One of my valued clients, who happens to be an engineer by training and otherwise an interesting and dynamic person, made a comment at court today. She had been watching other cases taking place at the courthouse, and marveled at the amount of controversy over objectively small issues. She stated…
I was involved in a child custody matter recently that was becoming difficult to settle, for a number of reasons. I represented the Dad in the case. One of the reasons for the impasse was the wife’s refusal to consider joint custody. I had prepared a detailed Joint Parenting Agreement…
Many professionals that work with divorce and custody cases see cases of Parental Alienation. Parental alienation can be defined as a social dynamic, generally occurring due to divorce, when a child expresses unjustified hatred or unreasonably strong dislike of a ” target=”_ parent, making access by the rejected parent difficult…
Part of practicing family law involves, at least in my opinion, a measure of compassion for and understanding of each client’s family system, and the family system and financial changes that a divorce will visit upon a family. Each family is different; each case is also unique. My firm applies…
I have written in this blog on Collaborative and Cooperative Divorce and conducted a seminar last year for the Kane County ADR Committee on Collaborative and Cooperative Divorce. The Collaborative Divorce offers some distinct advantages to divorcing parties over the typical bitterly contested, litigated divorce. However, there have been some…
Illinois attorneys and the Illinois legislature are now studying changes to Illinois’ Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. One of the goals of the review is to, perhaps, bring Illinois into the 21st Century by reforming the way we resolve custody issues, as well as revising the language of custody.…
I found this article via Twitter. It highlights the life of a Malaysian man who shares his life experience after being legally separated from his wife and kids. Saturday, July 18, 2009 Is there life after divorce? Depends… A subject that not many would want to dwell upon but which…
Shared parenting laws introduced by the Howard government in 2006 do not guarantee divorced fathers the right to a 50-50 time split with their children because (as the article argues) such an arrangement is not always in the best interests of the children. Instead, the legislation requires the Family Court…
1. Talk to your children about your separation. Studies show that only 5 percent of parents actually sit down, explain to their children when a marriage is breaking up, and encourage the kids to ask questions. Nearly one quarter of parents say nothing, leaving their children in total confusion. Talk…
A quick story about a Father’s dedication to one of his children. I visit a Starbucks in town, and one of the baristos is a very friendly, intelligent gentleman that I’ve chatted with while buying my usual grande coffee over the years. Turns out he’s Dad to a young man…