Pennsylvania Family Law : Pennsylvania Divorce Lawyer & Attorney : PA Family Law Blog : Fox Rothschild Law Firm : Family Law Serving Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Bucks County, Montgomery County, Chester County

In this most recent U.S. Supreme Court term, the Court has heard two cases involving the domestic relations of a state.  In addition to the arguments on same sex marriage, on April 16th, the Court also heard argument on the adoption of a three-year girl.  The law at issue is the Indian Child Welfare Act. 

The Act, passed in the 1970’s gives Indian tribes exclusive jurisdiction over any child custody proceeding involving a Native American child who resided or was domiciled on Native American land.  The Act was passed to address the removal of Native American children by public and private adoption agencies and it places priority on allowing the child to grow up in the traditions of their culture by allowing the tribe and the child’s relatives a say in the placement of the child.  What is unusual about this Act compared to most state’s custody laws is that is significantly broadens the class of individuals that have standing to raise issues about the adoption.  Most states limit standing to the biological parents and, under some laws, the grandparents of the child.

The Indian Child Welfare Act, in this instance, was applied to overturn the adoption of a girl by a South Carolina couple.  The girl, now three years old, was returned to her biological father in Oklahoma, a member of the Cherokee Nation, after he sought to overturn the adoption based on the natural mother’s failure to obtain his consent.  The case made its way through the entirety of the South Carolina legal system and sided with the natural father on the basis of the Act, despite identifying the adopting parents as “ideal parents” – small comfort to them, no doubt.

The adoptive couple’s appeal is based on two questions:

(1) Whether a non-custodial parent can invoke ICWA to block an adoption voluntarily and lawfully initiated by a non-Indian parent under state law, and;

(2) Whether ICWA defines "parent" in 25 U.S.C. § 1903(9) to include an unwed biological father who has not complied with state law rules to attain legal status as a parent.

The second question is interesting due to the case law in various states as to whether or not unwed biological fathers have the same decree of protections as mothers.  In Pennsylvania, any adoption requires the voluntary or involuntary termination of both biological parents’ rights, and both parents are protected under Pennsylvania’s child custody law; marital status is irrelevant and updates to the custody statute made it (parental) gender neutral.  This does not presume that complications can occur in instances where paternity is not established, but generally, adoptions in Pennsylvania require notice of an attempt to terminate parental rights and afford the biological parents the opportunity to contest the termination.

The Supreme Court’s decision in this case may result in the clarifications to existing law as to the definition of “parent” under the Act and the extend of the scope the Act has for addressing the adoption of Native American children where the proceeding otherwise satisfied prevailing state law.  The Act, as a Federal statute, would preempt the laws of the states where the adoption occurred so ultimately the Supreme Court will render a decision fairly narrow in scope as to whether the Act applies to this adoption and, if so, the overturn of the South Carolina adoption would be upheld.

It is worth remembering that nuanced, debated legal issues impact the actual lives of people.  The parents that raised this child from infancy until she was three were abruptly taken from this child’s life; the father of the child may never have known the mother put his daughter up for adoption and is now trying to forge a relationship with the child.  Whatever the Court’s decision, one side will be bitterly disappointed and likely never to see this child again.  

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

(Image by Bettman/CORBIS) - Lunch at 800 feet only seems normal if you are used to it.

I recently took a phone call from an individual who wanted to learn about the laws related to the emancipation of a minor.  This person would not identify herself, but described herself as a “case worker” who was calling for a family friend who wished to remain anonymous: a fifteen year old girl who wanted to become emancipated from her parents due to what she described to the case worker as abusive conditions. 

My immediate response was to ask whether the police or Children and Youth Services had been called.  The caller did not know, but did not think so.  Since the caller was a “case worker” who described working with pregnant teens and “at risk” kids, my next question was simple: if there is abuse, don’t you have a duty to report the case to CYS and the police?

