General information on dissolution of marriage
Every family law attorney has met parents who simply do not seem to get along. One parent says yes, the other automatically says no. Mom says the sky is blue, while dad says mom is just plain wrong.
I strongly encourage parents who have a toxic relationship to attend high conflict diversion classes. One such class is taught by Shaun Hoyle, who has undergone collaborative training and is the owner of Life Lessons of Manasota, Inc.
The Tampa Tribune is reporting that Pope Francis has reformed the process by which many Catholics receive annulments from the church. The reforms take a process that oftentimes took well over and year and, in many cases, shortens that length down to 45 days.
One of the reforms does a way for the need of an exhaustive investigation when both spouses request the annulment (or neither actively opposes it).
If you have minor children and are going through a divorce or paternity matter in Florida, then someone is likely going to have to pay child support to the other parent. Child support by default is paid through the Central Governmental Depository and State Disbursement Unit, which is a system for the courts to ensure that child support is being paid.
Usually, a judge will sign an Income Withholding Order that is sent to the payor’s employer. The employer will automatically deduct the child support from the payor’s paycheck, and then send the payment to the State Disbursement Unit (“SDU”). The SDU makes a record of the payment, and then sends the child support payment via debit card to the payee.
But, if you are receiving child support in Florida, you can choose to get it via direct deposit.
If you are considering divorce, whether here in Florida or elsewhere, and you are doing online research about family law attorneys, you will come across many firms that describe their attorneys as “aggressive” and “ready to fight for you.”
You will not find that type of language on Family Diplomacy’s website, as we believe that spouses should not be pitted against one another, and family issues should be resolved via the collaborative process in private offices rather than public courtrooms. And yet, we concede that our approach may not be for everyone.
So, when should you look elsewhere for an “aggressive” divorce lawyer?
A few years ago, the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals released the results of a survey of 933 collaborative divorce and family law cases. Collaborative divorce is a process by which parties, instead of going to court to litigate, agree to a private framework that lends itself to developing more creative options for financial, child custody, and other family issues. In Florida, oftentimes a neutral facilitator/communication coach and a neutral financial professional are engaged to facilitate and lend their expertise to the process.
The survey was conducted from October 2006 through July 2010, and these results were compiled in the Spring 2012 edition of The Collaborative Review: The Journal of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (“IACP Research Regarding Collaborative Practice (Basic Findings)” by Linda Wray, J.D.):
More and more people in the Tampa Bay area and beyond are finding themselves in relationships that do not quite fit the traditional mold. Many are in long-term romantic relationships with more than one partner, where the other partners are also in romantic relationships with each other.
These relationships are oftentimes referred to as “polyamorous,” or love involving more than 2 people. Polyamory is not about sex, just as traditional marriage is not about sex, but about the relationship between the partners.
And just as many traditional marriages end in separation, polyamorous relationships can also end in separation. The problem is that the laws and the court system are not built with polyamorists in mind.
A fact of Florida family law is that if children are involved, there almost certainly will be child support. Even in cases where parents have a 50/50 time-sharing schedule, child support is oftentimes warranted.
Florida Statutes section 61.30 sets out a formula to calculate child support that takes into account the incomes of each party, the amount of time the child spends with each parent, health insurance costs, and other costs.
And Family Law Software as created an iPhone and Android App which can give you an idea of how much child support you should expect to pay or receive.
Divorce is difficult, but not all divorces are created equally. Here in Tampa Bay and Greater Sarasota, more and more people are choosing to resolve their family law issues via the collaborative process. Collaborative divorce is a method of dispute resolution where the spouses agree from the beginning that they are each going to retain attorneys who will work as settlement specialists and who will not engage in court battles.
In 1969, a Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, published a book in which she described the five stages of grief experienced by terminally-ill patients. This work was later expanded to help explain the emotions of people who have lost a loved one and others experiencing personal loss, such as spouses going through divorce.
Divorce is a trauma, and anyone going through this trauma may be helped by speaking with a counselor or therapist. Additionally, you should consider whether the collaborative family law process may be helpful to your family, as it is a private form of dispute resolution that generally involves a neutral facilitator, who usually has a mental health background. This is in recognition that divorce is not just a legal matter, but also a highly emotional matter.
Regardless, below are the five stages of grief you may experience if you are going through divorce:
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.
