Custody & Visitation/Timesharing Modification

Even couples who agree to divorce amicably often need help resolving difficult financial and child custody issues. In collaborative divorce, each party is guided to an informed agreement by professionals experienced in the process. Having an advocate for the fair settlement of all issues can lead to a more satisfactory settlement to both parties and less emotional strife.

The mediator is a neutral while in a collaborative divorce each party as his/her own counsel whose role is to represent only his or her client. The collaboratively trained attorney provides legal advice to the parties, where the mediator cannot.

Collaborative divorce is often less expensive because the parties and their attorneys work in a productive, forward focused manner, which is not necessarily the case in an adversarial process. The emotional costs are lower as well.

Generally, yes. However, the collaborative attorney will assess with his or her client as to the appropriateness of the process.

If the parties terminate the process, they can choose another method of resolution. However, the collaborative attorneys cannot represent the client in a contested litigation.

Yes, and they often do. And if they can work things out to their clients' satisfaction, there is no need for a mediator.

No, the mediator must be unbiased and that is in conflict with a counsel's role as advocate. 

No. Separation begins whenever the husband and wife begin living separately, in two households (actual separation), or living separately in the same household (constructive separation), and at least one party has the intent that the separation will be permanent and will ultimately lead to divorce.

Yes, but you will be required to demonstrate, through information that you and your witness provide, that while you remained living in the home together, you: 

• Established and maintained intent to separate permanently or indefinitely.
• Have separate bedrooms.
• Have no romantic or sexual intimacy.
• Stop wearing wedding rings.
• Each shop for your own food, prepare own meals; neither shops for the other as to any categories of items (clothing other necessities, etc.)
• Do not use the other spouse's food or other purchases.
• Do not eat meals together (exception: holidays or children's birthdays).
• Are is responsible for caring for each of your own space within the home, such as bedroom.
• Each do your own laundry.
• Establish separate checking accounts.
• Cease socializing (e.g., do not attend parties, movies, theater, etc., together).
• Do not attend church together.
• Interact as parents (when there are minor children) only where strictly necessary from the children's perspective and their well-being; e.g., it would be acceptable for the parents to go together to a meeting with a school official relative to problems confronting a particular child, but less appropriate for the parents to ride together and sit together at a child's school play or soccer game.
• Cease gift-giving between spouses for such occasions as birthdays, Christmas, anniversary, Valentine's Day, etc.
• Make known to close associates, relatives, etc., that the parties are martially separated within the residence, though continuing to reside under the same roof.
• Have a third party come to the home from time to time to personally observe the two spouses' separate and distinct living quarters (bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.).
• Utilize separate entrances to residence, if feasible.
• Be prepared to explain reason(s) for effecting separation under same roof (e.g., financial considerations; unavailability of successor residence,; to ease children's transition to parental separation; etc.).

If you and your spouse are considering cohabitation during a legal separation or divorce, the above list will give you an idea of what "Separation Under the Same Roof" entails.

Yes, they are called deviation factors. They can include the costs of private school, tutors, and the like.

If the child or children are with one parent for 90 or more days, a different mathematical calculation is used. If there are two or more children and the children reside primarily in different households, a calculation to address that visitation/timesharing arrangement is used.

Because any amount of spousal support payable from one parent to the other is added to the receiver's income and deducted from the payor's income to determine the parties' incomes for the child support calculation.

No, because it is to paid to maintain the asset, not to provide support for a party.

If they used to earn more and now earn less due to decisions or actions they have taken, or they choose to be under employed, the court can treat them as having higher earnings.

If the person writing the check is supporting another child, a different calculation is used to keep some of that parent's income in their household for the benefit of the other child.

The court may decide to give one parent ultimate decision making authority after full consultation with the other parent, or a parent may be granted sole legal custody.

Technically speaking, at the age of majority, which is 18 in Virginia. Prior to that time, the court can decide that the child's preference should not be honored, if so voiced, because it is not in the child's best interests.

Marital property is any property acquired during the marriage or with marital assets.

Primarily property inherited by a party which is not gifted or co-mingled inextricably with marital property, and property acquired before marriage or anything derived from it. 

Often not. Parties are encouraged to agree on such matters. If they cannot, then they will make the best decision they can and, if an inequity has resulted from the acts of one or both parties, the issues will be addressed at the final hearing.