Pennsylvania’s laws for mandatory reporting can be found under 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 6311, which is the statute controlling Child Protective Services.  Section 6211(a) broadly states that anyone who comes in contact with children “in the course of their employment, occupation or practice of a profession shall report or cause a report to be made…when the person has reasonable cause to suspect…that the child under the care, supervision, guidance or training of that person is a victim of child abuse.” 

This section identifies the basic procedure for mandatory reporters to bring allegations of abuse to the attention of Child Protective Services.  Not surprisingly, this section of Pennsylvania’s code received quite a lot of attention in the midst of the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal and criminal case.    

The caseworker’s response to my question was slow and contemplative: “Yeah. I guess I do have an obligation to report.”  This was clearly the first time she had put her friend’s situation into the context of her profession.  When it comes to deeply personal issues such as abuse, divorce, or addiction, the personal and professional line can be easily blurred and it made me wonder whether she “missed” connecting her friend's personal experience with her job's duties was due to the context of how it was presented.  Had this situation been presented to her at an intake session with a teen, the case worker would have likely seen the abuse and notified the authorities.  When the facts were taken out of that context and she was addressing them as a friend with personal knowledge of all the people involved, her judgment clouded and her professional instincts were not triggered.

Most any job eventually desensitizes a person to the unusual circumstances of their profession.  What is strange and fascinating to one person is the job description someone else finds routine.  Someone free climbs a tower at 1,700 feet to change a light bulb; the Louisville basketball player who suffered the terrible broken leg last week was a shocking sight, but I bet that was not the first – or worst – open fracture of a leg his orthopedic surgeon has seen in his career.  A client’s divorce will always be the worst one they can experience, but often the attorney has had to deal with even more difficult facts.

In this instance, the social worker who deals with kids in broken homes, addiction, teen pregnancy and bullying may not view her abused friend as being someone to whom she has a duty to report this to the authorities.  She tried to be a friend, instead, and called an attorney.  This is not an excuse for the case worker, but it could indicate a loss of perspective of what is normal and where her duty to report begins and ends under Pennsylvania law.

My call with the case worker was short; perhaps no more than a minute.  I would like to think she hung up with me and immediately called CYS; possibly the police department.  Hopefully not another attorney to ask about Pennsylvania’s emancipation laws.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

(Photo by Indi Samarajiva)

The Pennsylvania Support Rules were recently amended on December 30, 2012.  Rule 1910.29, formalizes the presentation of support evidence for Family Law Cases.  Anecdotally, the Rules of Evidence may not always be strictly adhered to in family law cases due to probative value of some forms of evidence weighed against the cost and difficulty of verifying it or authenticating it at trial. 

Rule 1910.29 attempts to eliminate some of ambiguity about the admissibility of some forms of evidence by providing counsel the opportunity to offer the other side copies of those documents they will be offering into evidence twenty (20) days prior to the hearing.  In doing so, provided the other party does not object to the admission of those documents into evidence, they will be accepted as authentic and admitted into the record.  If an objection is made to the records, then the Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence will apply as to the admissibility of those documents into evidence.

This rule also standardizes the admission of medical evidence in both record and non-record proceedings, (i.e. proceedings which are not recorded by a court reporter).  Whenever a party raises a medical issue as preventing them from earning income, that party will need to obtain a Physician Verification Form and have their physician fill it out and verify its contents as accurate.  This Physician Verification Form will hopefully eliminate some of the ambiguity for those parties who claim a disability, but conveniently have failed to file for Social Security Disability or worker’s compensation benefits. 

If the party who has introduced the Physician Verification Form at the non-record hearing would like to have it entered into the record at the record hearing, then the above rules will apply with giving the other party twenty (20) days notice prior to the hearing and allow the other side the opportunity to file and serve an objection within ten (10) of being served with the document. 

By filing an objection, it is likely that the physician will need to testify since there will not be any medical evidence available for the record and if the court deems that the objection to the entry of the Physician Verification Form was frivolous or unnecessary then it is within the court’s discretion under this rule to allocate the costs of the physician’s testimony between the parties.  This portion of the rule is a not-so-subtle suggestion to attorneys to keep their objections substantive and not use objections as means of delay or obstructing the other side’s case.

