The March 9, 2020 Wall Street Journal’s front page described marriage as a new form of “luxury good.” According to the Journal since 1980 the middle 40% of U.S. workers have seen the sharpest decline in the number of people who are married. These are households reporting income ranging from $25,000 to $125,000 per annum.
Family Law
FINANCIAL INFIDELITY: CHAPTER 2
As I started this, it occurred to me that I had been to this topic before. Last April 19 I reported on a story published by PBS about spouses who accumulate debt in secret and then want to “share” the debt when the marriage collapses. The February 2020 issue of The Magazine of the American…
LIFE IN THE WORLD OF FAFSA: Advice on the College Loan Application Process for Parents in Divorce.
In the divorce business, there are few alleys as dark as of the college financial aid. We are commonly asked how separation and divorce may affect eligibility for student aid and loans. The October 21, 2019 Wall Street Journal sheds some light on this murky subject and is worth a full read. But, the main…
DIVORCE AND COLLEGE: Can They Be Reconciled?
Whenever I start these kinds of articles, I stop to ask, “Is this subject really relevant to the process of divorce?” Separation and divorce are realities of modern day life. Education of the children who come into this world through marriage is not just a major expense. For any caring parent, it is also a…
PARENTAL ALIENATION; DOES IT EXIST? CAN IT BE REPAIRED?
The Center for Investigative Reporting at National Public Radio (NPR) published a report on March 9, 2019 about the longstanding controversy over parental alienation. The broadcast includes recordings of actual testimony from a New Jersey child custody proceeding where a father suggested that the mother’s relationship with the children was “toxic.” Parental alienation is a…
Third Party Custody Standing: More from the Supremes
Two years ago the Pennsylvania Supreme Court weighed in on the matter of how third party standing was consistent with the fundamental right of parents to raise their children. That case moved the ball in a new direction as we had seen a trend favoring third party involvement in child custody litigation where “interest”…
Navigating the Prenuptial Agreement: A Young Person’s Guide & Questions Worth Asking
This was a summer where prenuptials arrived in profusion, and what made it interesting is that just about all of them involved folks who were either beginning or in the middle of their earning careers. Most prenuptials involve couples who already have kids from former marriages and money they want to preserve for those kids.…
Don’t Assume Your Instagram is Private
In February 2018 we wrote about a recent New York appellate case making clear that those who post information about themselves on Facebook are going to have a difficult time asserting that the posting is private and not subject to scrutiny in subsequent judicial proceedings. This is especially true where the content of the posting…