Posted on May 04, 2018 in Divorce

Needless to say, emotions can run high during a divorce. While some couples are able to end their marriages cooperatively and cordially, other marriages have much more dramatic endings. When one spouse is vengeful or resentful of the other, he or she may use certain tactics to get what he or she wants or to hurt the other spouse. Wasting assets is one of these tactics. When a spouse purposely spends marital property recklessly during the end of a marriage, he or she is guilty of something called dissipation.

Dissipation Defined

In Illinois, dissipation is defined as “the use of marital property for the sole benefit of one of the spouses for a purpose unrelated to the marriage at a time that the marriage is undergoing an irreconcilable breakdown”. “Irreconcilable breakdown” means that the marriage has come to the “beginning of the end.” In other words, the couple is no longer attempting to save the marriage or working toward any reconciliation.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on April 11, 2018 in Child Custody

When a married couple starts to consider divorce, often one of their main concerns is that the divorce will negatively affect the children. This worry is understandable considering divorce will dramatically change the family dynamics and living arrangements. The good news is that you do not have to go into a post-divorce life blind. There are many resources to help you and your soon-to-be-ex-spouse create a parenting agreement or plan which will keep you on the same page about raising your children as divorcees.

Parenting Plans Allow Divorcing Parents to Agree on Child-Rearing Decisions Proactively

In Illinois, divorcing parents who wish to share custody of their children are required to create and submit a parenting plan to the court. The state-mandated requirements for this plan are minimal and experts suggest including more in the agreement than just the bare minimum. Every divorced couple’s parenting agreement will look differently because every family has different needs and challenges. Some couples feel comfortable outlining only a few aspects of how their children will be parented, while others include thorough information about specifics in their parenting plan.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on April 06, 2018 in Child Custody

Parents who recently gotten divorced or broken up are often left facing difficult decisions when it comes to how to make arrangements for raising their children. In recent years, changes to the law in Illinois have led to a more intense focus on cooperative parenting plans. Cooperative parenting—or co-parenting—may work perfectly fine in most situations, but there may be cases where one parent feels that he or she should have sole authority for making important decisions regarding their child. While the law no longer uses the term “sole custody,” Illinois courts do have the authority to give one parent sole decision-making responsibility if necessary.

Updated Language

Prior to 2016, Illinois law provided for two different types of child custody arrangements: joint custody and sole custody. Both of these referred to “legal custody,” which was the authority to make choices regarding the life of the child and his or her upbringing. Parents who shared joint custody were responsible for making important decisions together, while a parent with sole custody could make decisions without consulting the non-custodial parent.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on April 04, 2018 in Division of Assets

In some states, divorcing spouses are entitled to an equal share of their “community property.” This, however, is not the case in Illinois. Illinois and 40 other states are considered “equitable distribution” states, which means that the marital property of a divorcing couple must be divided fairly between the spouses, not necessarily equally. While determining what is fair can be quite complicated, the process begins with identifying what property is considered marital and what is considered non-marital for the purposes of the divorce.

Illinois Law

Most of the statutes that govern the divorce process in Illinois are contained in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (IMDMA). The IMDMA expressly defines marital property as “all property, including debts and other obligations, acquired by either spouse subsequent to the marriage” with several important exceptions. These exceptions include but are not limited to:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on March 28, 2018 in Child Custody

If you are a parent who is considering divorce, you are most likely concerned about how the divorce will affect your child. While divorce can be a difficult concept for a child to understand and accept, there is nothing that says a child living with divorced parents will automatically be less fulfilled or content in life than a child whose parents are still married. There are several methods that parents can use to share custody of their children after a divorce which do not decrease the quality of the parent-child relationship.

Traditional Two-House Arrangement

The most common arrangement after parents divorce is for one parent to stay in the family home and the other to move out. Sometimes both parents move out of the family home and establish themselves as a single people elsewhere. Parents can share parental responsibilities (formerly called custody) and parenting time (visitation) by creating a schedule which works with their particular circumstances. Some families find that an every-other weekend visitation schedule is best while others prefer closer to fifty-fifty when it comes to parenting time.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on March 22, 2018 in Mediation and Collaborative Law

Many individuals getting a divorce want the process to run as smoothly and quickly as possible. For some, this means that they want to avoid court. Litigation in a courtroom can be expensive, time-consuming, and stressful. Collaborative law is a method of problem-solving which is available to some divorcing couples. Through the collaborative law process, divorcing couples have the opportunity to exert much more control over the final divorce decree than they would have otherwise.