This rule update is a significant change in how evidence is admitted in support actions.  This should help streamline litigants’ ability to offer complicated financial evidence and have objections and questions addressed in advance of the trial, rather than bogging down or delaying the substantive hearing by what amounts to a discovery dispute. 

This rule can also have the positive effect of keeping some litigation costs down by allowing a party to produce a non-expert summary and have it pre-approved for admission into evidence, thereby alleviating the need to bring an accountant or other financial expert to court in order to testify as to the information. 

Finally, Pennsylvania Family Law procedure varies from county to county and is reliant upon local practice when dealing with a variety of different issues.  This rule update gives some state-wide uniformity to this form of evidence.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Darcy Williams of our Chester County office recently provided an entry to our firm's Berks County legal blog by discussing how the Court of Common Pleas dealt with a support modification which was filed less than twenty days after an agreed order went into effect.  Citing the Pennsylvania Support Code with respect to filing modifications based on changes in circumstance, the Court dismissed the petitioning mother's claim that a mutual mistake occurred when the parties reached an agreement on the amount of support to be paid in this case.  The Court noted that the Mother's remedy was to file an appeal within twenty-days of the Order, not file to modify since no change in circumstance had occurred.

It is an interesting example of procedural nuance and code interpretation and offered in its entirety below:

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

In July of this year USA Today published an article by Kim Painter, highlighting a report published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which identified psychological “maltreatment” as being just as harmful as other types of abuse.  “Maltreatment” or “Abuse” is more easily recognized as being physical or sexual in nature, however, the American Academy of Pediatrics has found that psychological abuse is linked to such difficulties as mental illness, delinquency, aggression, school troubles and life long relationship problems among those who were abused.  The Academy recognized the difficulty in identifying abuse, but defined it as “when an interaction between a parent and child inflicts harm and causes difficulty with the child’s emotional well being and development.”

Emotional abuse is an allegation occasionally heard in the context of custody cases.  As the American Academy of Pediatrics points out, it can be difficult to identify, particularly by parents, attorneys, and the Court who may not be trained to interpret and evaluate whether emotional abuse is occurring.  Nonetheless, such allegations should be treated seriously and may be identified through a custody evaluation. 

Depending upon the County in which you reside, custody evaluations may be required or they may require the permission of the Court to occur.  The facts of the case will dictate whether an evaluation or some type of counseling is necessary for the child.  Notwithstanding an abusive situation, it is fair to say that a child going through divorce may benefit from counseling in some way.

Emotional abuse can be extremely damaging to a child and, as demonstrated by the American Academy of Pediatrics, lead to life-long problems for its victims.  The hope is that by focusing on this form of abuse, that awareness may be raised and at-risk children identified earlier and appropriate caregivers and professionals can intercede on the child’s behalf.

Montgomery County is fortunate to have MCAP ("Montgomery County Child Advocacy Project") to provide legal representation and protection to abused children.  You can learn more about MCAP and what you can do to help their mission at http://www.mcapkids.org/.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The allocation of child tax dependency exemptions is a topic of discussion among our clients on a frequent basis. While the guidelines issued by the I.R.S. dictate who is eligible to claim the children, in Pennsylvania the issue may be raised in the context of child support under Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1910.16-2(f). The stated purpose of this rule is to "maximize the total income available to the parties and children" and, therefore, the Court has the authority to award the exemption to either party and, when awarding it to the non-custodial parent (i.e. the party who may not be eligible to claim the exemption under the I.R.S. guidelines), order the custodial party to execute the I.R.S. waiver allowing the other parent to claim the exemption.

Leslie Spoltore, a partner in our Wilmington, Delaware office, recently wrote about a Delaware Family Court case which deals with the allocation of the exemption and articulates a much more specific set of criteria for deciding which party should be awarded the exemptions. It is a worthwhile read and gives some insight into a different way to deal with this issue in a family law case.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Along with the recent revision to the standing provision of Rule 1910.3, the Pennsylvania legislation also made revisions to Rule 1910.19, which addresses the relatively rare, but frustrating issue of support overpayments.

