What Does A Divorce Lawyer Do For You?

April 17, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Picture of Two Lawyers

What does a Divorce lawyer really do for you? I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with a good friend  who didn’t understand why people need divorce lawyers, he thought the whole system was pretty self-explanatory, you fill out some form and presto-chango you’re divorced.  He questioned how a couple people in suites, who don’ t know either party, could help during a divorce.  It’s a fair question I guess and since I’ve been blogging here for about 4 years and there are a few blog post that I notice  are the most read even after being a …

Filed Under: General

Child Support & Minnesota Business Owners

April 3, 2014 By Leave a Comment
taxes and child support

Going Corporate With Child Support: Child support for Minnesota business owners Child support and corporate/business income are not likely to be high on anyone’s list of their favorite things to think about.  When you combine both of them together, they quickly become even less pleasant.  For Minnesota business owners, however, a recent Minnesota Supreme Court decision makes the combination of these two an important consideration in some divorce situations.  This is because, as it turns out, your income may be bigger than you think it is, at least for purposes of calculating your child support, if you are a shareholder …

Filed Under: Child Support, Farm Divorce

New vs. Old Divorce Lawyers

March 31, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Old man

Does The Age Of My Divorce Lawyer Matter? So, you ‘re calling around trying to find the right divorce lawyer. Do you go with the brand new lawyer who is dirt cheap? The Mid-Career lawyer? or the old seasoned veteran who everyone knows and is expensive? Well, it depends on your case (and the lawyer) In my opinion and it is just that, my opinion, I’ve put together which clients should hire which lawyers: New Lawyer:  (less than 5 years Experience) A new lawyer can be the next Clarence Darrow or he or she can be the next lawyer disbarred, …

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Family Court Judges & Referees

March 28, 2014 By Leave a Comment
MN Judge

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Family Court Judges and Divorce Proceedings As much as you might have hoped for a relatively amicable, out-of-court resolution to your divorce, sometimes it just doesn’t work out.  Maybe your ex is being stubborn about the division of your property, or maybe there’s a child custody issue.  So if you are headed to court, what can you expect the judge to be like? In Minnesota, there are ten judicial districts.  Your case will go to a family court judge for the judicial district in which you live.  A district can comprise anywhere from 1 to …

Filed Under: Basic Divorce Questions

Government Pension And Divorce

March 11, 2014 By Leave a Comment
divorced pensioner

Parting Before Death or Taxes: Dividing Government Retirement Benefits in a Minnesota Divorce When people think of dividing up property in a divorce, it’s usually bank accounts, furniture and houses that come to mind.  One type of property that it’s easy to overlook in preparing for divorce is retirement benefits. While there are a vast array of retirement benefits out there, in this post we’re specifically considering government retirement/pension benefits.  Even this subcategory comes in a number of different flavors that befits what can, at times, be a vast array of bureaucracy. Remember this is the government after all! For …

Filed Under: Retirement Assets And Divorce

Can Grandparents Get Custody?

March 4, 2014 By 1 Comment
Grandparents Rights

Grandparent Rights In Minnesota One of my most popular topics is grandparent visitation (which can be read here).  Let me start by saying the quick answer to that question is: it’s hard. Grandparent Custody Under the law a grandparent in Minnesota can get custody but it’s hard, and it’s supposed to be hard.  Grandparents are not viewed the same as a parent they can’t step in and say the child would be better off with them than mom and dad.  Instead, the grandparent must prove that the parents aren’t fit to be parents.  This can be for a variety of …

Filed Under: Grandparent Rights

Is Facebook Causing Divorces?

February 24, 2014 By 1 Comment
Facebook and Divorce

Facebook and Divorce In addition to its effect on many other parts of our daily lives, Facebook now appears to be taking over even our divorces.  Over 30 percent of divorce pleadings now contain the word “Facebook.”  What’s going on here?  Are we so attached to Facebook that we can’t imagine completing a task without it?  (I recently saw an online legal question-and-answer session in which a woman asked whether she could serve her husband with divorce papers via Facebook.  The answer, should you be wondering, is no.)  Or, is our increased use of social media somehow causing divorce? This …

Filed Under: Basic Divorce Questions, Child Custody

Holidy Custody Battles

January 24, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Picture of Happily Divorced family

Keeping the Peace: Holiday Custody Battles 101 A child custody proceeding can be a lengthy affair even when the parties involved are relatively amicable towards each other.  When they’re not so amicable, “lengthy” can quickly extend to a “War and Peace” level.  And it’s not just the official legal proceedings that can drag on and on; once the court orders are made, there’s still the process of getting both you and your ex to go along with the new custody and visitation routine that has been decided on. This routine often goes in for an extra layer of contention around …

Filed Under: General

Same-Sex Marriage Support Gets a Hat Trick: Laws found unconstitutional in Ohio, Utah, and New Mexico

January 15, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Who Keeps The Rock?

Same-Sex Marriage Support Gets a Hat Trick: Laws found unconstitutional in Ohio, Utah, and New Mexico It was a good week in the courts for supporters of same-sex marriage rights. Over a span of four days, not one but three different courts came down with favorable decisions towards same-sex marriage. Each of the decisions arose from slightly different reasoning, but taken together, they suggest a pretty clear trend for future litigation over same-sex marriage laws. First up, on December 19, was the New Mexico state Supreme Court. The case at issue there was about whether the state’s statutory scheme denying …

Filed Under: Current Divorce Events Tagged With: ,

Getting Married In Jail?

December 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment
minnesota bride and groom

It’s your right to get married…even if you’re in jail This could also be called Five Brides Go To Court.  No, it’s not a budget summer movie of dubious quality, it’s a real lawsuit from Missouri.  Missouri (like a lot of states) had a law which required that each applicant for a marriage license sign the application in the presence of the recorder of deeds or their deputy.  That sounds fine, right?  The problem is, it means that one of the license applicants can’t be in prison, since they wouldn’t be able to sign in front of the recorder (County Recorders …

Filed Under: Current Divorce Events Tagged With: , ,
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