How Does Collaborative Law Work?

Collaborative law is one way to resolve disagreements between divorcing individuals outside of the courtroom. Those engaging in a collaborative law divorce should be focused on working with their soon-to-be-ex-spouse instead of fighting against him or her. Collaborative law is not without its requirements and rules. In order to proceed with a collaborative divorce, each spouse must retain his or her own attorney, who must be trained and certified in collaborative law. The attorneys help the parties understand their options and choose the best course of action for their unique circumstance. Another rule for collaborative law is that neither spouse may go to court. If the couple finds it necessary to go through traditional courtroom litigation, the collaborative law process ends and the attorneys involved in the collaboration are disallowed from further involvement in the case.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on March 15, 2018 in Domestic Violence

Home is the one place everyone should feel safe. Sadly, for those people who are victims of domestic violence, home is often the last place they want to be. Intimate partner violence affects one out of every three women and one in four men. Fortunately, there are legal steps a person in an abusive relationship can take to secure their safety and that of their children. An order of protection, sometimes referred to colloquially as a restraining order, is one of these steps.

Who Should Get an Order of Protection?

If you fear for your safety or the safety of your children because a romantic partner or other close family member is threatening or actively abusing you, an order of protection may be the right first step in escaping that toxic relationship. Domestic violence can look different from case to case but some of the most common tactics abusers use include:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on March 09, 2018 in Divorce

A divorce is never easy. If your marriage is ending, you are likely to feel angry and hurt, as well as betrayed by the very person with whom you once wanted to spend the rest of your life. Emotions such as these may make you want to dig in your heels and fight against your partner over every little issue. Unfortunately, doing so will probably cost much more than you are prepared to spend on your divorce. There are, however, some things you can do to keep the cost of your divorce to manageable levels.

Where Costs Add Up

Some of the expenses related to your divorce are simply unavoidable, such as court fees. You may also experience additional costs in setting up a new place to live apart from your spouse. The bulk of your expenses, however, will come in the form of attorneys’ fees and fees charged by other professionals involved in your case. The more complex and contentious your case is, the more you will need to pay.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on March 07, 2018 in Paternity

The allocation of parental responsibilities, commonly called child custody, can be a complicated part of family law. When a couple who is unmarried has a child, there are different rights and responsibilities applied to each parent than if the couple is married. For example, a woman who gives birth to a child immediately has custody of that child. If an unmarried father wishes to claim legal paternity of the child, he must do so through one of several established ways.

Rights and Responsibilities of Unmarried Mothers

Mothers are automatically considered the primary custodian of a child they bear. This means that they have authority over decisions related to their child’s welfare as well as the responsibility to care for the child. More specifically, they have the right to make decisions about school, childcare, geographical moves, healthcare, religious affiliation, sports, summer camps, travel, and other aspects of the child’s life. It should be noted that there are some extreme cases in which a mother does not get custody of a child she gives birth to. For example, mothers who were found to have been using illegal drugs while pregnant can be disallowed immediate physical or legal custody of their child.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on March 05, 2018 in Divorce

While all divorces are stressful and time-consuming to some extent, some divorces are more complex than others. One example of a highly complex divorce is one in which one spouse simply refuses to cooperate. He or she may attempt to hide assets in order to be awarded more of the marital property or tell lies about the other spouse in order to slow the divorce process or gain custody of children. In high-conflict divorces, spouses engage in hostile confrontation instead of legal negotiation about issues like spousal maintenance, child support, parenting time, or property division. High-conflict divorces require an attorney who is experienced at finding solutions to seemingly-unsolvable problems. In addition to hiring a dedicated attorney, spouses in the midst of a high-conflict divorce may find relief through the following suggestions.

Focus on the Future and Let Go of the Past

Complex divorces, like those which involve a totally uncooperative spouse, can be laborious. In addition to the legal processes that may need to take place, there is also a lot to process emotionally. Many spouses going through a high-conflict divorce are absolutely shocked that the person they once loved could purposely make their lives so difficult. Experts suggest that anyone ending their marriage allow themselves to grieve. Divorce is not unlike the death of a spouse in that although the other spouse is not technically gone, he or she may act like a completely different person once faced with divorce. Many divorcing individuals find that therapy helps them to grieve the end of their marriage and the loss of their partner.

Continue Reading ››