Addressing overpayments related to child or spousal support can be frustrating for the party paying support (the “payor” or “obligor”) because of the disparity in attitude toward overpayments compared to people who do not pay their support on time or at all. For instance, if they were to owe support (be in “arrears”), their tax return would get intercepted, they couldn’t buy or sell a house without satisfying the debt, or they may have other enforcement remedies taken against them.

The policy of the Domestic Relations Office (“DRO”) for overpayments, however, is that it is preferable to carry an overpayment until the support obligation ends. This is policy is reasonable and logical, but it does raise two questions for the payor:

1)         How do I stop the order from charging; and

2)         How do I get the overpayment returned.

The first question received some minor tweaking to Rule 1910.19 which went into effect October 31, 2011. DRO will make an emancipation inquiry within 6 months of the date the child is to turn 18 years of age. If the notice is not returned to DRO within a six (6) month time frame and there is overpayment on the books then DRO shall administratively terminate the child support order on the perspective date of emancipation (18 years of age and graduated from High School).

Now that the Order has been stopped, the next question is to figure out to have the overpayment returned to the payor. Rule 1910(g)(1) and (g)(2) now allow a procedure to accomplish just that:

Section (g)(1) allows that when a charging order is in effect, DRO will reduce the Order by 20% until the overpayment is discharged. The payee can contest this reduction and request a hearing;

Section (g)(2) provides that if there is no charging order in effect (for example, it has been terminated due to emancipation), the payor may petition DRO to recover the overpayment. DRO has, within their discretion, the authority to enter an Order against the payee to pay the overpayment on a monthly payment schedule – basically, a support order in reverse.

Overall, this is a step in the right direction for correcting a procedural conundrum for DRO. While the number of people who will utilize these rules may pale in comparison to those payors who fail to satisfy their support obligations, both payors and payees are entitled to equal opportunity in  addressing their claims.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

An important change to the Pennsylvania Support Code will go into effect very soon. Rule 1910.3 identifies those individuals who are allowed to bring child support actions and beginning November 1^st the Rule will be expanded to allow “any person who may owe a duty of support to a child or spouse” to initiate a custody action.

This language definitively establishes that either party may begin a support action and eliminates some of the ambiguity as to whether a support action must be filed the obligee (the person entitled to receive support). The way the Rule was written, it could be interpreted that any person who has custody – even partial custody – could initiate the support action regardless of whether they were to be the payor or the payee. This put the Domestic Relations Offices and Court in the position of having a party listed as Plaintiff, but whom is in reality should be the obligor. Payor’s filing to start support actions tended to cause administrative confusion for the Courts, so whether or not the action moved forward usually depended on whether the non-filing payee party was willing to let it move forward.

One would assume that any one owed support would file for it, but there could be strategic reasons for holding off on filing for support, especially if there was an alternative source of income for the obligee, or if the obligee was seeking to establish standing to file for support in a more advantageous support jurisdiction. The consequence was that a party who knows they will owe support could not effectively address the situation without the obligee taking the appropriate steps to file and schedule a support conference.

Thanks to this language revision and the addition of Subparagraph (b), any party can initiate the action and the trier of fact will be the one who decides who is the obligee and who is the obligor. As stated in the “Explanatory Comment” the new category recognizes that some people “may want to start paying spousal support or alimony pendente lite to the obligee as soon as possible to avoid the accumulation of retroactive arrears…”

This revised rule is, ultimately, a common sense shift to ensure that any one with a support entitlement or obligation has access to the courts and can have that obligation addressed without any delay or detriment to the child/ren or spouse subject to the Order.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

When it comes to enforcing child support orders, Pennsylvania’s Domestic Relations Offices rely on Rule 1910.20 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and its accompanying rules. These rules allow for the increasing of the arrears payments; seizing income such as tax refunds or settlement proceeds; imposing liens on real property; or even the suspension of the individual’s driver’s license.

