We are all familiar with the traditional divorce model. Spouses each hire lawyers, and begin a journey of litigation, aggravation, character assassination, and tense negotiation until the case is either settled or decided by a Judge. This system puts the two spouses completely at odds with one another. It causes enormous strain on the family, and children are often the pawns caught in the middle. The damage to the divorcing couple’s future relationship is irreparable. Often times, there is continuing litigation after the divorce.
A new model for divorce and family law has emerged and is fast-becoming the hottest trend in Florida. Collaborative law is a unique process where both clients hire separate attorneys whose only job is to help the clients settle their disputes. All participants agree to work together in a collaborative manner. They agree to be respectful and honest, and to participate in good faith to try to reach an agreement which meets both clients’ interests. If the case does not settle in the collaborative process, the lawyers must withdraw and cannot participate in court proceedings. This agreement that the lawyers will not go to court requires the lawyers and the clients to look at the resolution process differently. There is no posturing, threatening or deception. Everyone puts all their proverbial cards on the table……………..more to come!

There are two different reasons that grandparents request our assistance. In the first case, sometimes when a parent dies, that parent’s parents are being denied visitation with their grandchildren by their former son or daughter-in-law. There could also be instances where there is such estrangement between grandparents and their own adult child that they are not being permitted contact with their grandchildren. Unfortunately, the law cannot help you. Florida once had a statute that provided for grandparent visitation, but the statute was declared unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court, who held that the statute violated parents’ rights to decide what is in the best interest of their own children.
On the other hand, grandparents are all too often these days called upon to raise their grandchildren. In some of these cases, it may be advisable or even necessary for the Grandparent to obtain legal guardianship status on a temporary basis. This is relatively easily accomplished in Dependency Court.

You’ve been in a relationship, living with this woman for a couple of years. She gets pregnant, and gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. You’re there, and you sign the birth certificate. A few months later, the two of you get married, and you live happily all together and you have another child together. Seven years pass. Your wife tells you she thinks you aren’t the father. She’s been in touch over the internet with the man she was also sleeping with at the time your daughter was conceived. And he’s coming to meet her. You’re adamantly opposed. You realize your marriage is over. But she’s telling you that you have no rights; that DNA confirms he’s the father and “he wants his daughter”. What now?

Good news. You’re in total control. Because you signed the birth certificate, and then married the child’s mother, the law treats her as though she were born during the marriage, and you are the legal father. You do have the right, but only you have the ability, to disestablish paternity of your daughter IF YOU WANT TO. If you want to continue to raise your daughter, and you want to maintain that relationship, you can assert your absolute right as the legal father, and this other man has no rights whatsoever. Nor can you or your wife demand he pay child support or otherwise be responsible for the child. In your divorce, you will be treated as though you were the child’s natural father, and will have all of the parental rights and responsibilities

A case that came into our office this week has reminded me how many people have no idea about Florida’s laws on relocation. If you have children, and your children’s other parent doesn’t agree with you moving, you cannot just pick up and leave, unless you’re willing to leave the children behind! Florida law has changed again. Now, you must file a Petition for Modification/Relocation, alleging all of the statutory reasons for your proposed move and meeting all the requirements for listing a substitute time-sharing schedule and more. The other parent has 20 days to file an Answer to the Petition, objecting to the relocation. The case will then proceed to an eventual final hearing where the Judge will decide whether or not the relocation will be permitted. This relocation restriction applies to all family cases. It doesn’t matter if you were not married to the children’s other parent. If they are the birth parent, and their name is on the birth certificate or has otherwise been established to be the parent by law, then their parental rights cannot be ignored. An Injunction can be obtained to prevent a parent planning such a move from going ahead with it until a hearing can be had.

So what happens when someone moves anyway? We enllist the help of the courts, who can issue an Emergency Child Pick-Up Order, which can be enforced in any jurisdiction, including many foreign countries. In addition, we use law enforcement to force the return of the children. And if the mother of the three children whose father I represent leaves for Texas tonight and fails to show up at her emergency hearing tomorrow morning, I plan to arrange a warm welcome for her when she pulls into her driveway of her new Texas home, where local and federal law enforcement will be waiting for her to take her into custody for Parental Kidnapping and return the children on the next plane back to Fort Lauderdale.

A woman is pulled from her bed by her ankle at 5 am by her husband and dragged across the floor, and is beaten and bloodied because she didn’t have his favorite shirt ironed for him to wear that morning. Another woman is followed by her husband everywhere she goes. He checks her cell phone to see who she’s spoken to, and when he’s feeling particularly jealous he takes her car keys away and keeps her prisoner in their home. A man’s wife is a verbally abusive, physically violent alcoholic, and threatens that “if I can’t have you, no one will” whenever he talks about ending the marriage.

