Many people are surprised to learn that, currently, Florida has no alimony guidelines. Rather, it has a bunch of factors that a judge considers, such as lifestyle of the parties, each spouses’ contribution to the marriage, and the age and physical condition of each. This has left many clients frustrated when they ask their attorneys how much alimony they should expect to pay or receive.
House Bill 943 looks to change this.
It has long been the law in Florida that when a child is born during an intact marriage between a man and a woman, the husband shall be placed on the birth certificate. Generally, this is the case even if the husband is not the biological father of the child; the right of the child to be considered “legitimate” is so strong that it does not matter whether there is an actual genetic connection between the child and the father.
Now that Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage has been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge and marriage licenses are being provided to same-sex couples, will a hospital put a woman on a birth certificate if her wife gives birth?
Tampa Bay Psychologists Jeremy Gaies and James Morris were recently on the Divorce Without Destruction Podcast to discuss their book, Mindful Co-Parenting. The also discussed the interdisciplinary collaborative family law process.
Mindful Co-Parenting is an instructive, supportive, and easy to read book for parents who are going through divorce (or for parents who were never married but are coming up with a parenting plan/custody schedule for their children). You can find both Part 1 and Part 2 of the podcast, hosted by Dr. Garin Vick, below (Part 2 is after the jump):
Most people know that, for a long time, Florida did not permit gay individuals to adopt children.
Florida’s adoption laws were and are mainly based on the best interests of the child. Even if a prospective adoptive parent were a convicted violent felon, the felony likely would not automatically prevent an adoption from happening; the judge would need to entertain evidence and make a determination about whether, despite the felony, the adoption was in the best interests of the adoptee.
But if a prospective adoptive parent were gay, and the judge knew this fact, there would be no analysis. A gay person was not permitted under Florida law to adopt a child, regardless of whether it was in the child’s best interest.
However, that all changed in 2010, when Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals published its decision in In re the Adoption of XXG and NRG.
I strongly suggest that any person who is in the initial stages of a Florida divorce consider engaging in the collaborative process from the very beginning. This simply means that each spouses hires an attorney solely for the purpose of helping them reach a divorce agreement.
The attorneys are contractually prohibited from wasting time and money on preparing for trial (90% or so of all divorce cases settle, yet millions and millions of dollars are spent each year preparing for a trial that rarely happens). Discussions are held in a private, respectful, and transparent atmosphere, and other professionals are brought in as needed to tend to the parties’ financial and emotional needs.
But some clients are resistant to the collaborative process because of perceived cost issues or they feel they need to have a gunslinger to take out their spouse. And many attorneys will not engage in the collaborative process because litigation work is pretty profitable or they have not invested the time and money in taking an introductory collaborative training.
And so there are plenty of divorce battles going on in the Florida court system. It is not uncommon for those battles to go on for two, three, four, or more years, and for the parties to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees, expert witness fees, deposition fees, document production fees, forensic evaluation fees, court reporter fees, and so on, and feel no closer to a final resolution of their divorce.
But there is something that can be done to change the dynamics.
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