In Pennsylvania’s system, failing to appear for a support contempt hearing will result in a bench warrant for one’s arrest. At that point, you are held until you appear before a judge and either volunteer to make a lump sum payment against the support arrears, or are ordered to make a payment and sit in jail until the payment is made.

Once the bench warrant is issued, the usual course of events is that the individual is pulled over for a minor traffic offense or some other reason and the law enforcement officer sees the warrant for his or her arrest, arrests them, and has them before a judge shortly thereafter. Sometimes the Sheriff’s office will send out a task force to serve the warrants and bring people in as part of a larger operation.

This brings me to the tactics of the Lee County, Alabama Sheriff’s Office and some interesting video. Lee County took the creative way of serving their warrants on delinquent parents by sending them letters informing them that they have won two tickets to this season’s Auburn versus Alabama football game. In football crazed Alabama, this game has universal appeal and not surprisingly some excited fans appeared to claim their “tickets.” Lee County kept up the sweepstakes winning fiction right up until the handcuffs were snapped on. 

I have not known of any Pennsylvania’s DRO office that has gone to these lengths to bring in delinquent payor, but Counties are definitely motivated to clear as much support arrears as possible from their books because certain types of state and federal funding can be affected by the amount of support arrears a County carries. Typically, DRO will generate and issue the support enforcement action without the payee ever having to file an enforcement petition with the Court. Though perhaps not as creative as Lee County’s Sherriff’s Department (and admittedly, less controversial), Pennsylvania’s DRO offices will use every tool afforded them under the Support Code.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

I frequently blog about custody issues. However, at the start of the new year, I thought it apt to blog about beginnings, especially beginning a family.

Many people want a child to raise and love. That desire transcends race, age, marital status and gender issues. Although the law is slow to follow societal changes, it eventually gets there. The areas of single or same-sex adoptions, as well as of scientific help to have a child are still areas in flux. So too is the law. Different states have different legal schemes. We will be guided by Pennsylvania’s in this blog. However, it is important to consult a lawyer in your state before starting legal proceedings.

Starting a family in the traditional way means having sexual relations between a man and a woman with the result of impregnating the woman. No marriage is required. Love is not a necessity. However, the child resulting from this physical relationship is the child of the man and woman—in the absence of any subsequent act to change the relationship. In Pennsylvania, parents have an obligation to support their child. It is unequivocal and is the child’s right. Therefore, no matter how loving or brief the coupling that produces the baby, both parents are required to support that child until the child turns 18 AND graduates from high school.

When the child is born, a form will be filled out ( in PA, a Registration of Live Birth) identifying the mother from which the child was just delivered. Usually the father is identified, but not always. With DNA testing, a father can be identified with great certainty—or ruled out with the same certainty. The hospital sends the form to the state department of vital records and a birth certificate is issued. The child’s parents are now legally identified. In the best of all worlds, mother father and child will be bonded and thrive. The parents will care for and raise the child and all will live happy lives. If the parents cannot raise the child, the child may be placed for adoption through an adoption agency or privately. Because so many infertile couples want to adopt a newborn, there are few available through agencies. Hence, more and more foreign adoptions occur.

 Frequently, once it is known in the community that a newborn will be available, there are many people wishing to adopt. In an “open adoption” the biological and the adoptive parents know each other’s identities. In a “closed adoption” the identities are kept secret and only the lawyers, the agencies and the Court have that information. Sometimes a Court Order is necessary to open sealed Court records, when certain information is needed in a closed adoption.

Different states have different laws, and different agencies have different guidelines about who is eligible to adopt. Sometimes a single parent is not favored; sometimes a same sex couple is not favored. Age, income, religion and ethnic background may all be mandated by private and/or public agencies.

At the end of what can sometimes be a very long process, an adoption takes place. This is a legal proceeding, in which a Judge terminates the biological parents’ rights and then, after inquiry, issues an adoption certificate. No adoption can take place until both parent’s rights are terminated—unless it is a step parent adoption. In some places these two proceedings are held at the same time. In others, there are 2 separate Court appearances. Once the adoption has been consummated, the certificate is sent to the state’s vital statistics office and a new birth certificate is issued. That new certificate looks exactly the same as if the child had been born in a hospital to the (adopting) parents! So too, the legal relationship is exactly the same as though this were the biological child of these parents. All obligations (support, etc) and rights (inheritance, etc) are the same. And the new family is born!

