Imagine the following scenario: every few days you have to pack up your clothes, effects, and important documents, put them in your car, and go sleep in a different house. Then after a few days, just when you are getting comfortable, you have to pack up your clothes, effects, and important documents...
I Miss My Baby- Joint Legal and Physical Custody of Children Born to Unmarried Parents
In Massachusetts, application of the “best interests” standard by the Probate and Family Courts has evolved towards the working presumption that most parents should have joint legal custody of their children and that in general, children are best served by having ample or equal amounts of parenting time with both parents—divorced parents,...
Divorce in the Time of the Coronavirus
Filing for a contested divorce in Probate and Family Court during the best of times is time consuming, expensive, and stressful. With the onset of COVID-19, AKA Coronavirus, we are suddenly living in a time of great fear and uncertainty. Ordinary life has come to a grinding halt. On March 18, 2020,...
Expert Assistance-When It Might Be Wise To Seek The Help of a CDFA or Other Financial Professional in Family Mediation.
You and your spouse have chosen to mediate your divorce because you wish to avoid the expense, acrimony, and publicity of litigation. You may hire an attorney-mediator who can assist your negotiation, educate you about the law, and draft your separation agreement in a streamlined process. Or you...
Collaborative Mediation. Is That A Thing?
The following article proposes an intriguing hybrid of collaborative law and mediation: http://www.divorcemediationtexas.com/blogs/collaborative-mediation-new-divorce-solution. Thoughts, anyone?
Prenuptial Pain And How Mediation Or Collaborative Law Can Help
There are many reasons parties might choose to enter prenuptial agreements, for example: to protect assets for children from a previous marriage; prevent a family-owned business from being dissolved; keep separate family estates, inheritances, trusts or funds which may be held in name only; or to shield assets where one spouse has...
Moving Towards A Better Way
Observations on transforming a litigation-based family law practice to one focused on alternative dispute resolution.
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As an advocate and litigator, although I have always enjoyed spirited legal argument, I have been fundamentally troubled by negative aspects of civil and family law litigation that sometimes can occur:...
Everything Is Income
In case the Child Support Guidelines have not yet made this fact clear enough, everything, everything, everything a party earns may be considered income for purposes of child support calculation. In Hoegen v. Hoegen, 89 Mass. App. Ct. 6 (2016), the Appeals Court reversed a Probate Court decision that a father was not obligated...
Trust Issues
Trusts are a source of much uncertainty in division of marital assets, calling for caution and compromise by divorcing parties. Nowhere is that principle better illustrated than in the case of Pfannenstiehl v. Pfannenstiehl, a case initially decided by the Massachusetts Appeals Court, 88 Mass. App. Ct. 121 (2015), and recently overturned by...
Drop Off The Key, Lee
Why it's hard to force a soon-to-be ex-spouse to leave the marital home -- and why that spouse should leave anyway.
You are getting divorced. You and your spouse are living in marital misery, hiding from each other in your own home, barely speaking, or only engaging in...
