Posted on April 30,2020 in Divorce

The Baby Boomer generation has never been one to follow tradition and maintain the status quo. In past generations, it was often said that the longer your marriage lasted, the less likely you were to get a divorce. Today, things are quite different. A large number of older couples are choosing to divorce later in life, and the divorce rate of those 50 and older has doubled over just the past two decades. For those 60 and older, the divorce rate has tripled. This trend makes sense, however. Many older couples today find themselves with grown children out of the house and realize they are no longer happy in their marriage. It is never too late to take a step towards happiness. Gray divorces, however, do have their unique challenges, and baby boomers themselves are not the only group impacted. The millennial children of the baby boomer generation, most of them now adults, are also impacted by their parents decision to divorce. Changing family dynamics can be difficult for everyone involved, including adult children.

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 Posted on April 24,2020 in Child Support

If you are a single parent entitled to child support, you have probably come to rely heavily on these funds. Whether it is child care, groceries, educational or extracurricular activities, or other costs, raising a child is expensive. When a parent does not receive his or her child support, it can be hard to make ends meet. Furthermore, child support orders are legally binding court orders. A parent cannot simply choose to stop payments. If a parent fails to meet his or her child support obligation, he or she can be charged with contempt of court and face other serious consequences.

Enforcing a Child Support Order

In order for a child support arrangement to be enforceable, it must be officially ordered by the court. If you and your child’s other parent had an informal child support arrangement, you will need to take the steps to establish a formal child support order. If the legal paternity of your child has not been established and you want to collect child support from your child’s father, you will need to establish paternity before you can collect child support.

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 Posted on April 17,2020 in Division of Assets

When a couple gets divorced, the terms of the divorce are largely dependent upon financial information. Illinois courts divide marital property according to equitable distribution, which means that each spouse is given a fair, but not always equal, portion of the marital estate based on their income, assets, employability, and other factors. Child support and spousal support payments are also based on the spouses’ income and assets. The more complex the spouses’ financial portfolios are, the more likely complications will arise during the divorce process.

Spouses who own complex assets are also more likely to attempt to hide assets or lie about finances in order to manipulate the divorce terms. If you are considering divorce and your financial situation is less than straightforward or you have concerns about hidden assets, a forensic accountant may be a valuable resource.

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 Posted on April 03,2020 in Paternity

Under Illinois law, the legal relationship between a child and his or her father is only presumed if the man was married to child’s mother at the time of, just prior to, or just after the child’s birth. According to the most recent available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, more than 40 percent of all births in the United States are to unmarried mothers. These numbers indicate that, on average, paternity cannot be presumed in about two out of five cases.

The most common method for establishing paternity when there is no existing presumption—or to rebut a presumption in certain cases—is by means of a voluntary acknowledgement of paternity (VAP) form. When both the mother and father complete the form properly, it creates a legal parent-child relationship between the man and his son or daughter. As such, completing the VAP form is an extremely serious matter, and one that should not be taken lightly.

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 Posted on March 26,2020 in Annulments

Life is full of unexpected turns of events. Sometimes, an individual gets married but quickly realizes that the marriage was a mistake. If you have found yourself in a situation like this, you may be wondering what your options are for ending the marriage. You may have heard about annulments, but you might not know exactly how a person gets his or her marriage annulled. In Illinois, annulments are only granted under certain circumstances. If you do not qualify to have your marriage annulled, divorce may be your only option for ending your marriage.

Difference Between Annulment and Divorce

While a divorce legally terminates a marriage, an annulment rescinds a marriage. An annulment, called a “Declaration of Invalidity of Marriage” in Illinois, makes it as if the couple was never married. If you receive a judgment of invalidity it is if your marriage never took place in the eyes of the law. Typically, judgments of invalidity are retroactive, meaning the judgment is effective on the marriage date. When a marriage is considered retroactively invalid, the court making the determination of invalidity will not have the authority to divide the spouses’ property or make determinations about child custody or child support. Instead, separate proceedings will need to be initiated to manage such concerns.

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 Posted on March 20,2020 in Division of Assets

If you and your spouse are headed for divorce, you know that you will be expected to divide your marital property between the two of you. While you may not know for sure how that will play out, you may already be thinking about who—if either of you—will keep the marital home, who will get which car, and how to split the household furniture. In the stress and confusion of the divorce process, however, you may be forgetting about a very important—and possibly very valuable—asset of which you may be entitled a portion. Experts say that retirement accounts are the most commonly overlooked assets in a divorce case.