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

 Lawyers have not been well-regarded since the days before Shakespeare suggested that we should all be executed. The lament has been the same; we do too little, charge too much.  We foment dispute.  But, as much as the American public ranks lawyers right down there with Congressmen and carjackers when it comes to popularity, the short of it is that we have more lawyers than ever before and we are told that demand is projected to continue to increase in the years ahead.

Divorce lawyers reside in a special place in Lawyer Hell. The usual lament is that we break apart families and cause unnecessary conflict at enormous financial and human cost. This is not a defense of all lawyers. It is not a defense of divorce lawyers either. Even we can’t defend some of our kind. They trouble us too.

But the plain truth is that divorce is a soft center of doing business wrapped in a hard coating of pure emotion. Even making custody decisions is a form of doing business. There are relative merits of deciding how many days a month a child spends with each parent and where the child should go to school; whether after school time should be spent practicing football or flute. Intact families make these decisions every day; not always gracefully, but rarely with the need to call in the execrable “lawyers”. But once a couple separates, parents often tend to focus on their “rights” in contrast with their children's’ “interests”. A couple years ago, a judge dispatched my opposing counsel and me with an admonition that the conflict du jour had to be settled. That night was Father’s mid-week visit. He saw that night as inviolate because he cherished his time with his kids. Mother noted that the night in question was their son’s night to meet and greet a local minor league baseball team and warm up in a real stadium. Father said his schedule wouldn’t allow him to get to the game and therefore he wanted the children to be told to forget it. When we sat down with our clients, my first question was what each parent thought the children wanted most. We got the two conflicting answers; both wrong. Ask any judge what they get out of interviews with children in custody cases and they will tell you to a person: “I want the fighting to end.” With little kids the refrain is even more sad. They dream their parents will get back together. But they are even more frayed by parental conflict because little kids see themselves as the center of the world and they think they are responsible for everything that happens.

So, if you want to save yourself some money. Stop. Look. Listen. What are you really fighting about? Is there a way to compromise this? Perhaps one child goes to the baseball game with Mom.  The other child has a special night where she has all of her father’s attention. Perhaps a make-up night would solve the problem although make-ups are the kinds of things that are best confirmed in writing in advance as many parents have difficulty recalling that they owe the other parent a make-up. If there is no compromise; put your fanciest robe on and pretend you are the judge. If you had to decide; what would you do? Think about this as well. Suppose you were the former starting running back for Ohio State. You want your kid to enjoy what you had, so you justifiably sign him up to play football.  But alas, you married the sissy woman who abhors all forms of contact sport. Of course your son should play football.  But did it ever occur to you how much angst you are creating for your ex and, more importantly, for your kid when his mother spends weeks in terror that her child will be the one carried from the field and put into the ambulance. Does that make you wrong?  No, but thinking about how your kids are enmeshed in these conflicts and trying to help them through them is one of the healthiest things you can do to make their childhood special even after it has been marred by a separation.

Does this mean you should always turn the other cheek. Not really. We all know that parents do try to take advantage of each other and sometimes they must be held to account. But when you spend an afternoon watching two intelligent adults fight for three hours over who got the odd day in a 73 day summer vacation (and a noon day transition on the odd day was “out of the question”) you realize that clients can lose all sense of perspective. And when they do, kids are hurt; deeply. So save yourself some money by making certain that you pick your fights carefully and make certain that when you do fight, it is for the child’s interests and not so much for the vindication of your rights.

Now onto Lesson 2. There is lots of free advice out there. It used to just be from friends and family. But, now we have the internet. You can look up the law or you can log on and chat with 500 other people each of whom thinks their ex-spouse is screwing them. And you can have lunch with your neighbor, the patent lawyer who took Family Law 101 fifteen years ago when he was in law school. Or you can check in with your dry cleaner who just got divorced three years ago. Her lawyer made it so her husband only saw the children in leap years in months when there was five weekends and not four. How come your lawyer can’t get the same results?

