Palm Beach County Family Law Blog

I have commented on divorce celebrations before in my blog entries. I also have commented on family law attorneys and their actions in divorce cases.However, I never have commented on the two subjects together at the same time before. Apparently, an all female law firm in Chicago (focused in the area of divorce cases) posted a billboard on a main thoroughfare and a blunt message: "Life is short. Get a Divorce.". However, the billboard alsofeatures the six-pack abs of a headless male torso and tanned female cleavage barely contained in a black bra. Reaction to the billboard by the rest of the legal community and the city of Chicago was less than enthusiastic. The ABC article, reporting about this advertisement, contains comments from attorneys from Chicago and other parts of the country. All of the commentators found the advertisement to be in poor taste. The City of Chicago later took down the billboard ad over the objection of the law firm. Divorce lawyers in Jupiter, West Palm Beach, and other parts of Palm Beach County would also echo the dismay and disapproval of their peers about this piece of slick advertisement. In addition, The Florida Bar would never approve this form of advertising and would likely sanction any law firm who produced such a billboard. Nevertheless, local divorce attorneys also would acknowledge that they have had or currently have clients who would have agreed with the motto of the enterprising Chicago law firm. In any event, the Chicago law firm was not discouraged by the heated reaction to their billboard and continue to market t-shirts and sweatshirts with their motto on its website. Some individuals who wish to celebrate their divorce may wish to purchase the offered merchandise To learn more about the saga of the billboard controversy click here. You may also read this article.

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Whether you are divorced, married or single and whether you reside in Jupiter, Boca Raton or West Palm Beach, everyone admits that the economy still is not good and that everyone still needs to save money whenever possible. I recently came across an article in Kiplinger's Web Page about the 19 most overlooked tax savings. Whether you are single, married or divorced you may find useful information located in this article. Some of the savings discussed include:

(1) Child Tax Credi;

(2) Making Work Pay Credit;

(3) Student Loan Interest paid by Mom or Dad; and

(4) Property Tax Deduction for Nonitemizers.

You don't have to be a divorce attorney or a CPA to appreciate the potential tax savings from this information. To review the article and learn more about potential tax savings, please click here.

Whether they are located in Wellington, Boynton Beach, or other areas of Palm Beach County, divorce attorneys know that one spouse can alienate their children against the other spouse, so that the alienated children can say or do the most horrific things against the targeted parent. However, a recent parental alienation episode in a Kansas divorce will have the most jaded lawyer and lay person sitting up and taking notice. Recently, Arthur Davis III was convicted of attempted first degree murder regarding an attack on his wife. Authorities in Douglas County, Kansas state that the attack was prompted by a child custody dispute. Kansas prosecutors stated that Davis encouraged his 12-year-old daughter and 15 year old son to kill his ex-wife.

After the children began beating her, Davis joined in the attack. The woman was able to escape and ran down the road to seek help. The children were not able to escape their behavior without serious ramifications to them.

The daughter was granted immunity and testified against her father. The Davis' son will be tried as a juvenile on felony charges. The children will bear the scars and fall out of this case of parental alienation for the rest of their lives. This example of parental alienation and its results, albeit extreme, should educate all divorce attorneys in West Palm Beach and elsewhere of the potential seriousness of a consistent campaign of alienation and the damage that it can cause to all members of the family.

To learn more about this case, click here.

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Divorce attorneys in West Palm Beach, Wellington, and other parts of Palm Beach County are trained in the law, not in providing financial planning .

However, all marital and family lawyers know that financial decisions will have to be made by their clients throughout their divorce, some of which need to be made immediately. Unfortunately, people involved in a divorce should expect that choices with huge financial implications will come at you with intense speed, and they may not be the sort of decisions that they are used to making. Recently, the New York Times published an informative article that discusses some of these financial issues. The topics covered include:

credit, health insurance, taxes, spousal education; increased costs of supporting teenagers, attorney fees, and other pertinent topics.

We are living in a tough economy. Whether you are getting divorced or looking for additional information regarding making difficult financial decisions, then please visit the link here.

The above title will have divorce attorneys in West Palm Beach, Florida scratching their heads. As much as a divorcing couple may love their family pets, the law in Florida and elsewhere in the country does not treat family pets like children (and award custody or visitation concerning them).

Generally, pets and other animals owned by a divorcing couple are considered by the law to be like another piece of property to be divided or somehow valued and distributed during the divorce. However, a recent case concerning Dexter the Pug in New Jersey may be commencing a new trend in the law.

