who can), and (2) deal, essentially, in worst-case...

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New Year, New Divorce Filing

Divorce is, historically speaking, one of the busiest months of the year for divorce.  For the most part, November and December are generally the slowest; after all, who wants to get divorced during the holidays? It’s not so much that I think divorce is somehow tied to a new year’s resolution – though it certainly...

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When Non Lawyers Give Legal Advice

Getting your divorce information from a person who is not a lawyer is pretty risky behavior. I’m a member of a Facebook group for moms in a prominent local city, and I’ve noticed that there are a lot of requests for legal advice. It’s not a group for family lawyers, so, as you can probably...

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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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Separate, Reconcile, or Divorce?

Relationships are complicated. I’m sure you already know that. But it does bear mentioning, in any case, because it gets to the root of what we do here. Sometimes, it seems as though it doesn’t make any sense, least of all to us, who know one party only a little and the other not at...

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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...

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How do I get him to pay for my Virginia divorce?

We can all put divorce right up there on the tippy top of the list of things we don’t want to pay for, right? Even if you want the divorce itself, you don’t really want to pay the costs associated with it. A joke I hear all the time – especially when I tell random...

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As far as procedure is concerned, adultery cases are some of the most difficult fault based divorce cases you can come across in Virginia. You have to meet a pretty strict standard of proof to satisfy the judge, you have to have a corroborating witness, and, of course, you have to follow all the local...

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