Domestic violence is everywhere. It’s a lot more prevalent than most people think, which is pretty alarming. When I started here, over a decade ago now, as a brand new baby lawyer, I was definitely surprised at how often it really happens. When I speak to women who have suffered from domestic abuse, they often...
Domestic Abuse and Divorce
This was a new one for me – “I shouldn’t have to pay for a family law attorney; I’m innocent!” While I do sympathize with the sentiment, there’s also a whole lot wrong with it. In a lot of ways, I know that the way the Virginia court system – and, probably, every court...
My sister in law asked me a question the other day – for a friend of a friend – and it really irritated me. Not that she would ask me a question; that’s fine, we’re really pretty close. But the question itself irked me. Her friend had a friend, from a really long time ago,...
Domestic violence is a very real issue in family law cases; it’s one we brush up against all the time. It was something that surprised me when I first started, because even in the most otherwise normal cases, there were undercurrents of domestic violence. A friend of mine from law school is a prosecutor,...
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...
Whenever there is domestic violence involved in a case, we advise our clients about protective orders. It’s really one of the only tools in our arsenal available to help protect clients who are at risk from their former partners. On the one hand, it’s just a piece of paper. On the other, it works in...
Some things change, some things stay the same. Even though the coronavirus pandemic has totally upended the world as we knew it, there are some things that were challenges before that continue to remain so. For us, in divorce practice, one of the biggies is making sure that we’re able to get information to our...
If you know me at all, you know I’m a huge anglophile. I can’t help it; I love the British. It has been a lifelong love, too. That’s generally not relevant to the work that I do. Once, I wrote a blog about Henry VIII and the differences between divorce then and now, and I...