Dexter was owned by Eric Dare and Doreen Houseman, who lived together for some time and then separated. A court case over who should retain possession of Dexter commenced. Four years, four court appearances, an appeal, and approximately $40,000 in legal fees later the issue of Dexter has been resolved. However, the resolution did not occur until the New Jersey appellate court ruled that Dexter should not have been treated like a piece of furniture (valued and then distributed) as the trial court had done. Instead, the appellate court ruled that the trial court should have considered Dexter's subjective value (whatever that means). After being so instructed, the appellate court then quickly entered an order, requiring Dexter to rotate between his two owners every five weeks and that the owners were to divide the bills.

Family lawyers in Boca Raton may wisecrack and state that this is a New Jersey decision and has no applicability in Florida. However, changes in the law often start out in a small way. It will be interesting to see if the rationale of the New Jersey decision will begin appearing in divorces in Palm Beach County. I have previously blogged about Dexter and his odyssey through the court system. If you are interested in reviewing an article and video about Dexter and his legal journey, please click here.

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During this recession, divorce attorneys in Palm Beach Gardens, Wellington, and elsewhere in Palm Beach County have been dealing more and more with alimony modification matters. People are either attempting to lower their alimony payments or attempting to increase their alimony payments. However, experienced marital and family lawyers know that this trend is occurring against a backdrop of a growing movement throughout the United States for alimony reform. Pressures are mounting to change alimony, the practice of which some view as outdated and unfair. The proponents of the changes argue that the nature of marriage has evolved dramatically over the decades. Women now constitute almost half of the American work force. But alimony, a concept commenced in ancient law, has remained remarkably constant. Now, the idea that a divorced spouse should support their formerly married partner forever, even after the demise of their marriage, is being called into question. The philosophical core of this debate is whether alimony payments should be viewed as temporary (until the dependent spouse gets back on his or her feet) or is it a long term dividend for sacrifices made during the marriage. In many states, the debate seems to have swung on the side of limitation of alimony. Currently, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts have bills being processed through their legislatures to limit the award of alimony. Reportedly, a Florida group has hired a lobbyist to push a bill to limit alimony payments to three years. The Ohio Bar Association appears to be in favor of a legislative bill that limits the length of alimony to seven years. It is too early to state definitively what will happen in Florida or elsewhere with this trend.

However, divorce attorneys in Palm Beach County know that as more and more divorced and non-divorced baby boomers reach retirement age, the recession has decimated their nest eggs and has erased millions of jobs. This conversion of circumstances may provide more momentum for the advocates of alimony limitation. Please click here to read the Wall Street Journal's article on this interesting and timely issue. If you would like to learn some less acrimonious ways to resolve a divorce related issue, please visit our squidoo lens on this issue at:

www.squidoo.com/messy-divorce.

Divorce and Family Law Attorneys in Jupiter, West Palm Beach, Wellington and other sections of Palm Beach County sometimes are asked by prospective clients to assist them in adopting children. In doing so, these attorneys may refer their clients to private adoption agencies or the State of Florida Department of Human Services to assist their clients in obtaining a child to adopt. At the same time, these attorneys also know that you can find almost anything advertised on the internet. Seldom have divorce attorneys witnessed both concepts combined. However, recently a Craigslist adoption ad created this unlikely combination.

Recently, in Washington state, a young mother offered on Craigslist for her baby-to-be for adoption. Craigslist is an internet website that permits individuals to offer and seek a variety of services and items. I have blogged in the past about Craigslist being used in divorce situations.

However, the major question regarding this more recent Craigslist adoption posting is whether it is a scam or an anxious young woman seeking a home for her baby. That's the question that Federal Way, Washington police are trying to answer as they trace the person who posted an ad on Craigslist offering an unborn child for adoption. The advertisement described the mother as 22 years old and 5 months pregnant. She said she was looking for a wealthy couple to adopt the baby and pay her medical expenses.

Independent adoptions are legal in Washington and other states, and so is the practice of adoptive parents paying the birth mother's expenses.

However, in Washington, only licensed agencies or the Department of Social and Health Services can advertise a child for adoption. Experienced family lawyers in Florida know that it is unlikely that such advertisements will be permitted here. However, no one can dispute that the internet and the web are transforming our lives. Perhaps in the future, we will see such advertisements being permitted or more readily accepted. To learn more about this interesting case, please click here.