If it is after an agreement is entered, please see Contract Disputes in the Post Divorce section. If it is after a court has ruled based on the evidence presented at trial, you may have an avenue for the court to make a subsequent ruling, however, it will be largely based on the specific circumstances at hand.

Fully one out of every four people experiencing divorce in the United States is 50 or older, and nearly one in 10 is 65 or older, according to a report by Susan L. Brown and I-Fen Lin, sociologists at Bowling Green State University.

Pre-nups may be a particularly helpful tool for those remarrying after a grey divorce, as people at this stage in their lives may have more assets to protect, may already have retirement plans,  and may have adult children to consider. 

There isn't any, they all mean an amount payable from one spouse to the other so that the spouse in need can afford to live.

That is determined by the length of the marriage, your ability to financially meet your own needs and the ability of the opposing party to pay along with a host of other factors. If the court decides you should only need support for a limited amount of time, that is called Rehabilitative Spousal Support. If you are awarded support until death, remarriage or cohabitation, that is considered permanent support.

No. The law will generally allocate to you any property you owned before marriage if you do not mingle it to the point of non-recognition with marital property and the courts will divide marital property between the parties absent an agreement in the event of a divorce. A prenuptial agreement, however, removes the uncertainty of a judicial determination.

They are valid upon marriage, so the contract is never validated if there is no marriage.

If need be, you file a suit and ask the court to recognize the actions of the other party, and do equity by providing you with a monetary award and fees for having to come to court as a result of the party's failure to disclose.

Once the contract is incorporated into a court order, or a court ruling is made in to an order or decree, you can file a Rule to Show Cause and ask the court to enforce the order, as well as order the other person to pay your fees and costs as their actions necessitated the court's involvement.

Yes, they are called deviation factors. They can include the costs of private school, tutors, and the like.

If the child or children are with one parent for 90 or more days, a different mathematical calculation is used. If there are two or more children and the children reside primarily in different households, a calculation to address that visitation/timesharing arrangement is used.

Because any amount of spousal support payable from one parent to the other is added to the receiver's income and deducted from the payor's income to determine the parties' incomes for the child support calculation.

No, because it is to paid to maintain the asset, not to provide support for a party.

If they used to earn more and now earn less due to decisions or actions they have taken, or they choose to be under employed, the court can treat them as having higher earnings.

If the person writing the check is supporting another child, a different calculation is used to keep some of that parent's income in their household for the benefit of the other child. 

If it is an executed contract, and the contract is not ambiguous, it is not likely that you will be able to change it without agreement of the other party.

The plain meaning rule applies, but if that does not resolve the dispute among the parties, the court can step in and consider who drafted the contract and how the parties will be impacted by a reading of the contract in one way or another.

Changes involving the children themselves, such as their maturity, their special educational needs, and any of a myriad of changes that might exist as to them, positive changes in the circumstances of the non-custodial parent, such as remarriage and the creation of a stable home environment, increased ability to provide emotional and financial support for the children, and other such changes and/or negative changes in the primary physical custodian's home may all qualify as changes in circumstances that would cause the court to reconsider the existing timesharing arrangement.

Then you may want to file a motion for reconsideration or appeal the decision to a higher court, but you likely are not in a position to seek a modification based on a change in circumstance unless changes have also taken place since the initial determination.

The adoption eliminates the biological parent's obligation to provide support for the child, but it does not eliminate any existing child support arrearage.

The adoption does NOT eliminate the child's right to inherit from the biological parent.

Except in limited circumstances, the blood relatives and family members of the parent being divested of their parental rights, are also divested of their legal rights and obligations to the child, including right to petition the Court for visitation. 

Then it is highly unlikely we can meet with you.

Primarily they are to cooperate. If information or documents are needed from the client, the client must provide them. You may choose not to follow the advice of counsel, but as long as we are your counsel, we can not support actions or behaviors that impair the case. Deadlines with the court or those dictated by the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia, for example, must be met.

Primarily to speak for you and look out for your best interests and the best interests of the case. This means that we will communicate with the opposing counsel, any third parties such as guardians ad litem, experts and the court on your behalf. Another key responsibility is to educate the client as noted above.

• If so, how are they handling the separation of their parents?
• Do any of the children have special emotional, mental, physical or educational needs? Are those needs being met?
• Should any mental health professionals be involved in the case to aid the parents, the children, or the family as a whole?

Ms. Reese was an accountant before becoming a lawyer, and though it often comes in handy, the use of a good expert is often needed to address complex financial issues, or to get those many years of back taxes done.