Use numbers: when settlement isn't settling Mike and Karen are getting a divorce. In Karen’s initial consultation, I discovered that they owned a $300,000 house with $100,000 in equity. They each had 401(k) accounts, earned entirely during the marriage, worth about $125,000 each. They had about $60,000 in savings, and $5,000 in their checking account. They had personal property, too, of course—TVs, computers, kitchen appliances, furniture, and so on. They also each owned cars—he a 2010 Toyota … [Read more...]
The decisions you make can affect your divorce
The decisions that you make can affect your divorce. “My life is in your hands,” my clients tell me, tearfully, all the time. To some degree, of course, it’s true. What we do is important, it matters deeply to our clients, and can have long lasting personal and financial implications. Still, when it comes to a divorce or custody case, there are a lot of factors involved. There are a lot of ways your case can get messed up. And, sure, there are cases where a lawyer commits malpractice, makes a … [Read more...]
Fault Based Grounds for Divorce
Most people, at some point or other, really want to explore all of their options when it comes to divorce. For most people, too, that starts with carefully considering fault based grounds. They’re definitely appealing. For a lot of people, selecting from among the fault based grounds of divorce feels almost compulsory, if those grounds exist. For others, being able to use fault based grounds provides a level of justification. It’s almost a way of saying, “See? The law recognizes why I can’t … [Read more...]
What’s a separation agreement? (And why do I want one?)
When most attorneys talk about divorce, they give the impression that there are all sorts of different “types” of divorce—negotiation, collaboration, mediation, litigation—but the reality is that there are really only three real choices. You either (1) negotiate your divorce by signing a separation agreement and decide for yourself how your things will be divided, (2) litigate your divorce and let the judge decide, or (3) you agree on what you can and let the judge decide the rest. What … [Read more...]