Imagine you are on vacation with your three young daughters (ages 18 months, 4, and 5). Like most young parents, you take a lot of photos of your children during the vacation. One night during the vacation you are relaxed and the kids are in a playful, goofy mood during bath time and you take a few photos of them. After you return from vacation, you turn in your 144 vacation photos to be copied at your local Wal Mart (of which 8 photos concern your young children partially nude in the bath). Wal Mart calls the police and reports you as potentially possessing child pornography.

Imagine that during the investigation of this allegation that you are identified as a potential child abuser to your neighbors, relatives, and co-workers and that at the end of investigation you are suspended from your job with the local school district and your names are placed on a state child abuser registry. Despite your pleas of innocence, your children are removed from your custody by the local state agency and not returned to your care for thirty days and then only after a medical evaluation of the children has demonstrated no indications of abuse and a judge has ordered the return of the children to you. This horrifying scenario sounds like it might only be found in the script for a bad soap opera. Unfortunately, for Lisa and Anthony Demaree it is horrifyingly true. The Demarees are now suing the State of Arizona and the Wal Mart corporation for damages to themselves and to their children. Experienced divorce attorneys and marital and family lawyers in West Palm Beach, in Wellington, and elsewhere in Palm Beach County acknowledge that children are abused and neglected and that child abuse and neglect is a terrible thing. At the same time, divorce practitioners also recognize that in attempting to protect children, sometimes innocent people are caught up in the system. Everyone wants to believe that the above scenario would never happen to them. However, I am sure that the Demarees thought the same thing before their children were removed from their care because of the potential hyper-vigilence and overreaction of the State of Arizona and the Wal Mart Corporation. This case also provides a cautionary tale for couples in stormy or highly contentious divorce or post-divorce custody (majority time sharing) or visitation (contact schedule) disputes. In these situations, the parties are highly suspicious of each other and often may be hyper-vigilent and may overreact to any potentially negative fact, occurrence, and statement of a child and will report them to the police, state social services agency, and/or litigate them in court. It is in such cases that false allegations of abuse and/or neglect may occur. For more information about the Demaree Case, please see the relevant New York Times article by clicking here. To watch a video interview of the Demarees and a report of their case, please click here.

Experienced divorce attorneys in Wellington, Jupiter, and other areas of Palm Beach County know that among the most contested issues in a divorce case revolves around custody (or majority time sharing as it is currently known in Florida). Marital and family lawyers will acknowledge that one of the concerns that they often hear surrounds the area whether the child is being harmed or neglected. Case law in Florida and other jurisdictions have wrestled with various formulations of this issue. One well documented harm/neglect issue is smoking in the presence of your asthma suffering child. In some cases, such action has resulted in the loss of custody/majority time share. Legal observers also have noticed the issue of overweight or obese children have been raised in litigation in recent years, resulting in some parents losing custody of their children. Overweight children are likely to develop many health issues in their childhood and teenage years, including: Type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, hypertension, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, and orthopedic problems. Cases in South Carolina, New Mexico, Texas, California, New York, Canada, and Great Britain have garnered attention because a child's weight issue resulted in the loss of custody. Granted the cases dealt with a state social welfare agency steping in to remove the affected child from his parent or parent. However, creativity is the hallmark of a good attorney. If the state social welfare agency has removed children from the custody of a parent by this allegation, then it is a short step to raise such an issue in the context of a divorce case. To learn more about this issue and read the Time article concerning it, please click here. To view other information concerning children issues in a divorce case, please visit our squidoo lens at www.squidoo.com/divorce-children.

Watch informative videos by Board Certified Attorney Charles D. Jamieson by clicking here .

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The above headline would cause disbelief in most divorce attorneys, whether they are located in Jupiter, Wellington or elsewhere in Palm Beach County.

The national statistics for first time marriages to end in divorce still hovers around the 50% mark. Nevertheless, the State of California has authorized the backers of a constitutional amendment to ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters. The proponents of this amendment have until March 10, 2010 to collect the needed signatures of registered voters in order to place the matter on the ballot for next year. This proposal may seem to be farfetched. However, please keep in mind that many social, political, and legal trends have originated in California. It will be interesting to see if this trend gathers any momentum and travels eastward. Until that time, divorces will still remain a reality of our society. To learn more about this proposed amendment, please click here.

Watch informative videos by Board Certified Attorney Charles D. Jamieson by clicking here .

Visit his Squidoo page to read his Lenses here .

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