Posted on November 24, 2018 in Firm News

If you and your spouse are in the middle of a child custody dispute in San Antonio, it helps if you know what issues could come up. The courts weigh many factors to determine which child custody/parenting/visitation arrangement is in the best interests of your kids. Though you may feel your feelings and personal preferences should be included, in times of divorce, your children’s needs and interests take precedence.

The goal of child custody is to keep parents involved in their kids’ lives without putting children at risk or causing them to suffer from the dissolution of marriage. To achieve this, the judge uses the facts and his or her discretion to determine which custody arrangement is ideal. Here are a few issues that can affect the outcome of a child custody dispute.

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 Posted on November 22, 2018 in Family Law

A Harris County judge sanctioned Child Protective Services (CPS) for actions that deeply disrupted a Texas family’s life and ripped two small children from their loving parents’ home. The judge awarded the family $127,000 plus legal fees for what they’d suffered. He also ordered CPS to retrain its workers.

The saga started when a five-month-old infant fell from a lawn chair and struck his head on the cement. Although his mother immediately sought appropriate medical care for him, doctors spotted a second injury that the mother couldn’t explain. As required by law, they contacted CPS.

Since the baby’s injuries were “consistent with child abuse,” according to the CPS team, both the infant and his two-year-old sister were removed from their home and placed with family members.

It wasn’t long, however, before doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital discovered the real reason for the infant’s wounds: a blood clotting disorder that had been previously undetected.

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 Posted on November 15, 2018 in Child Custody

So-called “birdnesting” is being touted as a new — and much improved — way of co-parenting after a divorce. Before you try it, however, make sure you realize what you’re doing.

The way it works is that the kids stay in the family home while the divorced or divorcing parents rotate in and out. Whenever it isn’t your turn in the family home with the kids, you stay somewhere else. In most cases, the parents get an apartment for this purpose.

The goal is to minimize the disruptions that children face from divorce. This type of parenting agreement accomplishes that by putting all of the stress of adjusting to weekly changes in living quarters on the adults.

In practice, birdnesting can be very difficult to keep going for long — even for the kids. Experts say that this style of living tends to work best when the concept of divorce is still new to the kids. Seeing their parents rotate in and out of the family home allows them a transition period where they can adjust to the idea that their parents are no longer a team.

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 Posted on November 08, 2018 in Divorce

The new year is going to bring new tax laws — and that’s likely to make divorce a lot more expensive for some high-earners.

In particular, the changes in the tax code taking place in 2019 affect the way that spousal support is treated for taxation. Under the current law the person paying the alimony is able to deduct it from their taxes. Since that person is typically a high earner with income that vastly exceeded that of their ex-spouse, the deduction is often enough to lower the taxpayer’s overall tax rate. That has often encouraged high earners to be somewhat generous with their alimony agreements.

Under the new law, spousal support is no longer deductible. It has to come out of a payer’s net income rather than the gross. For the roughly 600,000 people already claiming the deduction, the law won’t change how they are required to handle their taxes. They’re given an exception since their support agreements were in place prior to the law’s change.

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 Posted on November 02, 2018 in Child Custody

If you’re in a battle for the custody of your child, it’s perfectly understandable if you’re feeling pretty emotional. Unfortunately, you can’t afford to let your emotions dictate your actions because that could be fatal to your case.

Here are several rules you need to follow that are designed to keep your emotions in check and your custody case on track:

1. Don’t focus on your relationship with your ex

No matter how clearly you see the connection between your ex’s failings as a spouse and your ex’s failings as a parent, keep it to yourself. Otherwise, you’ll sound bitter and vindictive — and you don’t want the judge to think that your custody battle is just an attempt to punish your ex’s bad behavior.

Focus only on your ex’s inability to be a good parent and leave your relationship out of it.

2. Don’t give your ex any warning about your strategy

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 Posted on October 25, 2018 in Family Law

If Child Protective Services (CPS) in Texas ends up at your door on a tip from a relative or neighbor saying that your children are abused or neglected, what are the odds that CPS will remove your children from your home?

It turns out that the answer isn’t the same for everyone. The answer may depend largely on where you live — and the color of your skin.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services issued a report that shows a sharp divergence between the way that families of color and white families are treated by the system. Throughout the state, it’s far more probable that African-American and Latino families will be reported for suspected abuse or neglect than Anglo families in the first place. Once CPS becomes involved in a case, nonwhite parents are also far more likely to see their children pulled into foster care than Anglo parents — even when there is substantially less reason to be concerned.

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 Posted on October 22, 2018 in Firm News

Child custody matters following a divorce can put your nerves to the test. As a newly single parent, you want to do your best to help your child adjust to post-divorce life.

You must also work with the other parent, which can be challenging, especially if the divorce was less than amicable. Here are four tips to help you manage custody issues in the best interests of your child.

1. Explain the custody arrangement

To relieve feelings of anxiety, let your son or daughter know what to expect of the custody arrangement. Once the visitation schedule is in place, stick to it. For example, both you and the other parent should adhere to the agreed-upon drop-off and pick-up times. Do not be casual about it, and do not fail to show up when your child expects you to, because this could cause feelings of anxiety or fear.

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 Posted on October 19, 2018 in Family Law

It can be challenging to plan ahead for a child with special needs. One additional challenge faced by divorced parents of a special needs child is how to make sure that child support payments don’t impair the child’s eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.

Supplemental Security Income — and the Medicaid entitlement that goes along with it — is a needs-based governmental program for the disabled. As a minor, your disabled child may not be eligible for SSI and Medicaid while your marriage is intact due to the way that a portion of the parent’s income is “deemed” to the child. However, divorce often changes that situation. In many cases, the parent who takes custody of the disabled child is unable to work full time due to the child’s needs. With the other parent no longer in the household, that reduces the child’s deemed income considerably.

However, child support can become an issue. While the child is a minor, child support isn’t considered income paid to the custodial parent but income paid to the child. Supplemental Security Income will exclude one-third of the payment, but the rest is counted against the child’s eligibility for benefits. For a lot of parents and their disabled children, this is a huge burden since it can reduce or eliminate the child’s eligibility for important programs.

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 Posted on October 09, 2018 in Divorce

You’ve probably never heard of a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) — but it could become very important to understand more about QDROs if you’re getting divorced.

Divorce involves a lot of financial negotiations, particularly if there are a lot of assets involved. Here are some basics you need to know about QDROs to get started:

What is a QDRO?

Qualified domestic relations orders are legal documents that are presented to the court as part of a divorce settlement. They’re independent of the rest of a couple’s divorce paperwork. Once the court accepts a QDRO and signs off on it, that order allows the administrator of a pension fund or retirement plan to disburse part of that money to someone other than the plan’s official payee.

In other words, it’s the physical piece of paper that makes it possible for you to obtain any money out of your spouse’s retirement funds or pension.

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 Posted on October 05, 2018 in Family Law

In Texas, mediation is often a necessity before the court will agree to hear a divorce case. Naturally, you want to make the most out of your mediation time and increase your chances of walking away with a favorable agreement.

So, how do you do it?

Here are the basic questions you need to ask yourself before you get to the mediation table:

1. What do you need to do to control your reactions to your spouse?

You may have to struggle to let go of blame and focus only on the important issues that have to be decided. Be realistic about how you expect your spouse to behave and prepare yourself to react in a calm, controlled manner — even if your spouse goes off the rails. You’ll spend less time on an emotional roller coaster if you anticipate what’s likely to happen and just plan for it.

Keep in mind that you can take breaks whenever things get heated and even ask for private sessions with the mediator if that’s what it takes to keep everyone focused.

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