More than 1,300 women are murdered each year in the United States by their current or former husbands, boyfriends or domestic partner. Florida holds the dubious distinction as the nation’s leader in murder-suicides. And for every woman that is killed, eight more are seriously injured in a domestic assault. Men can also be the victims of domestic violence by their wives, and same-sex domestic violence is very real, though under-reported.

Domestic Violence is a crime. But it has to be reported in order for you to get the help and protection that you need. Call 911 and report domestic violence, the very first time that it happens. You may just be saving your own life.

The best alternative to litigation is Collaborative Family Law. Collaborative law is a unique process where both clients hire separate attorneys whose only job is to help the clients settle their disputes. All participants agree to work together in a collaborative manner. They agree to be respectful and honest, and to participate in good faith to try to reach an agreement which meets both clients’ interests. If the case does not settle in the collaborative process, the lawyers must withdraw and cannot participate in court proceedings. This agreement that the lawyers will not go to court requires the lawyers and the clients to look at the resolution process differently. There is no posturing, threatening or deception. Everyone puts all their proverbial cards on the table.

Tuesday. Like Monday, only with having to listen to an attorney ask inane questions for 3 hours in a pointless deposition. Why is it that the people who love to hear themselves talk have so little to say?? I detest lawyers who waste everyone’s time and money.

Insanity, thy name is Family Law…just when you thought you’d heard it all…what a week. 4-0, for what it’s worth. But seriously, what people will do to one another out of pure malice blows my mind.

Palm Beach Circuit Judge David French not only won his long-running battle to get out of paying his ex-wife alimony. A judge also ordered her to repay him $151,000.

In a decision this month, Broward Circuit Judge Arthur M. Birken ruled that French should not be required to pay his ex-wife $3,400 a month as alimony because she has been living with another man for nearly 20 years.

“There does not appear to be a distinction to this court between remarriage and mere cohabitation in a supportive relationship in this case,” ruled Birken, who heard the case because all Palm Beach County judges were disqualified.

Birken also found that French should recoup the money he paid while the case was winding its way through the courts.

French first asked to get out of paying alimony in 2006, a year after the Legislature passed a law saying ex-spouses shouldn’t be required to pay alimony if their former partner is in a supportive relationship with someone else. French was divorced from Gayle Smith in 1988.

While French’s request was initially rejected, the 4th District Court of Appeal in January agreed that Smith is in a supportive relationship and shouldn’t continue to receive alimony.

Therefore, Birken ruled, Smith should reimburse French for the $151,000 she received in alimony since French’s request was rejected in August 2006. She can appeal.

The case marks one of the first tests of the law, which attorneys say affects thousands of people.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, in an article published online on April 19, 2009, described the dismal state of child support collection in the State of Florida. In the most challenging economic climate of our generation, our State has fallen dreadfully behind in assisting parents in collecting their child support. Broward County used to have the Broward County Support Enforcement Division, which had an 80% collection rate at one point, up 20% over the next highest state-run agency in the US. Now, due to budget cuts, Broward County’s Support Enforcement Division has been closed, and the State Department of Revenue performs this collection function. Unfortunately, as you can see from some of the highlights of this story, they aren’t doing a very good job.

•For every dollar of support owed, Florida collects 52 cents — down from 57 cents in 2004 and well below the state’s goal of 64 cents.

•The percentage of those who are making payments to catch up on past-due child support has dropped to 62 percent from 67 percent in 2004.

Department of Revenue Executive Director Lisa Echeverri acknowledged that child-support collections have lagged, while noting that there has been an uptick during the past year. She said the department has had challenges shifting to an automated system that is five years behind schedule in becoming fully operational and whose price tag has more than doubled from the original $105 million.

“We had hoped we wouldn’t have performance dips, but it didn’t play out that way,” Echeverri said. “We are well on our way to coming back.”

The new computer system was not fully automated to pull information from computer systems of other state agencies to show unemployment and other benefits that are deducted from support payments. And last year, state auditors reported that 54 Department of Revenue employees could access the system for days or even months after they left the department, although it’s not clear whether any former employees did anything other than look at the information. Officials responded by saying that changes were in place to fix the security problems.

You can read the entire article by pasting this link into your browser: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/orl-asecsupport041909apr19,0,1980927.story

More and more people are going to have to turn to private attorneys to collect their child support. If you are owed child support and you are having trouble collecting it, or getting the state to collect it for you, call me today for a free consultation. Often the Court will award your legal fees in addition to the child support owed. And we have been very successful in getting deadbeat parents to pay large sums of money toward child support arrears in order to avoid jail.