Posted on April 30, 2019 in Divorce

Have you and your spouse agreed to a divorce? If you’re hoping to keep things friendly and get through the divorce as quickly as possible, an uncontested divorce may be exactly what you need.

How do you get an uncontested divorce?

Uncontested divorces aren’t right for every couple. In order to qualify for an uncontested divorce, both halves of a couple must:

• Agree to the divorce (usually due to irreconcilable differences or similar grounds) regardless of who files first
• Have no remaining disagreements regarding the division of the marital property
• Have no disagreements regarding spousal support or child support
• Have worked out an acceptable agreement regarding child custody and visitation (if there are any minor children involved)

Any “kink” in these agreements can make an uncontested divorce impossible, so it’s important to make sure that all the issues are ironed out before you head into court.

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 Posted on April 24, 2019 in Divorce

The decision to divorce is, arguably, a much harder decision than the one you made when you got married. When people decide to get married, they’re full of optimism and dreams of a future together. When they’re contemplating divorce, they tend to be keenly aware of what feels like “wasted time” and the loss of their dream life.

So, are you really ready for a divorce? Should you stay a little longer and give things one more try? Here are some questions you need to consider before you decide to divorce:

1. Do you find yourself unable to tolerate just about anything your spouse does?

For example, maybe your spouse was always a bit of a slob — and you tolerated the cascade of papers, shoes and abandoned coffee cups as just one of his quirks. Now, however, you find yourself furious at every dropped towel or forgotten pair of socks.

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 Posted on April 22, 2019 in Firm News

As the breadwinner of your family, divorce is particularly complicated, both legally and financially. You may be on the hook for paying child support. Divorce is expensive and complex in general, but with the addition of monthly payments, it can be overwhelming.

There are plenty of misconceptions about child support. The emotions associated with divorce can also cloud your judgment. All of this may lead you to make costly mistakes. Here are some major child support errors to avoid during and after the divorce.

1. Being vengeful

While you may have anger towards your ex, seeking revenge and being nasty is counterproductive in virtually every aspect of a divorce, including child support. If you send furious messages to your ex, disparage her in person or talk badly about her to your children, you only hurt yourself. When your ex is able to paint you in a negative light, she may have more leverage in getting more money out of you. Be as cordial, decent and calm as possible.

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 Posted on April 11, 2019 in Child Custody

The family of a nine-year-old Houston boy is celebrating after the child was located by authorities in Florida. He has been missing since the end of 2017 — the victim of parental abduction.

According to authorities, the child’s father left Texas with the child, who was just seven at the time, without telling the boy’s mother.

After the abduction, the mother was granted sole custody. By early 2018, the child had been listed as a missing person “abducted by a non-custodial parent.”

Initially, authorities believed the father would go to Tallahassee, Florida, where he had once lived. Ultimately, the father and son were located through the efforts of Houston detectives in Sanford, Florida, which is about four hours away from Tallahassee. The detectives notified the police in that state. The authorities there were able to locate the boy and his father the next morning at Fort Mellon Park.

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 Posted on April 03, 2019 in Divorce

The state of your family prior to your divorce can have a major difference in your children’s academic prospects after that divorce — but the result of a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) say that the effect may be counterintuitive to what most people think.

What’s the state of your home life prior to the divorce?

That seems to be the most critical factor when it comes to how well children do academically once their parents divorce. Frankly, in households where there’s a lot of parental conflicts, money woes, abuse or other problems that seem to make divorce inevitable, children seem to handle the divorce better.

However, the same isn’t true of children from households where divorce seems to be “unexpected.” In other words, the children coming from households where there was plenty of money, the semblance of stability and little obvious conflict between the parents fared much worse academically than their peers. The children in the UCLA study who came from those backgrounds were 6 percent less likely to make it to high school graduation and 15 percent less likely to get through college.

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 Posted on March 27, 2019 in Family Law

Every so often, a client wants to know if there’s a way to involuntarily terminate the parental rights of their child’s other parent.

Terminating someone’s parental rights isn’t an easy proposition — it’s definitely nothing to be done lightly. However, there are times it’s the right thing to consider. Sometimes, a parent goes absent for years without showing any sign of support for the child. Sometimes, someone should just never have been a parent in the first place.

If you believe that having your child’s other parent remain in his or her life is actually harmful to him or her, here’s what you should know about your options.

Section 161.001 of the Texas Family Code outlines the situations where involuntary termination of a parent’s rights is possible. They include:

• Leaving the child with another nonparent and expressing the intention not to return for that child

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 Posted on March 27, 2019 in Firm News

As a resident of Texas who finds yourself involved in a child custody case, you will undoubtedly hear the term “the best interests of the child” referenced regularly throughout court proceedings. While, in some cases, it is relatively easy for courts to determine which parent or person seeking custody would provide a better environment for a child, in other situations, both people seeking custody may prove suitable guardians.

Therefore, the courts needed to come up with a way to make custody decisions that consider the best interests of the child, as opposed to the bad things two parents or potential guardians might have to say about one another. So, what exactly does a judge or court consider when trying to determine the best interests of a child?

“Best interests of the child” criteria

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 Posted on March 18, 2019 in Family Law

Texas is serious about a parent’s obligation to support their children. If you have any doubt about it, just take a look at some of the recent arrests that have been made for failure to pay support.

In what has been described as a “multi-agency operation” orchestrated by the combined efforts of the Longview Police Department, the Texas Attorney General Office and the Gregg County Sheriff, six major offenders who had skipped out on their child support payments were taken into custody.

The officers involved in the busts began serving simultaneous warrants on individuals at 4:00 a.m. on March 11. The authorities stress that this is the beginning of their efforts to round up “deadbeat” parents — so more arrests are likely to follow soon.

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 Posted on March 14, 2019 in Divorce

A lot of people have a hard time putting their finger on exactly what went wrong in their marriage — or when. Unless there was a shocking act of betrayal, infidelity or addiction, most marriages simply breakdown slowly until there just doesn’t seem a good reason to stay married any longer.

But, why? Well, researchers have found that there are essentially four behaviors that tend to drive marriages into a grave. Here they are in a nutshell:

1. Assigning blame

Another way to phrase this is, “jumping to conclusions.” For example, when you get home from work, and the house is a mess, and dinner isn’t ready, do you ask your spouse, “What happened? Is everything okay?” or do you automatically assume that your spouse got distracted by a book or a new Netflix series. Giving your spouse the benefit of the doubt is important. If it turns out that your spouse did lose track of time, acknowledge that it could happen to anyone and offer to help — rather than throwing all the responsibility for fixing the problem back on your spouse.

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 Posted on March 07, 2019 in Divorce

You and your spouse have decided to get a divorce — and it isn’t a cordial one. Your spouse abruptly abandons you, the marital home and the majority of the debts and doesn’t seem to care much about what’s happening to your credit.

What do you do now?

First, don’t rush out to file bankruptcy just yet. While it’s unpleasant to deal with a bunch of mounting debts and the increasingly anxious contacts from creditors, you need to worry about your own financial future just now — not your creditors.

If your spouse is willing to delay the divorce, it may be to your advantage to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy prior to your divorce. That will clear away a number of debts (if not all of them) and make the division of marital assets much easier once you do get around to divorce. Since a Chapter 7 bankruptcy typically is over in a matter of months, this could appeal to your spouse even if you aren’t on great terms.

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