Posted on April 15, 2019 in Asset Division

Marital property includes all assets obtained during a marriage, whereas non-marital property is everything owned before marriage. For middle-age to older adults, aside from real property, savings are the largest aspect of marital property. A survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found the division of retirement plans and pensions was the second-leading cause of contention in divorce.

Do Retirement Plans and Pensions Get Divided During Divorce?

Retirement accounts, pensions, and IRAs are all considered marital property if they were obtained during the course of the marriage, or if they were contributed to during the marriage. For example, if an IRA started out at $10,000 before the marriage, and it was worth $100,000 after 20 years of marriage, the majority of the assets would be considered marital property and should be divided between the two spouses.

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 Posted on April 15, 2019 in Child Custody

You just received an email from your child’s other parent, telling you he or she plans to move out of the city or state with your child. When this happens, it leaves many parents with a sense of irreparable dread and a feeling of helplessness. Now what? How can this be stopped?

Per Illinois 750 ILCS 5/609.2, a parent who has majority parenting time or a parent who has been awarded equal parenting time can petition the court for relocation, which is considered a substantial change in circumstance. The parent wishing to relocate with the child must give written notice to the other parent 60 days in advance, including the date, the address of the residence, and length of time if the relocation is not intended to be permanent. A copy of this written notice must be sent to the circuit court as well. Many parents fail with this simplest of tasks: properly notifying the other parent and the court 60 days before they move. As such, the court may see them unfit to carry out such a relocation.

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 Posted on April 12, 2019 in Child Custody

When parents get divorced or separated, they must decide how to split time with their children. Traditionally, for shared child custody agreements, the children live with one parent part-time and go with the other parent on the weekends, every other week, or however the parenting plan is structured. This requires the children to move from one home to the next, every week, for years, until they are old enough to be out of the house.

Another option for parents who have shared custody has gained in popularity. Birdnesting, or just nesting for short, keeps the child in one home while the parents come and go. This requires the parents to each have their own separate living situation, or to share a separate home together; birdnesting parents do not have to ever sleep under the same roof or spend time with one another, however.

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 Posted on April 12, 2019 in Child Custody

Movies, television, and media reports would have us all believe kidnappers are lurking in bushes and snooping around playgrounds, ready to nab a random child whenever the opportunity presents itself. This could not be farther from the truth. While strangers do abduct children, these types of kidnappings are not the rule, but the exception. In fact, in only 0.1 percent of child kidnapping cases (one out of 1,000) is the abductor a stranger to or a slight acquaintance of the child. Almost all abductors are family members, and in most of these cases, it is one of the parents.

Parental kidnapping occurs when one parent has custody of the child and the other goes against a court order and takes the child unlawfully. Sometimes the parent takes the child back home, which could be in the same town. Other times, desperate parents leave the state or even the country. If your child was abducted by his or her other parent, a family law attorney can:

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 Posted on March 30, 2019 in Asset Division

Building a life together as a married couple inevitably involves the accumulation of personal assets. The time and effort it took to financially afford and personally choose these items cannot be measured in dollars alone. Facing the prospect of dividing years of memories and hard work these items represent due to divorce requires some ability to look at this situation with objective eyes. Neither should expect to get everything they want.

Part of this evaluation is having a realistic sense of what percentage of marital property each spouse should expect to receive, and Illinois is not a community property state that guarantees each spouse 50 percent of all property. Instead, it follows equitable distribution rules that base property division in divorce on what is most fair under the circumstances, which creates a vague standard that is at the discretion of the judge. As a result, spouses should make all efforts to mutually agree on property division, so the outcome is known, but also having an understanding of how courts view this issue and the process judges use to formulate a settlement is important as well.

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 Posted on March 29, 2019 in Divorce

Divorce is a huge decision and step in a person’s life. Once a divorce is granted, a couple’s marriage is over, and it brings significant changes to finances, child custody, and living arrangements. Every relationship faces challenges at some point, and needing a break to assess whether the marriage can work is not uncommon. Some spouses may not be ready to file for divorce, but still need some structure for parenting issues, property rights, and financial support.

One option at this juncture is a legal separation. While it can ultimately lead to divorce, that outcome does not always occur. Couples who enter into legal separation agreements are still legally married and cannot remarry or finalize certain aspects of dissolving the marriage without seeking a divorce. In other words, legal separation is revocable, whereas divorce is not once granted.

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 Posted on March 25, 2019 in Asset Division

The division of marital assets is one of the more complicated aspects of divorce, and retirement accounts present a number of unique issues that can make creating a fair settlement difficult. Since retirement accounts, especially 401(k)s, are accumulated through the individual efforts of one spouse, learning that this asset may be subject to division in a divorce is hard for many to accept. However, any amount in a retirement account classified as a marital asset must be divided, unless the spouses agree otherwise.

Valuing an account and determining how to structure a settlement are complicated matters that do not always have easy answers. Often, a spouse is forced to choose between the pros and cons of short- and long-term options when dividing retirement accounts, and working with an experienced divorce attorney is necessary to receive a complete picture of the implications of any decision. Retirement accounts are often a couple’s most valuable asset, so taking the time to assess how to approach this issue is one of the more critical aspects of a divorce case.

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 Posted on March 20, 2019 in Child Custody

Children, as they grow up, assert their desires for independence, particularly about staying home alone, but there is a real question about whether leaving a child alone is safe, or even legal. Divorced parents who share custody of a child, known as the allocation of parental responsibilities under Illinois law, must concede some level of control when the child is under the care and supervision of the other parent.

Of course, parents should require the other parent to keep the child safe, including providing an environment that supports the child’s well-being. Leaving a child alone can become murky territory as a child becomes a teenager, and under Illinois law, leaving a child home alone under the age of 14 is a crime. Thus, any parent who leaves a child home alone risks child neglect charges and the possibility the other parent may file a petition to modify the parenting plan to give them a greater share of the parental responsibility.

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 Posted on March 15, 2019 in Child Custody

Divorcing couples face stress from a number of places, including the legal system they need to officially end their marriage. One of the more difficult and complicated issues to address is the division of parental responsibilities. Child-related matters always spark strong emotions, and the sensitive issues that must be resolved as part of divorce only tend to exacerbate this tendency.

One requirement that confuses some parents is when they must attend a court-ordered parenting class before a divorce decree is issued. This is true even in uncontested divorces, and compliance is mandatory in all but a few cases. Thus, parents will need to arrange to complete a course no later than 60 days after the first case management conference. This requirement can seem frustrating and arbitrary to some parents, but understanding the purpose behind the course, what to expect during the course itself, and the consequences of not satisfying this requirement, may make it easier to get through the experience.

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 Posted on March 13, 2019 in Paternity

Old stereotypes paint fathers as less interested and less capable of providing the care and attention a child needs to thrive. As a result, when a father seeks to establish rights to see a child following a divorce or paternity suit, some think the mother should receive the bulk of the parenting time, with the father entitled to just a handful of days every month. This dynamic can make it difficult for a father to have a significant relationship with his child, and while courts are moving away from this model of dividing responsibilities, fathers still experience more pushback when seeking equal time.

In Illinois, part of this shift toward more equal parenting is reflected in the elimination of the terms child custody, custodial parent, and visitation to describe parenting structure. This is designed to facilitate an arrangement that emphasizes cooperative parenting over strict lines of accountability and authority. Fathers, in particular, need to understand the system in place that regulates the division of parental responsibility, because this is the best way to ensure their interests are fully represented.

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