Retirement Savings and Plans

Before marital property can be divided, both you and your spouse should provide one another with a full accounting of all of your assets and debts, even if you think he or she already knows about them. In some cases, this may require a few calls to old employers inquiring about the status of employer-funded retirement programs or plans. You may realize that you have forgotten about a 401(k) plan or similar account that was opened years ago. The same may be true for your spouse, and the money in such accounts, depending on when the accounts were funded, may be considered part of the marital estate.

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 Posted on March 13,2020 in Paternity

If a woman in Illinois who is married to a man has a child, her husband is automatically presumed to be the child’s biological father. The father will not need to take additional action to establish himself as the child’s legal parent. When unmarried parents have a child together, the father is not automatically considered the legal father until he takes certain steps. Many people falsely assume that a father can gain legal parentage of a child by simply writing his name on the child’s birth certificate. However, before a father can be listed on a child’s birth certificate, he must establish paternity. Depending on the circumstances, DNA testing may be necessary to establish the biological relationship between a child and the child’s presumed father.

Establishing Legal Parentage of a Child

There are three ways that an Illinois parent can establish paternity. If both parents agree that the father is indeed the child’s biological father, the parents can sign a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity (VAP) and file it with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HSF). The VAP form is typically available at the hospital when the baby is born, or it may be obtained through the HSF website, local child support office, County Clerk’s Office, or local Registrar’s office.

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 Posted on March 05,2020 in Spousal Maintenance

If you are receiving spousal maintenance, you probably know—or, at least, assume—that your former spouse’s financial obligations to you will end in that event you ever get remarried. It only makes sense. When you get remarried, you become financially interdependent with your new spouse, all but making your ex all but irrelevant—children’s needs notwithstanding. Depending on your situation and your desires, however, you may be inclined to shy away from marriage for a time after your divorce, as your last formal commitment may have soured you a bit on the institution. As an alternative to getting married, you may decide to move in with your new partner, but you should know that, in most cases, cohabitation is grounds for ending spousal maintenance as well.

Growing Trend

Evolving social mores and more liberal views on interpersonal relationships have led to an increasing number of unmarried couples living together. Many choose the arrangement as a precursor to marriage, while others are content to remain cohabiting indefinitely. While sociologists and religious authorities continue to debate the morality of cohabitation, legal systems around the country have been forced to contend with the changing concepts of household and family.

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 Posted on February 27,2020 in Mediation and Collaborative Law

As form of dispute resolution that is available in virtually every type of civil proceeding, mediation typically allows competing parties the opportunity to hammer out an agreement that reasonably meets the needs of everyone involved. This holds true in a large number of arenas, including personal injury concerns, business disputes, and, of course, divorce and family law. Perhaps the biggest advantage to seeking mediation in your divorce or child-related matter your ability to be clearly heard throughout the process, a luxury not necessarily afforded in many court-handled cases.

Strict Legal Guidelines

While the statutes regarding divorce and family law are constantly being updated to allow for more individual consideration, the fact of the matter is that a court can only do so much. A presiding judge is expected to take into account an ever-growing list of circumstantial considerations, which may include those related to each spouse and the children involved. To truly appreciate a family’s situation, a judge would need to review the case for hours and hours, discussing intimate details with each party, and doing so is clearly not a realistic expectation. Thus, court decisions are often based on a very limited understanding of the facts, and only those that each party remembers to include in presented documents.

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 Posted on February 21,2020 in Child Custody

Divorcing and unmarried parents sometimes have disagreements about the allocation of parental responsibilities and parenting time. When these disagreements require court intervention, an Illinois family court judge may appoint an attorney called a guardian ad litem who is tasked with representing the child’s interests. A parent involved in a child custody dispute may also request a guardian ad litem (GAL) to appointed during a child-related legal dispute.

Guardian ad Litem Investigations

GALs are often appointed in family law cases involving especially contentious child-related disputes or allegations of domestic violence. Because children cannot adequately advocate for their own best interests in court, a guardian ad litem advocates on the child’s behalf. The GAL will typically conduct an investigation in order to learn more about the circumstances of the dispute so that he or she can offer an informed recommendation to the court. This can include investigating the parents’ homes and everyday lives as well as investigation of other individuals important to the case. The GAL may also interview school officials or other people involved in the child’s life. He or she may review court documents, financial statements, the child’s school reports, and other relevant documents.

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