Does the court hearing your divorce case have full jurisdiction? When divorcing, if spouses cannot agree on a fair and equitable division of marital property, they rely on the court to decide who gets what. That seems like a full proof way of settling the argument, right? Well, yes and no. Simply put, courts have…
Dividing and Confirming – A Digestible Overview So you are getting divorced, and now the dreaded conversation of dividing up all that marital property – the house, land, retirement accounts, supposed separate property, etc. – is rearing its ugly head. Something has got to give, right? Which one of you is going to crack first?…
Suit for Grandparent Possession or Access – An everyday person unfamiliar with family law would assume that a grandparent has the inside track in any suit affecting the parent-child relationship – such as a conservatorship suit where a parent is not involved or deemed unfit. After all, the grandparent is family. The court should see…
Suit for Sibling Access – In certain circumstances, a situation may arise where an older sibling requests to gain access to, or custody of, a younger sibling. We have written at great length about conservatorship suits, so this blog will strictly stick to suits for sibling access. For a review of conservatorship suits, go here…
Termination Suits (Part II) To round out our blog conversation on a court’s decision to terminate the parent-child relationship, I think it’s important to discuss certain situations where the court may permit a parent whose parental rights have been terminated to have contact with their child. Again, the primary goal of a termination suit is…
Genetic Testing and Parentage Suits We have all heard of the term genetic testing, and maybe you even saw instances of it being used on television in various shows and movies. It can be some pretty interesting stuff, but how does it work within the framework of parentage suits? That is the focus of this…
Parentage Suits (Part II) In our previous blog, we discussed the purpose of parentage suits in terms of legally establishing the existence of a parent-child relationship. This is important because, well, every child should have the emotional and legal benefit of knowing who both their parents are. If you did not see that blog post,…
The ‘Why’ and ‘How’ behind parentage suits Growing up, I always had my mother and father to rely on. They were there for me when I came home from school, they took care of me when I was sick and, more importantly, they provided me a loving home to live in. Even when they eventually…
Summary of Common Family Law Terms (Vol. IV) It’s that time again where we take a timeout from my open-ended series of family law blogs. This allows us to reflect on several important legal terms and concepts we’ve discussed over the last few months. I do this because, well, it’s not like this is everyday…
Suits for Child Support – We have discussed a myriad of family law suits over the last few months, most recently suits affecting the parent-child relationship. Today, we’re going to talk about suits for child support. First things first Child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the benefit of a…