Child abuse cases are seriously some of the most harrowing cases that family law practitioners have to deal with. To be honest, I can only imagine what it must feel like to have children in a position where you worry that, if your child’s father receives custody, they may be abused or mistreated in any...
Child Abuse and Virginia Custody Cases
In many types of cases, we can do a basic cost benefit analysis to determine whether something is worth pursuing in litigation. For financial assets, because they can be valued (even when “value” is a range, or there’s some kind of intrinsic sentimental value), that’s more or less easy to achieve. We can tell, at...
Divorce and custody cases can be pretty complicated. Though these things can take shape in all sorts of different ways, generally speaking, when we meet with someone who already has a case going on and who is either checking up on the decisions her lawyer is making or is ready to fire her first (or...
What is a reasonable agreement when it comes to custody and visitation? This is a question we get a lot – hey, I understand! – from concerned moms who are wondering what’ll happen after they separate from their child’s father. What should a custody and visitation agreement look like? How much time with my kids...
When it comes to divorce, there’s often a lot of fear involved. One of the biggest fears – for husbands and wives – is the threat of litigation. Litigation, though useful in certain circumstances, is complicated. It’s incredibly costly, with parties often spending far, far more than their counterparts pay for negotiated, mediated, or collaborative...
My college roommate/best friend texted me this morning to ask whether, in my professional opinion, a recent transgression of her husband’s was grounds for divorce. She included a picture, of a bottle of syrup, with the name “Vermont Maid” proudly displayed across the bottle. I should probably also mention: my friend, Erin, is from Vermont....
It’s hard to have a child with special needs. In this instance, I’m defining “special needs” pretty broadly, to include anything from a child so disabled that he or she will never live independently, and something as small as a general IEP or 504 plan for ADD. A “special need”, as far as I’m concerned,...
If I had a nickel for every time a friend or family member texted me with a random legal question, I could probably retire. But, of course, they aren’t interested in paying, they just want to get information. Sometimes, I wonder why – because I feel like I give the same answer to literally every...