These folks are well meaning. They want to feel part of a community and so do you. But seriously, what do they really know about your family, your ex, your kids and the current state of the judicial system that will decide your case if you can’t settle it? Even people in positions of some expertise often make mistakes. We just had a client contact us. Her former husband has been acting strangely. People who know them both have made comments to her that he has become erratic. She then learned that he was trying to order an assault rifle over the internet. When she contacted us she had already been in contact with local police. They told her she needed to sue her ex for Protection from Abuse. When we reviewed the facts, she certainly had a reason to be alarmed. But there had been no threat to her or the children, no stalking, no harassment or any of the other components required to make out a claim for Protection from Abuse. Of course, she challenged us. The police told her to file. But, in this instance the officer was not aware of the formal requirements of the law.

Free advice does come without a price. But you often get what you pay for. And time spent telling your lawyer the custodial arrangement your dry cleaner secured or how your poker partner got off from contributing to private school is time that you will pay for with very little result. If you think your attorney is inexperienced or if he/she is indifferent to your concerns, then spend a few bucks and get a real second opinion from another specialist in the field. Family law matters involve your children and your money; two things that people like to keep close. They merit getting expert help. But when you think you know more about the law than your lawyer, you are either poorly represented or deluded by misinformation or your own sense of entitlement. If it is the former, get another lawyer. If it is the latter, get a grip and realize that as evil as Shakespeare said we are, we are the ones who are going to walk with you through the jungle called divorce.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

There is nothing worse than being in a legal battle regarding who gets to see and care for your child(ren). Usually the battle is with the other parent, but sometimes it is with a grandparent or other family member, or a local child welfare agency. No matter who is involved, this case will make you scared, angry and sometimes feeling completely out of control. Your custody lawyer can help you only if he knows all there is to know about you, your children and the other people involved in the case. You can help him help you by giving him the following information:

Key people. The contact information for

                Child’s doctor, dentist and other medical providers

                Child’ teacher this year and past year(s)

                Child’s principal and school counselor

                Caregivers, i.e. babysitters, child care teachers

                All people living/frequently staying at any place child stays

                Concerned neighbors

                Child’s friends/ friends’ parents

                Supportive family members

Schedules

                When child is with you

                When child is with other parent

                When child is with other caregivers

                Telephone logs/calls to other parent

                School

                Camp

                Child care

                Doctor/dentist visits

Documents

                Medical records (3 years)

                School records (3 years)

                Calendar of all visits/calls you have with child

                E-mails, letters to and from other adults regarding custody, well-being of child

Litigation

Information and documents regarding this case and any other custody, divorce or abuse action involving you and/or the other people in this custody case.

In preparing for a custody case it is important that you keep a written record of all visits/communications you have with or about your child and with the other parent or party. Your lawyer and/or your doctor may recommend hiring a child psychologist to do one of the following:

                Treat you

                Treat your child

                Perform a custody evaluation

                Assist you and the other parent in learning how to co-parent

                Teach you about your child’s development and needs at all stages of the child’s growth.

The process is long and daunting. With effective communication between you and your lawyer and with focus on what is best for your child, you may be able to resolve the matter at hand.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Pursuant to 23 Pa.C.S.A. Section 4308.1, proceeds from a "monetary reward", such as a Personal Injury Award, are subject to a lien for child support arrears.  Parties and their attorneys have obligations under the section of the Domestic Relations Code.  Basically, documentation must be provided by the party to the attorney, and the attorney must verify the information and then satisfy the lien before distributing any funds to the client.

In lieu of relying on information from the client, the attorney may utilize an approved judgment search company or an insurer which furnishes information and transmits funds under the child support enforcement lien program operated through a central reporting agency approved by the department.  By doing so, the attorney is immune civil, criminal and/or administrative penalties.

There is much more to the statute section, but attorneys certainly should be aware of their obligations in this regard.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link